Table of Contents

Executive Summary
Introduction: How My Campaign Was Forced Off the Ballot
Overview of the Two Cases
The Ballot-Access Case: What I Asked For and Why
The Civil-Rights / False-Records Case: Why Litigation Was Unavoidable
Why the Litigation Burden Was Not “Self-Created”
The Collision With Iowa’s Ballot-Access Window
Why False Records Become Campaign Weapons
Why the Court’s Denial Was Harmful
How Interference With a Campaign Became Interference With the Election
The Political Environment That Made This Interference Possible
Why I Am Appealing
Why I Am Proceeding Under Protest
What I Want Iowans to Understand
From Candidacy to the Courts

Quick Note:

This article was put together while having an extremely short window to do so. A Notice of Appeal has been filed, and on 7-31-2026, responding to an order filed recently by the Supreme Court of Iowa, I filed a show-cause statement regarding why I believe Wilson v. Pate ought be considered for review. I plan to update this article soon. You're welcome to skim through this, but know it will be updated and made more thorough soon. I am finishing up the Iowa's Broken Judiciary series now, then this will be completed.

Thank you for reading about what is going on. This has been a horrible ordeal to undergo. I would like the opportunity to present the gubernatorial platform I have worked many years to develop, and to speak directly on transgender-related issues firsthand instead of not feeling represented accurately by advocacy groups, politicians, news media, or harassing caricatures that have replaced real humans with misunderstanding and harmful perceptions.

The online presentation of my platform does not come close to what I have developed behind-the-scenes, and I would like the opportunity to present in the debates.

Executive Summary

This article explains how my independent campaign for Iowa Governor was forced off the ballot before voters ever had the chance to decide.

The immediate issue in Wilson v. Pate is ballot access. I asked the court for a limited equitable extension of Iowa’s June 2 signature deadline after mandatory litigation deadlines in a separate civil-rights/false-records case collided directly with the narrow window Iowa gives independent candidates to gather signatures. I was not asking to avoid the signature requirement. I was asking for more time to collect the same signatures required of everyone else.

The deeper issue is why that litigation burden existed in the first place. In Wilson v. Reliable Street Inc., et al., I contend that false statements, materially altered documents, and misleading narratives were placed into government records during the Iowa Civil Rights Commission process. Those records created a direct and foreseeable threat to my reputation, safety, publications, advocacy, and statewide campaign. Ignoring them was not a real option. Litigation became the only path available to seek discovery, expose what happened, and clear my name.

That litigation produced nine mandatory hearings and filing deadlines during the exact weeks Iowa law required me to gather 3,500 signatures. As a pro se litigant, full-time student, and independent candidate without institutional party support, I was forced to meet those court obligations while also trying to build a statewide campaign. The court later characterized the burden as “self-created” because I initiated the civil-rights lawsuit. I reject that framing. A person forced to sue because false records threaten her reputation and campaign has not created the burden in any meaningful moral or practical sense.

The court’s denial did not merely preserve an election deadline. Its practical effect was to remove an independent candidate from the ballot before voters could consider her. That is why I describe this as election interference by effect. I am not claiming every person involved shared the same private political intent. I am saying that false records, administrative failure, mandatory litigation deadlines, and denied equitable relief combined to produce the same result: voters lost a choice.

This happened within a broader political environment where transgender Iowans have lost state civil-rights protections, Medicaid-related care, and meaningful political representation. Republicans have openly targeted transgender Iowans. Democrats, meanwhile, often still expect transgender Iowans to support the party, while many Democratic leaders and institutions have grown quieter about the concrete harms happening to us in real time. That silence matters. It reveals how party loyalty, donor-class politics, and institutional caution can leave people unprotected even when a party once claimed to stand for them.

My point is not that I agree with every position commonly associated with Democratic transgender-rights politics. I do not. I have serious disagreements on some transgender-related issues, especially regarding minors and sports. My focus is on restoring and strengthening medical care and anti-discrimination protections for transgender adults, protecting youth from harassment and bullying, and restoring neutral classrooms that teach age-appropriate material without treating LGBT-related topics as taboo or shameful when they are relevant and appropriate.

