On Friday activists were enraged to find the General Assembly of North Carolina have adjourned without many amendments to HB2, or the “bathroom bill”. The Justice Department lawsuit seeks declaratory relief and threatens to curtail federal funding to the North Carolina Department of Public Safety and the University of North Carolina.
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“I haven’t said that I think it was a mistake”.
Concerning North Carolina’s transgender bathroom bill, the legislature’s votes might cut into the weekend as they tweak the bill rather than repeal it with the new changes.
But North Carolina’s existing nondiscrimination laws don’t offer protection for gender identity or sexual orientation, which means even with the change made Friday, it’s still perfectly legal to fire, refuse to hire, or decline to promote LGBT employees in North Carolina simply because they’re LGBT. “It does nothing to fix the core discrimination in that law”, said Rep. Grier Martin, D-Wake.
Other Republicans have said they would consider allowing transgender people who have undergone sex reassignment surgery but were born in a state that doesn’t allow a sex change on birth certificates to receive an exception in the law by getting another document.
“We have been engaged in dialogue with numerous groups at the city and state levels, but we do not endorse the version of the bill that we understand is now before the legislature”.
Commissioner Adam Silver said earlier in the month that the league has started to look into alternative sites. “I’m saying it was widely misreported”, said Rep. Dan Bishop of Mecklenburg County, a key architect of HB2.
“We are seeing, because of HB2, violence against transgender people, vigilantism against transgender people in North Carolina and around the country”, says an advocate for transgender rights.
Workers may still use state law to sue employers over discrimination. Moore hopes the revision will prove to the National Basketball Association that North Carolina is a discrimination-free area.
Entertainers including Bruce Springsteen have canceled concerts to protest the law, while scores of business leaders signed a letter seeking its repeal.
The Human Rights Campaign issued a statement Friday saying that a full repeal of the law is the only acceptable solution. While some state Democrats expect that legislators might need to hold a special session to prevent the loss of business, House Speaker Tim Moore [official profile] has expressed his hopes that the law’s revisions will appease its critics. Rallies to support the law, meanwhile, drew thousands of conservatives to Raleigh.
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“Any attempt to pass additional discriminatory legislation will be seen for what it is – a shameful political ploy created to give some lawmakers cover as the state continues to discriminate against its LGBTQ citizens”, said JoDee Winterhof, a senior official overseeing political affairs for the HRC.
