Kira Barker is a Democratic organizer in Polk County. She posted this reflection on Facebook on September 12, two days after Charlie Kirk’s assassination.
It was my first year clerking in the Iowa House (January 2023). I was so naive, I remember working on those House races in Ankeny, thinking if we flipped those seats, we would be able to stop private school vouchers. LOL. I had no idea what the legislature was really like or what I was getting into.
During clerk orientation, staff told us we’d have several weeks to settle in before any bills would be up for a vote. In the second week the Iowa Rs passed the voucher bill. I described it as Dems getting our teeth kicked in; after enough kicks your gums get callused. The team in charge really knew how to set the tone.
Throughout the session there are “Day on the Hill” events where organizations bring members to the capitol to meet legislators, lobby, and set up tables in the first-floor rotunda to highlight priorities. This particular day was “Second Amendment Day on the Hill.”
If you didn’t know, guns are allowed in the capitol. I didn’t know that at the time. I learned it that day.
I have always been curious; I describe myself as having a journalistic heart. I went down to the rotunda to explore “2A Day on the Hill” and visit various advocacy groups. That day it was full of pro-gun groups, the NRA, and others setting up chairs for a big rally.
One table stood out: lots of young people coming and going, pro-gun posters, stickers, and merch to attract them (pictured below).
I was scanning the table when I saw a stack of stickers showing a gun with a rainbow coming out of the chamber that read, “Stay Strapped. TPUSA.” An obvious riff on a Pink Floyd album cover, sure, but it was still a gun with a rainbow coming out of its chamber encouraging people to stay strapped.
My brain started to swirl, my gut tightened, and I stepped away to search “TPUSA” on my phone. I had no idea who they were, and when I learned they were described as anti-LGBTQ, I no longer felt curious.
I went up to the chamber to process. I held the sticker in my hand and paced. I wanted to make sure I wasn’t overreacting, so I set it down on Representative Sharon Steckman’s desk, a voice of reason and a leader among the Dem caucus, and she exclaimed, “Where the hell did you get this?!” In that moment I knew my instincts were valid.
This may not be politically correct to say, but at that time I was one of very few visibly queer people working in the capitol, especially in the House chamber where our desks are. When you are surrounded every day by Christian nationalist men and women who hate you, who debate your rights away, who describe your gender experience as mental illness and generalize trans people as predators wanting to “rape children in restrooms,” it is not an exaggeration to say many of them want me dead, or in their words, “eradicated.”
I do not wish that on any of them.
I went home very early that day. It was the most upset I had felt there. I am highly emotional; I feel things deeply and struggle to hide it. I cry when I get overwhelmed. But I wasn’t upset for myself so much as for how in the hell we even got here. Why is our existence the target? That year they debated and passed countless anti-LGBTQ bills, all pushed by The Family Leader. After they passed the gender-affirming care ban, The Family Leader’s vice president and lead lobbyist came up to me at the elevator and asked if I needed a hug. It wasn’t out of kindness.
I know I am loud in my work and in my passion for Democratic politics. I know I can add to the vitriol. It wasn’t until that space that I really started to see everything as red versus blue because there was simply no other way to see it. There is no third team, no group of independent people passing laws. The red team rubber-stamps whatever they’re told, causing unchecked and immeasurable harm to our state and its people while the blue team has little path to stop them. That is the harsh reality of our Iowa legislature. It is the reason I have chosen a side. It is the fuel I use when organizing. If we want change, we need to win elections and flip seats, there is no other path forward in Iowa.
I see all the discourse now after Kirk died. I see Fox News repeating, “This is war. War on all Democrats,” or “Democrats are responsible for this.” You may be tired of my politics, but many of you went to high school with me or worked restaurant shifts with me; many of you know my heart. I despised Charlie Kirk politically, but his death was devastating to see. I would never celebrate that. Don’t let them make an enemy out of me or out of “Democrats.” I am a Democrat because I have had to fight for my dignity and my existence. I have never used violence to win and I never will: I organize and I pour my heart out.
I will always try to cut through the vitriol with vulnerability whenever I can. I don’t have a solution, but I will not accept lies that further divide us.
Top photo: Charlie Kirk speaking with attendees at the 2025 Student Action Summit at the Tampa Convention Center in Tampa, Florida. Photo by Gage Skidmore, available via Wikimedia Commons.