Republican Iowa gubernatorial candidate Zach Lahn vowed to protect girls’ sports, keep age-inappropriate books addressing transgender topics out of elementary schools, and safeguard unborn children during a recent gubernatorial debate, emphasizing the importance of protecting vulnerable populations and preserving Western cultural institutions.
During the debate, a moderator asked Lahn about Iowa having “scaled back civil rights protections for transgender residents” and whether he would “advocate for further restrictions on transgender Iowans or transgender athletes.”
“There has been an attack on many of the institutions of Western culture. If you look at business, government, the church, the family, this has been something that has come up in my lifetime radically,” Lahn responded.
“If you think back to parents at home, how much the world has changed very quickly, and some of the things that we’re dealing with, whether it’s having men in girls’ locker rooms or boys in girls’ sports, these are things that when I was growing up as a kid, we just wouldn’t have thought of, and for many of the people who are older than me, you definitely wouldn’t have thought of these things coming up,” he continued.
“There is an issue with these ideologies infiltrating into our culture, and I think parents, especially when we talk about some of these issues coming up in schools, they’re just looking for something they should be able to count on,” Lahn said.
“And I think it is absolutely important that we put every single protection in place to make sure that our daughters are protected, that girls are protected, that women’s sports are protected 100 percent. I will always support that.”
“I also believe that we shouldn’t be putting certain books in our elementary schools — books on transgender topics that are just not age-appropriate or not appropriate for schools, quite frankly,” he said.
“You know, I remember when I was, you know, helping to start schools, I’d have parents talk about as these things would come up in our culture, you know, whether it’s the riots that happen up in Minneapolis or other things, and they’d say, ‘Are you going to talk to the young kids about this?’ And I would say, ‘no.’”
“The youngest kids need to be learning about the oldest ideas. They need to be learning about the wonders of the world. They need to be learning about nature and about art and these things. They need to learn that the world is an amazing place,” Lahn continued.
“And as you get older, then you start tackling some of these older issues. Well, that has been flipped on its head in many ways. We’re now teaching many of the youngest kids these newest ideas — ideas that have been around for 15 minutes, and that I believe if we just take a moment to think about it, we’d say this doesn’t make sense.”
“It doesn’t make sense, as the youngest kids are having these types of items being pushed into classrooms. And so I believe that there is an absolute issue to fight on the culture side, 100 percent,” he said.
“I also believe that the lives of the unborn should be protected. I’m somebody who believes that, you know, we are a state that values the life of the unborn. But not just that; we’re a culture. We leave no man on the battlefield. This is a part of who we are. We protect the most vulnerable in our society,” Lahn said.
“And I think that we can see this. You can look at this in Cedar Rapids alone. There’s a house of hope here. This is a place that, you know, works with women that have been trafficked, and we need to be taking that very seriously, even more seriously than we are now.”
“If we want to really build our state, we have to make sure that we are setting up the culture that makes everybody feel that they’re safe, that they have the ability to thrive through good opportunities, also that law enforcement is funded, that mental health services are available, that we have good public-private partnerships — things like House of Hope that are helping people recover,” he continued.
“This is a part of who we are as a people. This is a main part of why I ran for office — was to say that we need to address these foundational issues as a culture, and I believe that the most vulnerable people in our society need to be protected.”
“That’s the lives of the unborn. That’s our daughters. That’s the young kids in school. We need to make sure that parents have something they should just be able to count on in education,” Lahn said.
“That we can be confident that our daughters are going to get proper competition and not be beat out by someone that shouldn’t be in that sport in the first place. And I think that this is something that the majority of Iowans understand and agree with.”
Lahn’s remarks drew praise on X.
“Zach’s culture war answer was his strongest answer of the night,” Anastasia Hibbs wrote.
Conservative commentator Greg Price also weighed in, writing, “Nobody running for office in America is talking about defending culture like Zach Lahn.”
“He’s the real deal,” Price added.
Talk show host and author Steve Deace said, “This is why you vote @ZachLahn for governor right here.”
Other X users stated, “Every Republican should be looking at this race,” while another wrote, “100%. We must defend and champion the good, true and beautiful.”
Lahn faces Iowa State Auditor Rob Sand (D) in the November gubernatorial election to succeed outgoing Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds. As Breitbart News previously reported, Sand opposed a February 2025 bill defining sex as “either male or female as observed or clinically verified at birth,” arguing that “legalizing discrimination is wrong.” Sand also attends Plymouth Congregational United Church of Christ in Des Moines, which identifies as an “LGBTQ+ Open & Affirming Congregation,” has hosted drag-related events, and offers sexuality education programming that introduces children as young as five to transgender topics and gender identity.
Sand has criticized the two-party system and highlighted his past registration as an independent, despite serving as co-chair of Joe Biden’s 2020 Iowa campaign and receiving support from Democratic governors Gavin Newsom (D-CA) and Andy Beshear (D-KY). His campaign has also accepted $250,000 from Epstein-linked LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman and $50,000 from Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker.
Lahn’s emphasis on defending Western cultural institutions comes weeks after Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned in an October 7 address at the Acropolis in Athens, Greece, that the West risks losing its cultural identity and confidence in its achievements. “Over time, we in the West came to feel ashamed of the very things that made us exceptional,” Rubio said. “We felt embarrassed that our achievements set us apart from the rest of the world. Our prosperity somehow became a source of guilt.” Rubio urged Western nations to rediscover their cultural inheritance, declaring, “From them, we can rediscover the virtues, the courage, and the strength to confront the dangers that we face in our time.”
