The Symbolic Victory of House Bill 2:
How Anti-Discrimination Legislation Strengthened Support for the LGBT Community
Rebecca Dupree
University of North Carolina Wilmington
rmd3017@uncw.edu
Abstract
The Symbolic Victory of House Bill 2
In 2016, a law, House Bill 2, was passed that prohibited any new protections for the LGBT community and transgenders to use the bathrooms of their preferred gender. The HB2 law was created for the sole purpose of keeping discrimination alive in the United States. Even though conservative states put this in place, it has indeed strengthened the support for acceptance of all non-heterosexuals. While having so much hate targeted towards transgender people, they will not go down without a fight. In some ways, this controversy has improved the lives of the discriminated and supported the love America needs to witness.
In the aftermath of decisive victories in the struggle for marriage equality, many organizations dedicated to extending civil rights to all non-heterosexuals have started to focus more intently on gaining legal protections for transgender people. To stem this rising tide of tolerance, conservative states such as North Carolina have introduced legislation specifically designed to encourage discrimination and prevent the further expansion of civil rights. By examining the controversy over HB-2, known as the “Bathroom Bill,” in North Carolina, this essay will explain how the law helped to strengthen national support for eliminating all forms of discrimination against the LGBTQ community.
In March of 2016, former North Carolina governor Pat McCrory signed the Public Facilities Privacy and Security Act – more commonly referred to as House Bill 2. The surface of the law simply stated that individuals were required to use bathrooms and changing facilities that correlated with the sex assigned to them on their birth certificate. However, in the state of North Carolina, the only way to change the sex on your birth certificate is to undergo sex reassignment surgery. This meant that individuals who did not align with their assigned gender at birth that had not received reassignment surgery were unable to use the bathrooms consistent with their preferred gender. Many conservatives called the legislation “common sense” due to the mundane assumption that creepy men were posing as women to sneak into women’s bathrooms to spy on them. However, it was a clear attempt to restrict the rights of transgender individuals after the city of Charlotte passed a non-discrimination ordinance to extend protections to those who did fall into the gender binary.
The passage of the bill immediately caused dejection within the LGBT community, to the point where Trans Lifeline, a hotline for transgender individuals to reach out when in distress, received twice as many calls after the legislation was passed (Campbell, 2016). The American Foundation for Suicide and the Williams Institute conducted a study finding that 41 percent of transgender people attempt suicide at some point in their lives (Haas, 2014). This shows the severity of the impact this discriminatory overreach can have on transgender individuals, and the necessity that our government does more to understand and embrace people in this community, rather than creating unnecessary and targeted legislation at innocent citizens.
Due to the maliciousness of the bill, many companies and organizations began to retaliate to the state to condemn Pat McCrory and the rest of the legislature. The NCAA was first to announce that they would relocate all championship events to other states for six years unless the bill was repealed. Shortly after, the ACC did the same. The NBA moved the all star game to New Orleans, Michael Jordan threatened to move his basketball team, the Charlotte Hornets – all because the North Carolina republican legislature felt uncomfortable by people they likely spent no time trying to understand. The Center for American Progress created a report on the law that, while not empathetic to the struggle and discrimination transgender individuals face, did note that these acts were not good for commerce. Sarah McBride, an author of the Center for American Progress study put it simply, “You cannot be both pro-business and pro-discrimination” (Blest, 2016) Overall, Forbes estimated that the bathroom bill cost the state over $630 million dollars and lost North Carolina countless jobs (Jurney, 2016)
Twenty years ago, Colorado attempted to create a similar “anti-anti-discrimination” law, however it was eventually overturned in Romer v. Evans. The law ended up not being able to prove to be remotely necessary due to the government’s disinterest in showing bias towards groups that many people are politically motivated to dislike, therefore not allowing it to surpass the initial level of constitutional scrutiny. Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in the majority opinion that, “making a general announcement that gays and lesbians shall not have any particular protections from the law, inflicts on them immediate, continuing, and real injuries” (Dunlap, 2016). While Romer more directly tried to take away protections from members of the LGBT community, House Bill 2 was written with more of an attempt to avoid the Romer ruling completely, but it was clear than the North Carolina legislature didn’t make this law just so the anti-discrimination laws would be constant throughout the state, but rather so there would be none at all.
