On Wednesday, Gov. Pat McCrory signed and passed North Carolina House Bill 2, described in the bill itself as, “an Act to provide for single-sex multiple occupancy bathrooms and changing facilities in schools and public agencies and to create statewide consistency in regulation of employment and public accommodations.” Essentially, House Bill 2 is enacting pro-discrimination policies targeting a person’s gender identity and expression and sexual orientation.
Unlike the SCOTUS decision on same-sex marriage in June 2015 or the passing of North Carolina Amendment 1 in 2012, House Bill 2 was passed without any fanfare; for all intents and purposes, it was just another paper signed and passed along.
You may be wondering, then, why House Bill 2 is so important. With the passing of this law, North Carolina citizens can now only use bathrooms based on their biological sex. Transgender men must use women’s bathrooms, and transgender women must use men’s bathrooms, whether or not they have transitioned. Business owners and operators also have the freedom under the protection of this law to turn away customers or potential employees based on gender identity and expression or sexual orientation.
McCrory and his colleagues who are in favor of this law claim that House Bill 2 is for the general protection of the citizens of North Carolina. According to he and his colleagues, allowing people to use the bathroom that makes them most comfortable both mentally and physically also allows for the possibility of sexual predators to commit crimes under the pretense of “freedom in gender identity and expression.”
The fact of the matter is, though, that when I Googled how many cases of false trans identity leading to sexual assault there have been, I only got one result in Toronto. Furthermore, there have been absolutely no cases that I can find of everyday bathroom-goers being attacked or assaulted by trans-identifying people. My genuine question is where McCrory got his information on the supposed numerous cases of assault in bathrooms that led to the passing of this law.
It’s not just bathrooms that have been deemed pro-discriminatory in this ruling. Under House Bill 2, any business or company in North Carolina has the prerogative to turn away any patrons, customers or employees based on their gender identity or sexual orientation. Following in the footsteps of North Carolina and the passage of House Bill 2, a number of other states are rumored to have started discussions surrounding the proposal and passage of similar discriminatory bills.
In the days since the legalization of House Bill 2, hundreds of people have rallied together in protest of this blatant human rights violation. Although the Supreme Court has ruled that same-sex couples can now get married and receive federal benefits, there has been no case or ruling for the protection of the rights of transgender or gender non-binary individuals.
The effect of House Bill 2 is not only massively consequential in North Carolina, where I worry for my friends and peers being constantly victimized in public places, but also nationwide as other states deliberate on their own prejudicial laws.
