Posted on 03/24/2016 7:48:06 AM PDT by reaganaut1
North Carolina legislators, in a whirlwind special session on Wednesday, passed a wide-ranging bill barring transgender people from bathrooms and locker rooms that do not match the gender on their birth certificates.
Republicans unanimously supported the bill, while in the Senate, Democrats walked out in protest. “This is a direct affront to equality, civil rights and local autonomy,” the Senate Democratic leader, Dan Blue, said in a statement.
North Carolina’s governor, Pat McCrory, a Republican, signed the bill late Wednesday night.
The session, which was abruptly convened by Republican lawmakers on Tuesday, came in response to an antidiscrimination ordinance approved by the state’s largest city, Charlotte, last month. That ordinance provided protections based on sexual orientation, gender expression and gender identity, including letting transgender people use the public bathrooms that correspond with their gender identity, not gender at birth.
The state bill, put together so quickly that many lawmakers had not seen it before it was introduced Wednesday morning, specifically bars people in North Carolina from using bathrooms that do not match their birth gender, and goes further to prohibit municipalities from creating their own antidiscrimination policies. Instead, it creates a statewide antidiscrimination policy — one that does not mention gay and transgender people. The bill also prohibits local governments from raising minimum wage levels above the state level — something a number of cities in other states have done.
Whether to allow transgender people access to bathrooms based on gender identity has touched off a national debate, and actions in recent weeks had appeared to turn in favor of that access. Earlier this month, South Dakota’s Republican governor vetoed a bill banning access. A similar bill failed in Tennessee this week.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
I’m just waiting for the hate to stop against pineapples- it’s obvious this world hates pineapples, because I mean look, there are no pineapple only bathrooms anywhere, and I self identify as a pineapple - Yes Yes- I was born with male genes- however, it’s discriminatory to prevent me from identifying as a pineapple and it’s bigoted to not build me special bathrooms to accommodate my sefl-identification choice
Let the boycotts begin!
Hopefully the legislature and governor will have a spine.
I just find it amazing that we actually have to pass laws like this when we have so much other things to worry about. Sometimes progress is not a good thing.
Mutilated males still use the men's room.
or the lezboes with the addadicktome?
Mutilated females still use the women's room.
Oh the humanity!
-This is a direct affront to equality, civil rights and local autonomy-
Maybe that was supposed to be ‘anatomy’ at the end ?
So if some gender-bender guy dressed up in a skirt and blouse walks into the men’s room then what will all you men do?
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