Klumme
Stemningsrapport fra Midtvesten
Forfatter, Elizabeth Rodriguez Fielder sender en hilsen til Flere.nu fra Midtvesten, hvor hun har været på et lille roadtrip med sin regnbuefamilie uden for den relativt trygge boble i Iowa city.
Every family deserves a cheap little vacation. But living out here in the rural Midwest makes planning a road trip complicated. Home is Iowa City, a university town with a robust queer community, idyllic except for the constant updates on anti-trans and anti-DEI legislative bills. We compare Iowa to Indiana, Florida, and Texas, calibrating our standings on book bans and abortion as if they were sports statistics. Within a span of sixteen years, Iowa went from being the third state in the country to legalize same-sex marriage to the first to remove gender identity from civil rights protections. And yet, Iowa City has an openly gay mayor, and, in 2022, our county elected its first trans supervisor. We navigate the politically uneven terrain of the Midwest and adhere to the guideline: stay in Iowa City, so you don’t end up in Iowa.
Leaving the bubble
Yet, against this advice, my partner and I load the twins up for a road trip into the Heartland for a cabin stay. The children point out every cow and cornfield along the four-hour journey. Biblical quotes on billboards about unborn fetuses remind us how far we are from home. At rest stops and restaurants, people see what they want: an outline of an average family with two feral six-year-olds. Servers address my partner as Sir and we stifle our laughter. Somehow, the twins know to wait until we are back in the car to ask questions about these interactions and why we keep talking about bathrooms.
Freedom in the Fine Print
My own immigrant family modeled best practices for getting out of uncomfortable situations and navigating people behind counters. Those lessons serve me well in Iowa, where Republican Governor Kim Reynolds has targeted trans folks: athletes, students, and those needing gender-affirming care. Lawmakers sneak anti-trans language in strange places, such as the budget bill for the Iowa Department of Health and Human Services removing gender-affirming care from Medicaid coverage. Understanding what’s happening in America requires you to read the fine print on bills in places like Iowa, the testing ground for the rest of the country.
You can measure the freedom of a place by how people travel. As U.S. citizens, we feel safer than many others, but the legal atmosphere impacts the slightest interactions on the road. Even the act of getting keys to our cabin sets me with unease. This time, they didn’t check my partner’s ID and we avoid any confrontation when they sign the paperwork with their preferred name. With perfect timing, the kids start loudly chanting for ice cream, so we get out quickly to the safety and privacy of our cabin. I feel relief, but it is only temporary.