This article argues that courts should not treat a candidate’s effort to clear false government records as a voluntary personal distraction when those records foreseeably threaten a statewide campaign. Iowa’s election system must recognize when false records, administrative misconduct, litigation burdens, and procedural deadlines combine to make ballot access impossible.

My campaign continues in the courts. I am appealing the ballot-access ruling, pursuing the Reliable/Lockwood case to clear my name, and proceeding under protest because I do not concede the legitimacy of a political system that strips people of rights, allows false records to endanger a campaign, and then calls the resulting burden “self-created.”

Introduction: How My Campaign Was Forced Off the Ballot — and Why It Continues in the Courts

I was not defeated by voters. I was kept off the ballot before voters ever had the chance to decide.

My campaign did not end — it changed forums. What ended was my ability to appear on the November ballot, not the campaign itself. The platform I spent years developing with fellow Iowans did not vanish. The work simply moved into a different arena: the courts.

What forced that shift was not lack of support, disappearing momentum, or voter rejection. It was something far more serious: court‑imposed litigation deadlines that collided directly with Iowa’s narrow signature‑gathering window.

I asked the court for a limited extension so I could submit signatures in July instead of June. The court denied that request.

This article explains why I believe that ruling was wrong, why I am appealing it, and why the underlying civil‑rights case cannot honestly be dismissed as a “self‑created” burden — and why my campaign continues, now in the courts.

To help readers follow the full sequence of events, it is important to understand how the legal, procedural, and political pieces fit together.

This article proceeds in four parts. First, it explains the civil‑rights/false‑records case and why litigation became unavoidable after false and materially altered allegations entered government records. Second, it shows how that mandatory litigation burden collided directly with Iowa’s narrow ballot‑access window, making statutory compliance impossible. Third, it demonstrates how the court’s denial of equitable relief transformed interference with a campaign into interference with the election itself. Finally, it situates these events within Iowa’s broader political environment, where transgender Iowans have recently lost civil‑rights protections, access to care, and meaningful representation — and where neither major party has confronted the harms that made this interference possible.

Overview of the Two Cases

To understand what happened, readers need to understand the relationship between two separate court cases:

  1. The civil-rights / false-records case — Wilson v. Reliable Street Inc., et al.
    This case concerns false and misleading allegations I contend were placed into Iowa Civil Rights Commission records, later creating reputational, legal, and political harm. That case produced nine mandatory court deadlines during the exact weeks Iowa law required me to gather signatures.
  2. The ballot-extension case — Wilson v. Pate
    This case arose because the court-imposed deadlines in the Reliable/Lockwood case collided with Iowa’s statutory signature-gathering period. I asked the court for a limited equitable extension so I could submit signatures in July instead of June.

The appeal concerns Wilson v. Pate. But the ballot-access case cannot be understood without the civil-rights / false-records case that created the litigation burden.

Because the Reliable/Lockwood case is complex, I have separated the background into two related articles:

Ames, IA Businesses Argue They Cannot Be Held Liable for Deceiving Civil Rights Investigators
This article explains the current status of the Reliable/Lockwood case, the legal arguments now before the court, and the dangerous precedent at stake if allegedly false or misleading submissions to civil-rights investigators are treated as immune from discovery or trial.

How Iowa's Civil Rights Process Harms The People It Was Designed to Protect
This article provides the deeper backstory: what led to the civil-rights complaint, how the Iowa Civil Rights Commission process failed, how the State’s administrative and judicial systems made the situation worse, and why I believe the case reveals broader structural failures in Iowa’s civil-rights process.

In short: the first article explains what is currently at stake in court. The second explains how the situation reached this point.

The Ballot Access Case: What I Asked for and Why

Initial Filing: Court Denies Relief for Lack of Cited Authority

In May 2026, I filed an Emergency Petition for Equitable Extension of Ballot‑Access Deadline after the first case imposed nine hearings and filing deadlines during Iowa’s signature‑gathering window for independent candidates.

