Republican John Thompson is seeking a seat in the Iowa House of Representatives. Thompson, who founded a nonprofit organization that helps veterans and first responders with mental health struggles, is seeking the seat in Iowa House District 80.
His opponent, meanwhile, is a transgender person who goes by Aime Wichtendahl. Wichtendahl holds a spot on the Hiawatha City Council. Wichtendahl proudly promotes the fact that Wichtendahl is the first openly transgender person elected to government in the state of Iowa.
Wichtendahl has testified at the Capitol during subcommittee hearings on bills that deal with transgender issues. During one such meeting, Wichtendahl actually popped a hormone replacement pill in front of the subcommittee following comments Wichtendahl made.
During a rally at the Iowa Capitol, Wichtendahl attacked supporters of parental rights in education and blasted people who support keeping books that visually depict or describe sex acts out of school libraries.
To be clear, “sex acts” are defined as:
Wichtendahl also criticized the law that specifies only girls are allowed to play girls’ sports.
“The actual hateful rhetoric coming from elected officials is deeply disturbing,” Wichtendahl told Kate Orazem in an ironic interview for the Iowa Women’s Archives at the University of Iowa Libraries. “I am of the belief that bigotry disguised as policy cannot be allowed to stand and cannot be allowed to go unchallenged.”
Instead, those bills (protecting kids from radical, experimental sex-change treatments and surgeries as well as requiring bathroom use be based on sex and biology) are just bills that Wichtendahl claims “don’t care about women.”
“These bills don’t care about children,” Wichtendahl said. “They enable bullying. They enable self-harm and suicide among trans youth. I can’t rationalize anyone who is supporting it.”
Previously, Wichtendahl said the Electoral College is “a barrier to true democracy” and not needed. Wichtendahl tweeted as well that the Electoral College, which undoubtedly benefits a state like Iowa, “must be abolished.”
Republicans “openly make a mockery of what it is to have civil rights” in America, Wichtendahl claimed.
In the same interview, Wichtendahl claimed that people do not support “more tax cuts.”
Finally, Wichtendahl attacked female politicians like Gov. Kim Reynolds, Sen. Joni Ernst and Rep. Ashley Hinson because they are “women who have no problems taking rights from their fellow sisters.”
Wichtendahl also said that Reynolds “has never cared about Iowa’s children.”
“She sees them as props,” Wichtendahl said. “Disposable pawns to bolster her cred with Fox News. She banned trans participation in sports because she wants a VP shot in 24. Full stop. Because that’s what autocrats do – hurt people pointlessly.”
Of course that isn’t what Reynolds did as governor. Transgender Iowans are still welcome to participate in sports, boys, however, are not allowed to play girls’ sports. A transgender person who identifies as a girl is still allowed to play sports against other males.
Wichtendahl also reposted a tweet that essentially called Republicans “racist.”
Wichtendahl, who wrote a book under the pseudonym “Dana De Young,” took to Facebook and said that while 30 percent of Iowans have used meth, “all of them will be participating in the Republican caucuses.”
In that interview with the University of Iowa, Wichtendahl said it’s important to “push back against the crazy.”
Those wishing to learn more about Republican John Thompson’s candidacy can do so here.
Here is Iowa House District 80:
