Iowa became the first state to strike anti-discrimination protections for transgender people from its civil rights code on Friday after the state’s Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds signed hotly contested legislation into law.

The bill, introduced last week, sped through the Legislature despite widespread opposition from Democrats and LGBTQ rights advocates who flooded the statehouse in Des Moines to protest its passage.

Iowa’s Republican-led Senate passed the measure Thursday in a 33-15 vote along party lines, and the state House voted 60-36 to approve the bill later in the evening. It will take effect July 1.

Senate File 418 removes gender identity as a protected class in the Iowa Civil Rights Act, the decades-old law protecting Iowans from employment, housing, education and public accommodations discrimination. A bipartisan coalition of state........

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