Iowa
The ACLU is suing a Des Moines hotel on behalf of a transgender woman after hotel staff called police:

There are a lot of situations that may warrant calling 911. But seeing a transgender person is not one of them. But that’s exactly what a hotel manager in West Des Moines, Iowa, did when Meagan Taylor and her friend, both Black transgender women, checked into the hotel.
A few weeks ago, we shared Meagan’s story of being arrested after hotel staff called the police when she and her friend checked into the Drury Inn on their way to a funeral. Meagan wrote about how awful it felt to be targeted and humiliated just because of who you are:
“As a Black trans woman, I am used to unfair and discriminatory treatment, but this was extra upsetting because we were paying customers at a hotel and on our way to a funeral. I felt like I had no rights.”
Her story is haunting.

The Advocate describes that 911 audio which has been released ahead of the lawsuit:

New audio released by the American Civil Liberties Union appears to indicate that police were called to a Drury Inn & Suites in West Des Moines, Iowa, earlier this year because the manager was suspicious that pair of trans women of color might be “hookers.”
Attorneys representing Meagan Taylor, the black trans woman who was arrested and held for eight days in July based on that manager’s false suspicion of prostitution, released a copy of the 911 call Tuesday, less than a month after filing a complaint with the Iowa Civil Rights Commission against the Drury Inn & Suites in November.
In the less than two-minute exchange, the manager, who identifies herself as “Kim,” describes the two women as “a little unusual,” asking the emergency services operator to “run their name or information through the database,” because “they’re dressed as a woman, but it’s a man’s driver’s license.”
When the operator offers to send a police officer to the location, Kim notes that “I’d want it to be discreet, though,” before asking that officers arrive quietly and “park in the parking lot, instead of right out front.”

Buzzfeed has posted the audio and a transcript.

The leader of Iowa’s religious right has endorsed Ted Cruz for president, the Texas Tribune reports:

Iowa evangelical leader Bob Vander Plaats on Thursday endorsed Ted Cruz for president, giving the Texas senator’s campaign one of its biggest boosts yet in the first-in-the-country caucus state.
“At the end of the day, we truly believe that Ted Cruz is the most consistent and principled conservative who has the ability to not only win Iowa but I believe to win the [Republican] nomination,” Vander Plaats told the Des Moines Register in an interview published Thursday, the same day he was scheduled to announce the endorsement at the Iowa Capitol.

The Iowa State Daily profiled Iowa State University’s LGBT Student Services office:

When people think about LGBT groups on campus, their minds probably automatically think about the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Student Services.
This is because the LGBTSS is, in theory, the big umbrella over seven LGBT organizations. One of those organizations is the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Ally Alliance.
The LGBTA Alliance started out as The Gay Liberation Front in 1971 and only focused on gay men, which was prominent in the gay community at that time. Since then, it has gone through several name changes and purposes.
“We provide education, outreach and a community for LGBT members and other allies to meet on Iowa State’s campus,” said Katie Smith, president of the LGBTA Alliance. “We also have community members from Ames come, and high school students. It’s kind of open to everybody.”

Marco Rubio told an Iowa audience that he would roll back LGBT protections for federal contractors, according to HRC:

Marco Rubio has added given voters a new window into his troubling anti-LGBT worldview, boasting in Iowa over the weekend that he would repeal President Barack Obama’s executive order protecting LGBT federal contractors from workplace discrimination.

The executive order Rubio promised to repeal — in an interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network — prohibits companies that contract with the federal government from discriminating in employment based on sexual orientation and gender identity. Federal contractors employ more than 20 percent of the American workforce — 28 million workers — and collect around $500 billion in federal contracts every year.

According to the Williams Institute, that executive order protects 11 million more American workers from discrimination based on sexual orientation and up to 14 million more workers based on gender identity.

In recent weeks, Rubio has ramped up his anti-LGBT rhetoric. He recently made a bizarre vow to “never change” his position on marriage equality, and just last week, Rubio threatened to appoint judges to the Supreme Court who would overturn the landmark Obergefell v Hodges court ruling.

Gov. Terry Branstad spoke about same-sex marriage in an interview with the Press Citizen. Jon Trouten transcribed the interview on his blog:

Munson: What about same-sex marriage? How will history judge you, do you think?

Branstad: Let me just say this. Three members of the Supreme Court lost their job because of what they did. Okay? So the people of Iowa cast their judgement. I stayed out of it. I stayed out of it. Now, the facts are that had Bob Vander Plaats been the Republican nominee, that was the issue that he was campaigning on. I focused on the debt that Culver had put us in and what I wanted to do was focus on jobs and economic development. Yes, I’m pro-life and I believe in traditional marriage. But that was not what I focused my campaign on. I answered all the questions on it. I took a beating from both sides, but I focused on what I believed was important for the state of Iowa. And I think I won the election. And three members of the Supreme Court lost their retention. And so Bob Vander Plaats turned his focus on them after he lost to me in the primary.

Munson: You’ll leave office still believing in traditional marriage?

Branstad: Yes. Absolutely. I’m a Catholic and believe in protecting human life and who believes in traditional marriage.

