The North Carolina legislature yesterday failed to repeal the state’s HB2 law, one of the harshest anti-LGBTQ laws in the country, and showed the ugly side of politics in the process.
The law, which passed in March, requires schools and public agencies to limit use of multiple-occupancy bathrooms based on people’s biological sex, and replaces local non-discrimination ordinances with those of the state, which does not include sexual orientation or gender identity.
Yesterday’s expected repeal was part of a deal between state legislators and the Charolotte City Council, which promised to repeal the LGBTQ-inclusive anti-discrimination measures it had passed earlier, and which had triggered HB2 as backlash.
Charlotte removed the part of its ordinance that prohibited discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity (among other categories) in public accommodations, including the part stating that transgender people could use the bathroom matching their gender identity, reports the Charlotte Observer. They apparently left, however, the part preventing the city from hiring contractors who have been found to discriminate against a subcontractor because of an employee’s sexual orientation, gender identity, race, or religion. “That means the city ordinance still offers some legal protections, though small ones, to people who are gay or transgender,” the Observer observed.
They also left in, according to the New York Times, a part “that empowered Charlotte’s community relations committee to ‘approve or disapprove plans to reduce or eliminate discrimination’ with respect to familial status, gender expression, gender identity, marital status and sexual orientation.”
All of this was enough for Republicans in the legislature to cry foul and refuse to hold up their part of the deal, meaning that HB2 stands, while a major part of Charlotte’s anti-discrimination ordinance has been gutted.
Mara Keisling, executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality noted in a statement that the legislature was not operating in good faith in any case: Even if HB2 had been repealed, it would not have been repealed in full, because “The repeal bill includes a portion that bans cities in North Carolina from passing their own nondiscrimination laws for six months.”
PFLAG’s National Interim Executive Director Elizabeth Kohm called the state’s failure to repeal HB2 “Outrageous, unconscionable, and unacceptable.”
Lambda Legal said that “H.B. 2 is estimated to have cost North Carolina over $600 million in lost revenue from businesses concerned with the discriminatory nature of the law, and was a contributing factor in the election defeat of the outgoing Governor Pat McCrory.” The organization is partnering with the ACLU, ACLU of North Carolina, and the law firm of Jenner & Block to challenge the law in federal court.
Discrimination is wrong in any guise. So-called “bathroom bills” additionally create practical, everyday obstacles for both transgender adults and children, as well as the children of transgender parents—and anyone whose appearance does not match what is traditionally expected for their gender, as I wrote when the bill first passed. And the lack of non-discrimination protections harms all LGBTQ people and their children as well as those perceived to be.
In a small win in the state last month, a two-mom couple won their battle to put both their names on the birth certificates of their sons. That only proves, however, that LGBTQ people live there. They will continue to feel the stress of HB2 until such time as a federal court rules or legislators stop playing petty politics and realize the harms their actions are causing to people’s lives.