In its first order, the Court denied relief at the threshold, holding that I had not yet identified legal authority allowing a court to extend a statutory ballot‑access deadline. The Court did not reach the factual question of whether my burdens were extraordinary.

To address that concern, I filed a motion to amend.

Second Filing: Court Mischaracterizes Burdens as "Self-Created"

On June 1, I filed a Motion for Leave to Amend and a Second Amended Petition, citing Iowa and federal authorities recognizing equitable modification under extraordinary circumstances — including:

Rivas v. Brownell, ___ N.W.3d ___, No. 23-1829 (Iowa 2025).
In Rivas, the Iowa Supreme Court upheld a pandemic-era tolling order and held that the tolling provision was within the constitutional authority vested in the Iowa Supreme Court. The Court treated the order as a valid response to an unprecedented public emergency, not as an unlawful disregard of statutory deadlines.

Mormann v. Iowa Workforce Development, 913 N.W.2d 554 (Iowa 2018).
In Mormann, the Iowa Supreme Court held that equitable tolling doctrines were available for the 300-day filing limitation under the Iowa Civil Rights Act. Iowa law recognizes equitable doctrines can apply to statutory filing deadlines in appropriate circumstances.

Anderson v. Celebrezze, 460 U.S. 780 (1983).
In Anderson, the United States Supreme Court said ballot-access cases cannot be decided by a simple “litmus-paper test.” Instead, courts must consider “the character and magnitude” of the injury to First and Fourteenth Amendment rights, then weigh those injuries against the State’s interests and whether those interests make the burden necessary.

Esshaki v. Whitmer, No. 2:20-cv-10831 (E.D. Mich. 2020).
In Esshaki, a federal court recognized that extraordinary external circumstances can make ordinary ballot-access requirements impossible or unjust. When Michigan’s stay-at-home order severely disrupted signature gathering, the court refused to treat the statutory requirement as untouchable. In denying the State’s request to undo relief, the court wrote that if it had not granted injunctive relief, multiple candidates “would have already been eliminated from the ballot,” and concluded that the court was “forced to fashion a remedy.”

Together, these cases show that my request was not an attempt to ignore Iowa election law. It was a request for narrow equitable relief after extraordinary, court‑imposed litigation burdens collided with the ballot‑access window.

In its second order, the Court acknowledged that Iowa courts possess equitable authority to address extraordinary roadblocks to the exercise of legal rights — but concluded that my burdens were “self‑created” because they arose from litigation I initiated.

That conclusion did not address the factual record I was trying to place before the Court.

It did not address the nature of the allegations lodged into government records. It did not address the foreseeability of reputational harm. It did not address the mandatory nature of the deadlines. It did not address the fact that I was not describing optional campaign activity, but court‑imposed obligations arising from a case I contend was made necessary by false and misleading filings.

Third Filing: Court Denies Reconsideration Without Addressing the Completed Record

On June 17, I filed a Second Motion to Reconsider to clarify the factual record. This filing submitted the amended petition and evidentiary exhibits (documents incoming; being redacted) I had filed days earlier in Wilson v. Reliable Street.

The Civil-Rights/False-Records Case: Why Litigation Was Unavoidable

The core facts of that case are straightforward:

Individuals who knew I was doing political campaign work lodged false statements and materially altered documents into government records in response to my civil‑rights complaint. Those filings created a direct and foreseeable danger to my reputation and my campaign. I could not simply ignore that threat.

If I had done nothing, those false records could have been used later to discredit me publicly, undermine my candidacy, and destroy years of work. Filing suit was not optional — it was the only way to prove what happened and clear my name before running a statewide campaign.

The second motion to reconsider showed that the litigation involved multiple defendants, multiple categories of alleged misconduct, extensive communications, hundreds of pages of documentary materials, and nine mandatory deadlines overlapping the statutory signature‑gathering period.

