Iowa became the first US state to remove gender identity protections from its civil rights code on Friday when Gov. Kim Reynolds signed into law a bill that opponents say will expose transgender people and other Iowans to discrimination in all aspects of daily life.

Iowa is the first state to repeal civil rights protections for transgender people from state code and advocates for the transgender community fear it is part of a larger agenda.

Governor Kim Reynolds (R., Iowa) signed a bill into law on Friday to remove gender identity as a protected class from the state’s civil rights code, which previously equated sex discrimination to discrimination based on gender identity.