Iowa has been added to the list of states included in California’s growing travel ban.
As of Oct. 4, California will no longer offer taxpayer-funded trips to Iowa for any public employee or student at a state-run university. The move comes after Iowa passed a ban against using Medicaid funds to pay for gender transition surgeries.
Iowa joins Alabama, Kansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee and Texas on California’s banned list.
States were added to the travel ban due to anti-LGBT laws. In Alabama’s case, it was the passage of a law allowing adoption agencies in the state to follow faith-based policies, including the option to not place children with gay couples.
“California has taken an unambiguous stand against discrimination and government actions that would enable it,” Becerra said when announcing the Iowa ban.
Alabama was added to the travel ban list in 2017, a year after California’s law was enacted prohibiting state-funded travel to states that “void or repeal” protections against discrimination based on “sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression.” According to the California law, the travel ban will continue "while any such law that discriminates on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression remains in effect."
The law does allow some exceptions to the ban, including if it is required travel related to contracts signed before Jan. 1, 2017 or for the protection of public health, welfare or safety.