A. These opinions are solely my own, and do not necessarily represent those of my employing institution.
B. I am speaking as a private citizen of North Carolina, and not as a state employee.
C. I have removed my employment information from Facebook, so that there will be no question about the fact that I am not speaking in my role as a state employee or for my employer.
D. I will refrain from using official state equipment when speaking of anything related to our state legislature or our state government, and I will only post about state issues outside of work time and from my own devices.
Now that I have the disclaimer out of the way...
For those who are not yet familiar with House Bill 2 (HB 2), it is often referred to as the "Bathroom Bill". Here is the background. Last February, Charlotte, NC, passed an ordinance expanding North Carolina's antidiscrimination laws so that the LGBTQ community would be granted protection in places of "public accommodation". Among other things, this ordinance would allow transgender people to use the bathrooms of the gender they identify with, as of April 1. In a sneaky, underhanded move, North Carolina's General Assembly proposed and passed HB 2 in a one-day, specially convened session, leaving legislators who are out of the loop mere hours to actually read the entire bill. This bill made it illegal for any cities to expand upon state laws and, in fact, requires all people to use the bathrooms for the gender listed on their birth certificate.
Now, many are solely focusing on the lightning rod issue of transgender people and the bathrooms they use when, in fact, this portion of the bill is really a Trojan horse that ushers in the ability to discriminate against virtually any group of people, and disallows victims of discrimination to sue their employers in NC courts. The law limits how people pursue claims of discrimination because of race, religion, color, national origin, biological sex or handicap in state courts. The law also means a city or county cannot set a minimum wage standard for private employers. Even veterans are affected by HB 2. Orange County, for example, had an ordinance against discriminating against people with veteran status. Now this ordinance is overturned. But because this bill was rushed through and signed by Governor McCrory in a single day, and because the focus on bathrooms is so controversial, many supporters of this bill have not bothered to inform themselves of the full impact of this law. Even conservative Christians, who, by and large, favor this bill, could find themselves impacted by it. If I employ you and I decide I do not like your Christianity and political orientation, I can fire you in three seconds flat, and you will not be able to sue me in a NC court. And there is no way that the proposers of this bill did not know what they were doing. In pandering to the prejudices of the Right, they were able to sneak in everything but the kitchen sink, knowing that conservative Christians would be too busy cheering that "traditional family values won" that they would fail to pay attention to the scope of what was passed.
But, for a moment, I want to focus on the part of the bill that has generated so much controversy- the "bathroom business". This bill is completely ridiculous and causes more problems than it solves.
To decide if a proposed bill is needed, there are several questions that must be answered.
1. Does this bill address an actual problem/need?
Unless NC is overrun with an epidemic of transgender people flapping their genitalia in the faces of children and others, this bill proposes a "solution" to a problem that does not exist. As it stands, you and I pee next to transgender people on a regular basis, blissfully unaware. In fact, transgender people usually dread having to use public restrooms altogether, and try to slip in and out as unobtrusively as possible. Why? Because violent acts against transgender people are common, because they would prefer to not draw negative attention, etc. The odds that a pre-op trans woman, for example, will waltz into a public restroom and waggle male genitalia around in front of occupants is next to zilch. If someone actually does this- trust me- they are not transgender. They are most likely a mentally unstable perv and there are already laws that address that. Unless you regularly peer under the bathroom stalls, which would make YOU a perv, you will never know you are peeing next to a transgender person. So, with all the problems North Carolina is facing, this is not one of them.
2. Will this bill solve the supposed problem, or make things worse?
Well.. let's see. Now that people will be required to use the restroom of their birth gender, here are a couple of folks you'll see in the ladies' room.
Now, on to trans women.
These lovely ladies will now be forced by law to use the men's room. Conservative ladies again- may I just assume that you are absolutely giddy that these fetching beauties can saunter into the rest room while your husband is using a urinal? Does this idea make you feel more comfortable than to have them walk into your bathroom? I call BS if you say yes. I also call BS if you try to tell me that you would immediately identify either of these women as transgender or either of the men I previously posted as transgender. I can't, and I am fairly worldly about such things.
So, will this bill solve a problem, or will it cause MORE problems than it solves? Think about it- bedlam will ensue if transgender people en masse decide to actually follow the letter of the law, and law enforcement will quickly tire of having to be the genitalia police.
In fact, I'd love to see an organized effort whereby a large group of transgender people show up to a public place and literally follow the law all at once. Big burly, bearded, tattooed trans males lining up to enter the ladies' room and ultra feminine appearing trans women filing into the men's room. With, of course, volunteers around to make sure nobody is beaten or killed, because, frankly, that is a likely scenario with HB2. I guarantee this will make the intended point, and not a thing can be done about it, because they are technically doing what the law requires them to do. I would happily pop popcorn and show up just to watch people squirm.
