Repercussions of Bigotry: A Look at North Carolina’s Controversial Law

LGBT stands for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender. The first three are easy enough to understand and have received the majority of public attention in the last few decades, such as in June of 2015 when the Supreme Court ruled that homosexual couples across the country have a constitutional right to get married. Recently though, with the fight for gay marriage coming to a close, public attention has been directed towards the last letter: T. A transgender person is someone who was born one gender, but who feels as though they are the other. So a transwoman would be someone who was born a male, but transitions into a female. It gets much more complicated than that, but that’s the basics premise.

A spotlight has been shown on transpeople and their issues recently because, on March 23rd, North Carolina Republican governor Pat McCrory, signed a very controversial bill into law. House Bill 2, also known as the Public Facilities Privacy & Security Act, enacts statewide policy that bans individuals from using public bathrooms that do not correspond to their biological sex as well as preventing people in the state from suing if they felt discriminated against. In a tweet shortly after the signing of the bill, McCrory said "Ordinance defied common sense, allowing men to use women’s bathroom/locker room for instance. That’s why I signed bipartisan bill to stop it." The bill was rushed through the state House and Senate, passing unanimously in the latter when Senate Democrats, knowing they could not stop the bill's passage, walked out in protest.

Democrats and civil liberties groups across the state were outraged by the passage of the Public Facilities Privacy & Security Act. Groups from LGBT advocacy organizations have decried the law, and the Mayor of Charlotte Jennifer Roberts called it "the most anti-LGBT legislation in the country". 

Defenders of the bill say that the law was not put in place to discriminate in any way, but rather was about ensuring people’s privacy in restrooms. North Carolina Speaker of the House Jim Moore defended the law, saying "One of the biggest issues was about privacy. The way the ordinance was written by City Council in Charlotte, it would have allowed a man to go into a bathroom, locker, or any changing facility where women are - even if he was a man. We were concerned. Obviously there is the security risk of a sexual predator, but there is the issue of privacy."

Critics of this idea simply point out that it is rather ludicrous to think that men are going to pretend to be transwomen just for the chance of getting into the women’s bathroom. The available data suggests that, not only do transpeople not go into the bathroom to harass people, but rather are much more likely to receive harassment in bathrooms than the general population.

Since the law was put into place last month, there has been a growing anger outside of North Carolina among both the general public and many companies that do business in the state. Many companies, especially in the tech field, were vocally opposed to this bill's passage. These companies include names such as IBM, American Airlines, and Apple. These companies have signed statements opposing the passage of the bill, while others have gone even further. Deutsche Bank has pulled an office and 150 jobs away from the state, Paypal pulled plans to build a super-center in the state (a project that would have invested close to $4 million and employed more than 400 people), and the NBA is debating whether or not to move the 2017 All-Star game away from Charlotte. Film producer Michael Moore has asked that his films not be played in the state, and film studio Lionsgate has said that plans to film in the state are being canceled as a result of this law. Meanwhile, rock star Bruce Springsteen has canceled a concert in protest.

Despite all of this, the governor and the state Republicans remain resolute in their defense of the bill and the purpose it serves. It has recently earned them the endorsement of Republican presidential hopeful Ted Cruz, who called the law "perfectly reasonable." While outside the state, Democrats and LGBT rights advocates decry the bill as oppressive; inside the state, it remains a much more divisive issue. A poll of North Carolinians found that 51 percent said it was a positive step, while 40 percent said it was a bad idea. And 51 percent also said that transgender people should not be allowed to use the bathroom of the gender with which they identify. 

So, why did this happen? Why was the General Assembly able to pass such a law? The answer lies with Charlotte. In February, the city passed a ordinance to allow transgender people to use the bathroom that matches their gender identity. This, in and of itself, is not a radical thing because plenty of cities already have them in place. But almost immediately, Republicans in the North Carolina state legislature swore to overturn the law - and that’s exactly what they did. In a special session of the Assembly, the Republicans, along with 11 Democrats in the House, passed the law after little more than half an hour of deliberation. 

This serves to highlight the growing rift between the progressive cities and conservative rural areas, not only of North Carolina, but also the country. As transgender people become more common and a larger amount of the population interacts with them, issues like this will arise where progressive ideals and conservative values clash. Time will only tell where this debate goes, what laws are put in play, and how both sides react as America is pushed further into the future.