North Carolina legislators have repealed a controversial law that required individuals in state buildings to use restrooms corresponding to the gender indicated on their birth certificates in a bid to end the backlash over transgender rights that has cost the state in lost business projects, conventions and basketball tournaments. The repeal of House Bill 2 on March 30, marked a compromise between Democrats and Republicans and culminated more than a year of contentious debate since the bill’s passage in April 2016.
North Carolina’s senate passed the repeal 32-16 following brief discussion. The house’s 70-48 vote to repeal HB 2 followed more than two hours of debate and came some 90 minutes after a noon deadline set by the NCAA for the Tar Heel State to overturn its restroom bill or lose the opportunity to host championship events in 2018-22.
The NCAA previously pulled seven championship events that were set to occur in North Carolina during the 2016-17 academic year, including first- and second-round games in the Division I men’s basketball tournament.
The repeal drew criticism both from social conservatives, who argued it endangered citizens’ privacy and safety, and from advocates of so-called homosexual and transgender rights, who argued it did not go far enough in defending civil rights.
Mark Creech, executive director of the Christian Action League of North Carolina, told Baptist Press the state “has had a great opportunity to lead the country in the preservation of the definition of gender. [Lawmakers] are now forfeiting that opportunity. I think this is a loss for the state of North Carolina and ultimately a loss for the country.”
Tami Fitzgerald, executive director of the North Carolina Values Coalition, said in a statement, “These chambers were filled today with men and women who have been under a full-court press by the NCAA and the business community for months, and today, the leaders of our state have let the people of North Carolina down. The truth remains, no basketball game, corporation or entertainment event is worth even one little girl losing her privacy and dignity to a boy in the locker room, or being harmed or frightened in a bathroom.”
“Today’s repeal vote,” she noted, “maintains separate facilities for men and women and leaves regulation of multi-occupancy facilities to the state; however, it leaves the state without a statewide public policy on privacy and safety in bathrooms, locker rooms and showers and simply kicks this debate three years down the road.”