On June 22, Judge Beattie denied my request a third time. The order stated that the Court had reviewed the motion, affidavit, and attached materials, had reconsidered its prior ruling, and declined to alter it.

But the order did not explain how the Court weighed the completed record, including the false-records harm, the foreseeable risk of republication during a campaign, or why mandatory litigation deadlines arising from that harm should be characterized as “self-created.”

Why the Litigation Burden Was Not "Self-Created"

What led to the first lawsuit was not a misunderstanding, a private disagreement, or litigation I casually chose to initiate. It was the placement of false, extremely damaging allegations into official records — allegations I believe threatened my safety, reputation, campaign, publications, and future work.

Before going to court, I tried to use the civil‑rights process Iowa provides to people who report discrimination. That process is supposed to investigate disputed facts and help resolve disputes without requiring people to file lawsuits.

That did not happen here.

Instead, my complaint was closed without investigation, while false and damaging allegations remained in government records. Litigation became the only available path to obtain discovery, expose what happened, and clear the record.

That is why I reject the Court’s characterization of this burden as “self‑created.” I did not file suit because I wanted litigation to consume my campaign. I filed because allowing false records to remain unchallenged during a statewide campaign was not a real option.

There was no third option.

The Litigation Collided With the Ballot-Access Window

Beginning in January 2026, the Reliable/Lockwood case required continuous filings, briefing, discovery work, exhibit preparation, legal research, and responses to motions. These obligations directly overlapped with Iowa’s narrow signature‑gathering window.

I was not represented by counsel. I was pro se. Every filing, exhibit, timeline, legal argument, discovery dispute, and hearing preparation fell entirely on me — while I was also a full‑time student and running a statewide campaign.

I announced my candidacy in March 2023 and filed the Reliable/Lockwood lawsuit in December 2023 to clear my name from false allegations lodged into the administrative record. I did not expect the case to drag on for years. But it did. By spring 2025, the litigation burden interfered with my college classes so severely that I had to choose between dropping classes or losing the case. I dropped the classes.

The case then carried into 2026, where hearings, filing deadlines, discovery disputes, and summary‑judgment pressure collided directly with the narrow window Iowa gives independent candidates to gather signatures. I needed 3,500 signatures by June 2. I was gathering signatures. I was building the campaign. I was not defeated by voters.

The lawsuit I filed to clear my name collided with the ballot‑access window and ultimately derailed my campaign, keeping me off the November ballot. I asked the court for a limited extension of the deadline. The court denied that request in a ruling that did not appear to engage with the factual record at all.

The false-records dispute did not merely disrupt my life; it triggered a cascade of litigation obligations that consumed the very weeks Iowa law required for ballot access. A ballot‑access deadline cannot be treated as neutral when the State’s own administrative failures create conditions that make compliance impossible.

This collision was not accidental. It was the predictable consequence of false allegations entering government records and remaining uncorrected.

To understand why that litigation was unavoidable, readers must understand what false records can do during a campaign.

Why False Records Become Campaign Weapons

Some people may ask why I could not simply ignore the lawsuit and move on. This is why: false records become weapons during campaigns.

But this was never only about one campaign.

Long before I ran for Governor, I had founded Wild Willpower PAC. I had already spent years writing, organizing, building public platforms, and trying to create a legacy rooted in civil rights, public accountability, democratic participation, Indigenous knowledge, environmental restoration, and social repair.

The allegations lodged into the Iowa Civil Rights Commission’s records did not merely threaten a future ballot-access effort. They threatened my life’s work.

They threatened my reputation as an author, advocate, organizer, role model, and public figure. They threatened the credibility of Wild Willpower PAC and the broader work I have done to challenge corruption, institutional abuse, civil-rights violations, and systemic failures in Iowa.

They also threatened work that does not belong only to me.

As an author and organizer, I have worked alongside people whose lives and contributions matter, including Richard Lonewolf, Professor Frank Schiavo, Ashawna Hailey, Bill Hill, and others whose teachings, stories, advocacy, and reputations became connected to projects I helped carry forward. Some are still alive. Others are no longer here to defend the meaning of their work.

