The backers of HB2 wanted to pre-empt an impending Charlotte ordinance that would have provided broad protections against discrimination in the state’s largest city, and also would have allowed transgender people to use public restrooms aligned with their gender identity.
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At issue is a fiercely disputed North Carolina law that says transgender people must use public restrooms corresponding to the gender on their birth certificate. Republicans are evenly divided on the issue, with 48 percent in favor and 48 percent opposed.
The federal government made clear that HB 2’s mandate of discrimination against transgender people violates federal civil rights laws but McCrory and other political leaders in the state have chose to risk federal funding to maintain that discrimination.
U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch, who spoke at a press conference after filing the lawsuit, said that at present the Justice Department is seeking certification from North Carolina to ban the bathroom law, but squeezing federal funding was one of the options that could be considered in future. HB2, also known as the “bathroom bill”, reversed that policy for all government-run facilities, while also prohibiting local governments from making lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transgender people a protected class of people.
In it, he named Ms Lynch, the head of Justice’s Civil Rights Division, Vanita Gupta and the Justice Department.
North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory discussed the new state bathroom law on the PBS NewsHour on Monday. Let us reflect on the obvious but often neglected lesson that state-sanctioned discrimination never looks good in hindsight.
If the police receive a complaint about someone in the “wrong” bathroom, the department will respond, says Graham, but officers will not penalize or arrest anyone for using the restroom that corresponds with their gender identity.
In explaining what the bill would do, Sgro said it would replace HB2 that is already the subject of another bill calling for a full repeal of the measure.
He said it was a historic moment to have the attorney general stand behind a podium and offer transgender people such affirmation.
Other police departments in the state have said that it would be nearly impossible for the law to be enforced.
The governor filed his own lawsuit, asking a federal judge to clarify the law.
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North Carolina’s governor and legislature both sued on Monday to protect their law, saying the Justice Department was trying to strike down a “common sense privacy policy” meant to protect the state’s public employees. “Groups seek to change the interpretation of statutory language file complaints, and hope that ultimately the Supreme Court will hear their case, or another like it, and agree the statutory interpretation should be changed”.
