Dubuque council rescinds flawed ordinance and restores gender-identity protections after public outcry

The Dubuque City Council on July 14 unanimously rescinded an ordinance the council had passed on July 7 after public commenters and commissioners pointed out the ordinance removed gender identity from the city’s human-rights code, then adopted a corrected Title 8 ordinance that restores gender identity as a protected class.

The vote followed about 30 minutes of public comment in which current and former members of the Equity and Human Rights Commission, residents and students described the potential harms of removing gender identity protections and urged the council to correct the error. City Manager Mike Van Milligen and Mayor Brad Cavanaugh apologized repeatedly during the meeting, and the assistant city attorney advised the council that federal case law still protects gender identity under existing ordinance language.

Why it matters: the July 7 ordinance language change removing “gender identity” was not yet in effect because the city had not published the ordinance. Still, commissioners…