That matters deeply to me.

When false allegations enter administrative records, they do not damage only the person named in them. They can contaminate the public understanding of everything that person has built. They cast suspicion over organizations, books, political work, educational projects, cultural work, public advocacy, and the people associated with them.

If Wild Willpower PAC is discredited by a false official record, years—or even decades—of work can be undermined by allegations that were never properly adjudicated. The harm becomes larger than personal reputation. It becomes historical. It affects how that work is remembered, how collaborators are perceived, and whether future readers, researchers, voters, supporters, and institutions consider it credible.

Everything I had worked to build was placed at risk by allegations lodged into administrative records—and therefore preserved within the historical record.

That is why I could not simply “move on.”

Reporters, bloggers, campaigns, opposition researchers, attorneys, government actors, employers, institutions, researchers, and members of the public review court records, administrative records, regulatory filings, and other official documents. When false allegations appear in those materials, they become searchable, quotable, and easily weaponized.

Most people will not read the full exhibits. Most will not ask whether documents were modified, rearranged, selectively excerpted, or taken out of context. They will see the accusation and judge.

That danger becomes even greater during an election. Public records—including court filings, administrative summaries, affidavits, exhibits, institutional emails, and derivative filings—can shape public perception of candidates before any court reaches a final determination. A document is surfaced, quoted, clipped, shared, and amplified. By the time the truth catches up, the political and historical damage may already be done.

This is why confidentiality did not protect me. Even when an administrative file is technically confidential, the narrative inside it can escape through leaks, indirect references, public court filings, summaries, public-records requests, informal circulation, or strategic political use. Civil-rights proceedings often generate secondary records — motions, affidavits, timelines, exhibits, emails, and summaries — that may not remain confidential once they appear elsewhere. Once a respondent repeats, paraphrases, or incorporates allegations from a confidential administrative file into a public filing, the confidentiality barrier begins to collapse.

Confidentiality also creates a one-sided danger. It can prevent the injured person from fully correcting the record publicly while still allowing the false narrative to circulate. A respondent can imply allegations outside the administrative process. A political opponent can hint at “concerns.” A journalist can reference derivative filings. A leak can circulate privately before becoming public. But the person harmed by the false allegations may be restricted from releasing the underlying evidence needed to rebut them. That asymmetry magnifies reputational harm. It does not prevent it.

If a public or semi-public record says a transgender woman, author, organizer, Wild Willpower PAC founder, and candidate for Governor stalked or harassed a female employee, the harm is immediate and severe. That harm is not hypothetical. It is foreseeable. As a transgender woman in a hostile political environment, I knew that false allegations of this kind could be misused to discredit me, dehumanize me, and undermine my campaign before voters ever reached the issues.

That is why I could not simply “move on.” Moving on would have meant allowing false-record allegations to remain unchallenged during a statewide campaign, available to be found, quoted, leaked, summarized, circulated, or used against my campaign and my life’s work. I was not willing to let that happen.

These unresolved records created the conditions that made litigation unavoidable. And that litigation consumed the very weeks Iowa law required for ballot access.

Recent Election Examples Show the Danger

This danger is not theoretical. In this election cycle, public records and allegations have already shaped public narratives around candidates.

One example occurred when Bleeding Heartland discussed court documents involving gubernatorial candidate Zach Lahn’s running mate, Derek Wulf, in a widely shared video. The reporting relied on court filings, not mere rumor. That is how campaign narratives form: a document is surfaced, quoted, and amplified before most voters have any realistic ability to evaluate the full record.

Another example is the allegation reported by CNN involving Maine candidate Graham Platner, who was accused of rape — an allegation he denies. Regardless of the final outcome, the existence of the allegation immediately became part of the political conversation. Voters, journalists, and opponents reacted to the record and the accusation before any final adjudication.

These examples show why unresolved allegations in official records cannot be treated as harmless during a campaign. Once a damaging narrative becomes attached to a candidate, the accusation itself can become the story.

That is the environment in which my ballot-access case unfolded.