After the 2016 election, McCrory was voted out of office and replaced by Roy Cooper, a democratic candidate that campaigned heavily on the acceptance of members of the LGBT community and the promise that the bathroom bill would be repealed if he were to win the gubernatorial election. Cooper attempted to act on his promise early on in his term, however the repeal led to be incredibly difficult due to Republican lawmakers holding control over the state’s House and Senate. Cooper compromised with the legislatures at the expense of the satisfaction of pretty much every LGBT individual, specifically due to the fact that the “compromised” bill still allowed for a continued three-year ban on municipal non-discrimination ordinances. Members of the LGBT community were outraged by Cooper’s sad attempt to repeal the legislation, and many of them believed this was all an act by Cooper to silence LGBT individuals.
After Cooper’s miserable attempt at the repeal, civil rights group like the American Civil Liberties Union and Lambda Legal called on Cooper and the state to make things right and continued pushing on for a full repeal. Caitlyn Jenner, Olympic gold medalist and TV star even discuss her distaste to the legislation on Twitter, again showing the blatant disregard Cooper and the general assembly had when composing the repeal. The president of North Carolina’s NAACP said in a statement that “any moratorium on civil rights is not a compromise, it is a contradiction with the principle of equal protection under the law and our moral values (Drake, 2017).”
A large problem that many members of the LGBT community are having with the legislation and the reaction by our leaders is that no one really seems to care about the impact the bathroom bill has had on the LGBT community, but more reacted towards the commercial impact it had on the state. This leads to be a problem since the repeal by Cooper was one that seemed more motivated to bring sporting events back to North Carolina, rather than working to support and uplift transgender people. Cooper did attempt to justify his settlement with the general assembly as just a stepping stone to a full repeal, but after almost a year and a half later, there has still been no successful attempts at getting rid of the ban on non-discrimination ordinances.
The U.S. Department of Justice and the Department of Education however, did release a letter during the aftermath of HB2 in regards to how public schools should treat transgender students complicit to Title IX funding. The letter put clearly, “The Departments treat a student’s gender identity as the student’s sex for purposes of Title IX and its implementing regulations.” It then went on to say that this “means that a school must not treat a transgender student differently from the way it treats other students of the same gender identity” (Tuet, 2016). Citing that this position was no different than the one federal courts, agencies, and laws have taken in regards to the prohibition of sex discrimination. For these departments to go out of their way to release a letter showing significant support of transgender individuals, and distaste for the legislation passed to discriminate against them shows huge steps taken toward the overall acceptance of the community.
Throughout the last two years, awareness for members of the transgender community has increased significantly, however, equality seems far from reach. To effectively achieve this, we must first normalize the idea that gender was something created by us. Before children are even born, people immediately question, “is it a girl or a boy?” and now the trend of gender-reveal parties has begun. While this may seem like a harmless way to celebrate the welcoming of a child, dividing babies into two different categories of “Barbies” and “G.I. Joes” is regressive and unnecessary. But so early on, people are implanting the ideas of the gender binary onto their children, rather than letting them explore the things they like.
Overall, there’s a long way to go in regards to not only North Carolina’s policy and treatment of members of the LGBT community, but also the general public as a whole. House Bill 2 was a detriment to the state, but lawmakers seem to only think so due to the horrific impact it had on the states wallet, rather than on the individuals it attempted to oppress. To strive towards equality for these groups of people, we must be diligent in working at local, state, and national levels to ensure that everyone feels uplifted and celebrated. Whether it’s just talking to a transgender person about their experiences, or helping to organize with an LGBT advocacy group, there are tons of things that can be done for you to contribute to the success of these communities.
Works Cited
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