North Carolina Enacts Law To Allow LGBT Discrimination
23.03.16
Republican leaders of the North Carolina General Assembly on Wednesday rushed through a bill to repeal all local LGBT nondiscrimination ordinances in the state and ban transgender people from certain restrooms.
Introduced and passed within 10 hours, the bill then went to Gov. Pat McCrory’s desk. He signed it around 10 p.m. Wednesday, citing North Carolina residents’ expectation of privacy and “basic community norms.”
Republicans had unveiled the legislation Wednesday morning, arguing the measure was needed to protect women from transgender people and sex predators. They were reacting to an ordinance in Charlotte — which had been scheduled to take effect April 1 — that would protect LGBT people from discrimination in housing and public accommodations.
The governor and other critics claimed the public accommodations portion of the city ordinance posed a safety threat by allowing transgender women, whom they called “men,” to prey on women and girls.
“The basic expectation of privacy in the most personal of settings, a restroom or locker room, for each gender was violated by government overreach and intrusion by the mayor and city council of Charlotte,” McCrory said in a statement that explained why he signed the bill into law.