Why the Court's Denial Was Harmful

The court’s denial of my request for a limited extension did not simply maintain a deadline. It had the effect of deciding the election before voters ever had the chance to participate. The ruling did not appear to engage with the factual record I had submitted — including the litigation burdens, the mandatory nature of the deadlines, the public‑record harm, or the evidence showing that the Reliable/Lockwood case was not a voluntary personal project but a necessary effort to clear my name.

By treating the litigation burden as “self‑created,” the court effectively held that a candidate must absorb any amount of administrative or judicial harm — even when that harm arises from false records, altered documents, or unresolved allegations lodged into government files. The ruling rewarded interference, ignored the extraordinary circumstances, and left me without any meaningful path to comply with Iowa’s June 2 deadline.

A ballot‑access deadline cannot be treated as neutral when the State’s own administrative failures create the conditions that make compliance impossible. The denial did not preserve election integrity. It undermined it.

How Interference With a Campaign Became Interference With the Election

Election interference does not have to begin at the ballot box. When interference with a campaign prevents a candidate from reaching the ballot, it becomes interference with the election itself.

That is what happened here.

False public-record allegations, modified and out-of-context documents, unresolved administrative harm, overlapping court deadlines, discovery disputes, summary-judgment pressure, hearing preparation, and denied equitable relief combined to remove an independent transgender candidate from the ballot before voters could decide.

The result was not merely personal harm to me. Voters lost a choice.

I am not claiming every person involved shared the same private political intent. The point is the practical effect. A campaign can be derailed by process, delay, reputational threat, litigation burden, and institutional failure just as surely as it can be derailed by someone tearing up petitions or blocking access to voters.

That is how this kind of interference works. It often does not look dramatic from the outside. It can look like records being distorted, allegations being lodged into official files, years of self-representation, procedural burdens, hearings, briefing deadlines, discovery fights, and then a court treating the burden of defending oneself as if it were merely a voluntary scheduling conflict.

When that chain of events keeps a candidate off the ballot, the election has been affected. Voters are denied the opportunity to consider that candidate, the public debate is narrowed, and the statutory process becomes a barrier rather than a fair pathway to participation.

That is not a fair election environment.

The Political Environment That Made This Interference Possible

The ballot‑access interference I experienced did not occur in isolation. It unfolded within a political environment where transgender Iowans had already lost fundamental protections. In 2025, Republican officials removed gender identity from the Iowa Civil Rights Act, eliminating state‑level protections in housing, employment, public accommodations, education, credit practices, and other areas of public life. Medicaid coverage for gender‑affirming care was also restricted, forcing low‑income transgender Iowans — including me — to postpone or cancel medically necessary treatment.

I am one of the people directly affected by these policies. My medical care has been delayed and canceled multiple times. My civil‑rights protections have been stripped away. My ability to work safely in Iowa has been undermined. And when I attempted to run for Governor as an independent candidate to challenge this system directly, I was not given a fair chance to reach the ballot.

The Republican option represents a party that has actively targeted transgender Iowans, stripped our civil‑rights protections, restricted Medicaid‑related care, and fueled rhetoric that makes our lives more dangerous. But the Democratic option does not resolve the problem either. When transgender issues became politically unpopular, they fell off the party’s platform priorities. And some of the party’s positions — particularly regarding minors and sports — helped create the wedge issue that ultimately led to the collapse of legal protections and healthcare for transgender adults in Iowa.

Transgender Iowans are not represented in Iowa’s political system right now. Democrats focus heavily on working‑class issues, but for many transgender Iowans, it is not safe to work. We are living without enforceable civil‑rights protections, without reliable access to medically necessary care, and without meaningful political representation.

Why the Democratic Silence Matters

This is why the Democratic silence matters.