South Dakota
A lawmaker who introduced a bill to bar schools from adopting transgender-inclusive policies penned an opinion piece in the Argus Leader defending his bill:

A recent story in the Argus Leader dealing withstudent privacy legislation that I plan to introduce deserves further comment. The intention of the bill is to provide personal privacy for public school children. Under the bill, boys and girls may not shower together or share the same locker rooms or restrooms.
Seems like a no-brainer, doesn’t it? Unfortunately, according to the federal government, it’s not.
The bill is needed for a number of reasons that developed since April 2014, when the Obama administration issued what it identified as a “significant guidance document” and established a new interpretation of federal non-discrimination laws (Title IX) to include “gender identity.”
Under the new Obama interpretation, if a student is born one gender, but “identifies” as the other gender, public schools must provide the student full access to restrooms, locker rooms and shower rooms consistent with his or her newly identified gender. That means schools must allow boys and girls to use the same facilities together, regardless of biologic sex.
I am introducing this bill because I don’t believe it’s right for the federal government to force our schools to require children to shower, change clothes or go to the restroom with members of the opposite sex. The regulation violates our personal values as a people, and our rights as a state.
Last, the bill treats transgender students with sensitivity. It requires schools to accommodate requests by transgender students in the most reasonable manner available, short of allowing use of the other biologic sex’s showers, locker rooms or restrooms. The goal of accommodation is to allow students to equally participate in all educational and extra-curricular opportunities.

Out Sports interviewed Jared Indahl, Assistant Athletic Director at Dakota State University in Madison, S.D., who “spent hours shooting hoops as a teenager. It helped him deal with his sexuality and led him to a career in sports administration.”

North Dakota
A couple in North Dakota is suing their church because of its support for same-sex marriage, the Christian Post reports:

A conservative Lutheran couple living in North Dakota have filed a lawsuit against the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, claiming they were defamed and discriminated against by their congregation over their theologically conservative viewpoints.
Ray and Joan Grabanski of Kindred filed the suit in Cass County District Court earlier this week against the ELCA Eastern North Dakota Synod and Norman Evangelical Lutheran Church.
In their suit the Grabanskis charge that the congregation treated them maliciously after they expressed their opposition to gay marriage.

The Williams Institute at UCLA released a report estimating the number of cases of anti-LGBT discrimination in the state.

Wisconsin
After the religious pressured a school district to cancel a reading of I am Jazz by transgender teen Jazz Jennings, the community responded with a large-scale show of support for transgender youth. The Mount Horeb School Board went on to approve transgender-inclusive policies in the district at its meeting last week, The Advocate reports:

The Mount Horeb School Board in Mount Horeb, Wis., Monday unanimously approved new measures to accommodate transgender students, after right-wing activists successfully pushed for cancellation of a public reading of a trans-affirming children’s book earlier this month.
By a vote of 7-0, the Mount Horeb School Board granted trans students access to restrooms, locker rooms, and sports activities that match their gender identity, reports the Wisconsin State Journal. The board also added “transgender status” to the district’s nondiscrimination policy as a protected charateristic.
“Let the word go forth here and now that this board will stand united and we will not be intimidated, and we will teach tolerance and will be accepting to everyone,” school board member Peter Strube said after Monday’s meeting, according to the Journal.

Chris Rickert, columnist for the Wisconsin State Journal, praised the board’s vote:

God bless the Mount Horeb School Board for being so accepting of transgender students and the Mount Horebians who came out to the board’s meeting on Monday to sing the praises of “tolerance.”
But I’ll be darned if the board’s new policy allowing transgender students full bathroom access doesn’t just avoid the whole nettlesome issue with an inconclusive appeal to that old standby: the “case-by-case” basis.
The policy unanimously approved by the board affirms the right of transgender students to use the bathrooms associated with the gender with which they identify, and then goes on to list a whole mess of factors to be considered in allowing transgender students into segregated bathrooms, locker rooms and changing areas, including “all relevant interests of the student, the school district, and other students affected by the request.”
It promises that “no student shall be required to use a unisex restroom solely because of the student’s transgender or gender nonconforming status,” while making clear that “all students have the option of consistently accessing the facilities that correspond to the biological sex that the student was assigned at birth.”

The Human Right Campaign recapped the vote:

Monday night in Mt. Horeb, our school board soundly closed the book on hate, becoming one of the few towns in the state to explicitly commit to creating safe and inclusive schools for all students, including those who are transgender.
The seven board members unanimously approved a measure allowing transgender students to use facilities, and participate in physical education classes and intramural sports, in a manner that corresponds to their gender identity. The board also added transgender status (including gender expression, gender identity and gender non-conformity) to the district’s non-discrimination policy –a strong show of support for our children to be their authentic selves.
For me, the vote was the culmination of one of the most profound weeks of my life.
I’m the mom who organized a reading last week of I Am Jazz after the extremist, anti-LGBT group Liberty Counsel threatened legal action if my child’s school read the book during a planned lesson on compassion and respecting differences. A six-year-old student had just transitioned, and the school was trying to do the right thing in reading the book by transgender teen Jazz Jennings.
At the time, I did not know this little girl or her family. But when I read the hate-filled letter from the Liberty Counsel, I felt a strong need to respond quickly and publicly—to do something positive to counteract their extremely hurtful, uninformed, negative messages. I wanted to show this family just how much love their community has for them, and that the views of the Liberty Counsel did not represent the majority of others in Mount Horeb.

Meanwhile, Marquette University, a Jesuit school in Milwaukee, has implemented all-gender facilities, the student newspaper reported:

The Office of Residence Life is implementing gender-neutral bathrooms on the ground floor of all university-owned housing structures.
Mary Janz, executive director of housing and residence life, said ORL aims to recognize all Marquette students and their guests with this decision. She noted how gender-neutral bathrooms are a discussion topic across the university and country because more transgender persons are advocating for their rights.
Once ORL receives new signage for the restroom doors and keys, ground floor bathrooms will be labeled “All Gender.” McCormick’s lobby bathrooms were given temporary gender-neutral signs before Thanksgiving break. Roll out of the permanent signs will happen over winter break.
Marquette is the eighth Jesuit college or university to offer gender-neutral bathrooms, according to a Nov. 23 report from Catholic Education Daily.