NC faces Monday deadline to answer feds on transgender bathroom law

The Michigan Board of Education is preparing to hear public comment Tuesday afternoon on recommendations that students be allowed to use bathrooms based on their gender identity. And this is why none of us can stand by when a state enters the business of legislating identity and insists that a person pretend to be something or someone that they are not, or invents a problem that does not exist as a pretext for discrimination or harassment.

McCrory said the Obama administration has not only staked out its position for North Carolina, but for all states, universities and most employers in the U.S. “The right and expectation of privacy in one of the most private areas of our personal lives is now in jeopardy”, he warned. Billions of dollars flow from the federal government for education, law enforcement and other needs.

The law also protects the rights of businesses and other places of public accommodation to create their own bathroom policies, rather than be forced to allow men into women’s restrooms.

The governor has defended the state law as necessary for responding to the “government overreach” of an ordinance in the state’s largest city of Charlotte that expanded legal protections for transgender people.

The Justice Department noted a ruling last month by a federal appeals court that a transgender Virginia high school student has the right to use bathrooms that match his new identity.

He stated that the issue is not a matter for the Justice Department to wrest, but an issue for Congress to clarify.

She said at a press conference: “This is about a great deal more than bathrooms”.

“This law provides no benefit to society – all it does is harm innocent Americans”, she added. Discrimination against women and discrimination against gays and lesbians (and transgender people) all are rooted in stereotypes about “proper” expressions of gender and sexuality.

North Carolina lawmakers introduced, passed, signed and enacted HB2 over the course of a single day in March.

“This is about the dignity and the respect that we accord our fellow citizens”, Lynch said.

North Carolina has filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Justice Department to defend House Bill 2, a law that bans individuals from using public bathrooms that do not correspond with their biological sex, according to a court document.

Telling transgender people that “history was on [their] side”, Lynch explained why North Carolina’s law posed such a threat to Americans.

We can only hope that states like North Carolina, and people across the country, take note of California’s positive move, and follow in this state’s footsteps.

McCrory also said he doesn’t have the legal authority to change laws and that the expectation that he can is “unrealistic”.

“North Carolina does not treat transgender employees differently from non-transgender employees”, the lawsuit states.