My critique is not simply about Rob Sand, one candidate, or one campaign. It is about a political system in which Democrats often ask transgender Iowans for loyalty while avoiding the concrete injustices happening to us now.
Many Democrats condemn Republican attacks on transgender people in broad terms. But when a transgender independent candidate is forced into court to fight false records, civil-rights collapse, medical-care loss, and ballot-access harm, the silence becomes revealing.
That silence matters because representation is not only symbolic. It is not enough to praise equality when doing so is easy, while rallying around better-funded insiders when a transgender candidate is raising uncomfortable facts about Iowa’s legal system, civil-rights agencies, and ballot-access barriers.
This is not a demand for personal sympathy. It is a demand for political honesty. If Democrats believe transgender people deserve equal protection, equal dignity, and equal participation in public life, then those principles should not disappear when the person raising the issue is inconvenient, independent, or outside the party structure.
That is why this case belongs in the larger discussion about Iowa democracy. The issue is not only whether I was personally harmed. The issue is whether Iowa voters were denied the chance to hear from a candidate whose lived experience, legal cases, and platform exposed civil-rights failures that both major parties have reasons to avoid confronting.
This is one of the reasons I became an independent. I do not fit neatly into either party’s script. I disagree with some Democratic positions on transgender issues, particularly regarding minors and sports. I reject Republican cruelty, defamation, harassment, civil-rights rollbacks, Medicaid restrictions, and unchecked state power.
I wanted to bring a real conversation to Iowa — one grounded in lived experience, legal injuries, and a comprehensive plan for reform. Instead, I was kept off the ballot through litigation pressure, administrative failure, and a political environment where neither major party had an incentive to confront the full truth of what was happening.
This is why I am proceeding under protest. I reserve and am exercising my rights, and I demand restitution and a better future.

Why I Am Appealing

My appeal has two goals.

1. Ballot Access

Iowa voters deserve the opportunity to consider every candidate, especially where extraordinary circumstances interfered with the statutory process and where the requested relief was narrow: more time to gather the same signatures required of everyone else.

Political sabotage — or even the reasonable possibility of campaign interference — should not be rewarded by allowing the interference to succeed.

I am not the only gubernatorial candidate seeking relief related to ballot access. Nicholas Gluba and Jules Cutler are also seeking court intervention.

2. A Precedent to Protect Fair Elections

When there is evidence or a reasonable inference of campaign interference — including defamation, administrative misconduct, altered documents, misleading submissions, or false allegations lodged into government records — courts should not automatically treat a candidate’s effort to clear her name as a voluntary personal choice.

They should look deeper.

They should ask why the lawsuit was filed. They should ask what was at stake. They should ask whether the litigation burden was mandatory. They should ask whether the candidate acted diligently. And they should ask whether a narrow equitable extension would protect voters’ ability to consider an independent candidate without undermining election administration.

If this case reaches the Iowa Supreme Court, I hope it sets a precedent ensuring that future candidates are not knocked off the ballot through interference.

The Larger Irony

Two facts make this outcome especially ironic:

1. I am a transgender woman fighting a civil‑rights case pro se in a state that recently removed gender identity from the Iowa Civil Rights Act — and it was the state's own administrative failure that led to the lawsuit, and the state court that denied relief when the case interfered with my campaign.

2. I am the only gubernatorial candidate running with a comprehensive plan to make our courts more accessible and just — and yet, it was burdens imposed by our judicial system that knocked me off the ballot.

Why I Am Proceeding Under Protest

I am proceeding under protest.

That means I do not concede the legitimacy of a political system that strips civil‑rights protections from transgender people, cuts off medically necessary care, allows false public‑record allegations to threaten an independent candidacy, and then refuses to recognize the combined burden as a ballot‑access problem.

My campaign is shifting from candidacy to the courts.

I will continue appealing the ballot‑access ruling. I will continue pursuing the Reliable/Lockwood case to clear my name. I will continue seeking discovery, accountability, and adjudication of the truth or falsity of the allegations placed into the administrative and judicial record. I will continue preparing legal action concerning civil‑rights violations, color‑of‑law crimes, and state and federal law violations affecting transgender Iowans. I will continue calling for restitution for people whose rights have been violated, and whose medical care have been taken away.