Now, in reality, I have had a couple of people state to me that, in fact, they really DON'T want people who appear to be the opposite gender in their bathroom. Nor do they want them in the other bathroom. When I ask, "Where, then?", their response is, "They should have to hold it until they get home." Ok- let's say you work in a business where this is happening. May I assume that you will be happy to cheerfully clean up the urine and feces that may end up on the floor if said transgender people cannot leave and cannot hold it? And do you think a bill could ever stand that tells certain people they cannot use any restroom whatsoever?
In addition to the drama and bedlam that will ensue as people begin to use the "correct restroom", companies and conferences are pulling out of North Carolina left and right. PayPal has withdrawn plans to add a $3.6 million dollar Global Operations Center in Charlotte, thus pulling out 400 well-paying jobs. McCrory crowed initially over the victory of bringing in these jobs, and now, predictably, Republicans have reversed course, saying "Who needs these jobs anyway?" The NBA is considering whether to pull out of the 2017 NBA All-Star Game. Several entertainment companies are pulling out of NC, taking jobs with them. San Francisco, Seattle, and New York City, along with the State of New York, banned publicly funded employee travel to NC. Google Ventures banned investments in North Carolina until HB2 is repealed. Our $4.5 billion dollars in Title IX funding could potentially be at stake if courts hold that Title IX applies to gender identity. Again, are we causing more problems than we are solving? And is there a legitimate "problem" in the first place? I find it ironic that we are hearing little from fiscal conservatives on the dollars we are likely to lose in the state of North Carolina. They should be livid.
3. Is the bill at all enforceable?
Face it- if a new law or bill is passed and it is near impossible to enforce, it's a wasted effort. The enforceability of a bill should absolutely be discussed and vetted before anyone passes it. Otherwise, it's pointless and merely for show.
This article from Business Insider discusses how police are responding to HB2. Here are a few quotes.
"That's a very interesting question. We don't have police officers sitting at public bathrooms all day long," a spokesman from the Raleigh Police Department said.
"We would respond if we received a complaint. It's not like we would be standing guard at bathrooms," a spokeswoman from the Greensboro Police Department said.
"So that means people have to go to the bathroom with birth certificates? Yeah, that was curious to me," a spokeswoman for the Wilmington Police Department said.
"We're not checking birth certificates. We just don't have the police power to be able to do that in bathrooms," a spokeswoman for the Asheville Police Department said.
And this article from Mother Jones shares a quote from Rep. Dan Bishop, a co-sponsor of the legislation. In a statement he wrote to WBTV, he states he never intended for the legislation to lead to bathroom policing. "There are no enforcement provisions or penalties in HB2. Its purpose is to restore common sense bathroom and shower management policy in public buildings, not to pick out people to punish."
So, even the co-sponsor knew that this law was unenforceable, and had no plans to make it so. Sooooo... again, tell me how useful this bill is? Nobody is going to peer under stalls, police do not want to verify genitalia, and nobody expects people to carry around their birth certificate.
4. Can the bill possibly stand, or is it fairly evident that it will be repealed?
If most law experts believe the law is not going to stick, it's, again, pointless to go through the motions of trying to pass it. Our own Attorney General Roy Cooper has stated for the record that he will not defend HB2 in a lawsuit. Many experts believe that it's only a matter of WHEN this bill is overturned; not if. However, no matter whether the bill stands or falls, the cost of the legal fight will be passed along to the taxpayer. Again, fiscal conservatives either need to be angry about this, or they are not truly fiscally conservative and should not identify as such.
What I find so hypocritical about Republican support of this bill is that it flies in the face of the "less government" mantra. You cannot yell "less government" whenever a progressive law is proposed and then propose your own tangled bureaucratic law. If Charlotte had passed an ordinance that discriminated against the LGBTQ community, these same legislators would be applauding, rather than trying to limit local authority, and the double standard here is deafening.
If you are conservative and celebrating the bathroom aspect of this bill because, yay, traditional values, you are in for a rude awakening when someone fires you for, I don't know, being conservative and religious, and you have no redress at the state level. If you are conservative and don't want to see what appears to be the "opposite sex" in your restroom, you are going to have a rude awakening when you actually DO end up seeing what appears to be the "opposite sex" in your bathroom and, in fact, those people are actually obeying the law. (See pictures above) And if you are naïve enough to think this bill exists to protect women and children from "perverts", then you really need to educate yourself about the totality of this bill and the impacts it will have on every North Carolina citizen. It's a typical Republican gift to big business and the rich, and, again, hordes of working and middle class Christian conservatives have been manipulated into thinking the Republicans are on "their side" of things. I'm going to tell you this- they don't even CARE about the bathroom aspect of the bill, or, more accurately, they only care as much as they know that YOU care, know that you will be so distracted by the bathroom aspect that you'll willfully ignore the rest, and know that you will vote them back in again. They want their palms greased by The Man. They absolutely will use you for your votes and then ignore your actual needs.
Late breaking news- Bruce Springsteen has just canceled an upcoming concert because of objections to HB 2. How much pushback, how many jobs lost, how much funding lost will be enough before NC citizens drag themselves out of denial? Even conservatives should be troubled by both HOW this bill was passed and WHAT is contained in the bill. Do not think this will never affect you.
