It's OK for Iowa lawmakers to admit to having little knowledge of an issue when it first comes before them for discussion. There are so many bills to contemplate, you can't expect everyone to be well-schooled on everything.

What isn't OK is staying ignorant while casting a vote for a proposed law that will profoundly affect people's lives. That's what a majority of the Republican-controlled Iowa Senate and House evidently did in the waning hours of the legislative session. They quietly slipped a measure into a Health and Human Services budget bill (House File 766) to deny Medicaid coverage for gender reassignment surgery to transgender Iowans. And they clearly did so without gathering scientific input from medical professionals or from transgender people themselves. The governor since signed the bill into law.

What turns this from lazy ignorance into prejudice is that they say they acted at the urging of one group of constituents — those who don't want their tax money spent that way — at the expense of another, whose well-being is at stake.

State Rep. Joel Fry (R-Osceola), who floor-managed the bill, said as much in an interview with Iowa Public Radio's Ben Kieffer on River to River Monday.

Kieffer: Were any transgender Iowans consulted?

Fry: That I do not know. Given the fact that we received this back from the Senate, I can't answer what the Senate did or did not do … We certainly had a period of time for folks to weigh in and to give their input.

Kieffer: Wouldn't that be important to consult with people who are directly affected by the change?

Fry: Certainly, and as with anything that's proposed in the Legislature, there's an opportunity for folks to weigh in.

Asked if they did weigh in, Fry replied, "I can't suggest whether they did or didn't do it."

He repeated that the Legislature passed the measure in response to constituents who contacted them after a March Supreme Court ruling against a ban on Medicaid coverage for gender-reassignment surgery in the Iowa administrative code. The court found transgender people are protected by the Iowa Civil Rights Act.

"It's in any state's and their Legislature's purview to decide what Medicaid is going to cover," Fry said.

Kieffer: Do you know any transgender Iowans?

Fry: Certainly. I'm sure I probably do.

Kieffer: You probably do? You don't know for sure?

Fry: That's not something I spend time asking the question, just as they don't ask the question of me. I see an individual for an individual, not related to their sexuality.

There's much to unpack here.

First is the impropriety of allowing one group of constituents of unspecified numbers to determine the fate of another. Instead of choosing between them, why not take an educated approach and listen to the experts at the American Psychiatric Association, for example, who consider such surgeries medically necessary? Why not, as Kieffer asked, be guided by the person's physician?

Fry also didn't seem to think it necessary for the House to do its own outreach to constituents. Nor did he try to make a cost-savings case. No proponent has actually said how much the state might save with this. Then, in his answer about not knowing someone's sexuality, he seemed to be confusing gender identity with sexual orientation. Being transgender doesn't necessarily dictate with whom you have sex. It's about your gender at birth not lining up with your gender identity.

"People do not choose to be transgender," said Michelle Kell, a subsequent guest on the show, who is transgender and on Medicaid. "...They are very real. Their existences are meaningful and they can lead great, productive lives."

The lawmakers seem to assume it's a flippant or cosmetic choice to switch genders, like tummy-tuck surgery. It was the same attitude that previously prompted furors over which bathrooms transgender people used. But those living with gender dysphoria can suffer acute distress and isolation, One Iowa's Keenan Crow said.

Related:What if Iowa could protect both religious freedom and LGBTQ rights?

Four years ago, when former Olympian Bruce Jenner reintroduced herself to the world as Caitlyn, I interviewed a group of transgender Central Iowa teens for whom that story was empowering. Some had felt out of place in their gender assignments even before they had the language to discuss it. Now they saw a chance to live out their true identities. But they were also keenly aware that the surgery Jenner had was off-limits to those of lesser means. One had looked into top surgery, which alone cost $9,000. Complete gender reassignment surgeries can range from $20,000 to $100,000.

The new law also bars Medicaid from paying for surgery for someone with hermaphroditism, where one is born with indeterminate genitalia or with both male and female sex organs. How cruel it is to also sentence people without financial means to such challenging lives.

The teen-agers were very tuned into the disproportionate suicide rates of transgender people. In an ironically cruel twist, the same new law that prevents Medicaid funding for gender reassignment includes funding for suicide prevention. Can't lawmakers connect the dots?

More importantly, when are they going to tackle their prejudices and start treating constituents as if all matter equally?

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Contact: rbasu@dmreg.com Follow her on Twitter @rekhabasu and at Facebook.com/rekha.basu1106. Her book, "Finding Her Voice: A collection of Des Moines Register columns about women's struggles and triumphs in the Midwest," is available at ShopDMRegister.com/FindingHerVoice.