What I Want Iowans to Understand

What I want Iowans to understand is that what happened to my campaign is only one symptom of a much larger problem. The ballot‑access interference was not an isolated event — it was part of a broader pattern in which civil‑rights protections, Medicaid rights, due‑process guarantees, and accountability laws are quietly becoming unenforceable for ordinary people. When systems fail at this scale, the harm does not stop with one candidate or one case. It affects every Iowan whose rights depend on laws that are supposed to protect them.

Iowans deserve a government where civil‑rights complaints are investigated, not ignored; where Medicaid rights are honored, not obstructed; where officials who violate the law under color of authority are held accountable, not shielded; and where ordinary citizens can seek redress without being buried under procedural traps that prevent cases from ever reaching the merits. You deserve systems that work for you — not only for those with institutional backing, political connections, or donor‑class resources.

I also want Iowans to understand that this work is not about abstract policy debates. It is about lived harm. My medically necessary care was canceled multiple times. My civil‑rights protections were stripped away. False records were placed into government files. And when I tried to enforce the laws that already exist, I discovered how easily a case can be deflected, delayed, or dismissed before any court ever addresses the truth. Many Iowans have experienced similar failures — quietly, without media coverage, and without meaningful recourse.

That is why this series exists. It is designed to teach the public how enforcement is supposed to work, how it is failing, and what tools of redress still remain. Each linked article breaks down a different part of the record: the ballot‑access interference, the civil‑rights case, the Medicaid‑rights violations, the color‑of‑law issues, and the structural barriers that prevent accountability. Together, they form a map — a way for ordinary Iowans to understand the laws that protect them and the remedies they are still entitled to pursue.

This is not just my story. It is a case study in how rights can be lost when enforcement collapses. And it is an invitation for Iowans to learn the law, understand the record, and stand together in demanding systems that tell the truth, protect the vulnerable, and uphold the rights that belong to all of us.

From Candidacy to the Courts

This article explains how my ballot-access campaign was forced off the ballot. But it does not end the campaign.

This page will continue to be updated as the appeal in Wilson v. Pate moves forward. I am appealing because Iowa voters deserved the opportunity to consider my candidacy, and because future candidates should not be knocked off the ballot when false records, administrative failure, mandatory litigation burdens, and procedural deadlines combine to make ballot access impossible.

The Reliable/Lockwood civil-rights case also remains active. Trial is currently set for August 4, 2026, but I have asked the court to continue trial, extend discovery, defer summary judgment until discovery is completed, and set a status conference because defendants are seeking dismissal while discovery remains unresolved. That case is the reason this ballot-access article exists: it created the litigation burden that collided with Iowa’s signature-gathering window.

Readers can follow the current Reliable/Lockwood case here:

Ames, Iowa Businesses Argue They Cannot Be Held Liable for Deceiving Civil Rights Investigators 

Readers who want the deeper backstory of how Iowa’s civil-rights process failed can read:

How Iowa's Civil Rights Process Harms The People It Was Designed to Protect

This work also connects to earlier and upcoming litigation, including my 2024 civil-rights case and the Wilson v. Trump, et al. filings I have not yet had time to amend or refile because the Reliable/Lockwood litigation burdens, ballot-access litigation, and full-time academic obligations consumed the time needed to prepare them properly. Those academic obligations are now behind me.

That is where the campaign is headed now.

My campaign for Governor did not end when I was kept off the ballot. It changed forums. The electoral phase was blocked. The legal and public-education phase continues.

The next stage is From Candidacy to the Courts — a central hub connecting the ballot-access appeal, the Reliable/Lockwood civil-rights case, the 2024 civil-rights case, the Medicaid-rights timeline, the upcoming Wilson v. Trump filings, the color-of-law issues, and the broader question of whether Iowa’s civil-rights and accountability laws still provide meaningful remedies for ordinary people.

Here is where to follow the next stage of my campaign:

From Candidacy to the Courts

 

For the full factual background of the civil-rights/false-records case that created the litigation burden, click on the banner below: