A handful of US states and cities have attempted to enact measures affecting lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights, but North Carolina is the first state to focus on transgender people’s use of public bathrooms.
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The United States Justice Department filed a civil rights lawsuit against North Carolina Monday – the same day McCrory filed a lawsuit requesting that a judge label the law nondiscriminatory, according to the Charlotte Observer. The Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law reported Wednesday that the law could cost the state $5 billion a year in lost federal funding, business investment and tourism, litigation costs and the health care, worker productivity and recruitment and retention costs associated with discrimination on the job and at school.
It also rolled back local laws protecting LGBT people.
At issue is whether transgender people deserve the same federal protections that have been extended to groups such as blacks and religious minorities.
Wright said the lawsuit could cost millions of taxpayer dollars depending on how things go.
McCrory’s defiance could risk funding for the state’s university system and lead to a protracted legal battle.
The fight for transgender rights has just begun, but in North Carolina, the epicenter of controversy, things seem to be getting even more heated.
Among other things, HB2 orders all public facilities in the state – including public schools, government buildings and the like – to maintain segregation in bathrooms on the basis of “biological sex”, regardless of the gender of those wishing to relieve themselves. In April 2014, for instance, the Justice Department sued Clark County, Nevada, over the treatment of a lone female worker. “The lack of specificity about gender identity in the law creates all kinds of room for folks on both sides of this issue to make arguments about how the law should be taken”.
“This action is about a great deal more than bathrooms”.
In the state’s suit, McCrory and Perry criticized the federal government for what they call a “radical reinterpretation” of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which they contend would “prevent plaintiffs from protecting the bodily privacy rights of state employees while accommodating the needs of transgender state employees”.
Monday saw a major escalation of the showdown between federal and state officials over HB2, with three lawsuits filed over the span of six hours and dueling press events held by Gov.
There have been no documented instances of transgender people harassing people of any gender in public restrooms, while 70 percent of transgender people report harassment in bathrooms – including beatings and sexual assaults.
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McCrory made a decision to file a lawsuit of his own instead against the Department of Justice, saying in a Fox News interview that, “It’s the federal government being a bully”.
