Governor Pat McCrory just made discrimination legal in North Carolina

On Wednesday, the North Carolina General Assembly and Governor Pat McCrory signed a bill upsetting UNC students and North Carolinians alike. House Bill 2 states that when it comes to non-discriminatory laws for LGBTQIA+ individuals, the state government overrides local city ordinances.

This bill was in response to a Charlotte ordinance passed last month, which protected the rights of transgendered people to use the bathroom with their corresponding gender-identity. Governor McCrory said he would use legislative power to rectify the situation if Charlotte actually passed it.

The North Carolina General Assembly Republicans who pushed for this bill used women’s rights as a guise to manipulate people to support it. Since the bill overrides all city/town ordinances, this means that all North Carolinians are required to use the bathroom for the gender they were assigned to at birth.

Their reasoning for the bill is to protect women from transgendered women – or “men,” as the NC General Assembly would call them – and sexual predators from accessing women and young girls in the bathroom. This is assuming rapists and predators already listen to the law.

These same Republican politicians – who act like they care about women today – have been voting against women, bill after bill, since the day they were elected. North Carolina is infamous for making it harder for women to get legal, safe abortions, teaching abstinence-only education and destroying and under-testing rape kits.

I find it abhorrent the state I was born and raised in would go out of its way to make the lives of other people harder. They overturned anti-discrimination laws, implying they support discrimination against human beings.

Not only does this new bill make it illegal for transgendered folks to use the bathroom they feel comfortable in, but it makes it legal for businesses to put up signs prohibiting certain groups of people from utilizing the business. For example, a restaurant could legally hang up a sign saying “No Gays Allowed,” and all who feel discriminated against wouldn’t be able to take legal action against the business because now, they aren’t breaking the law.

Additionally, this makes the lives of families of developmentally disabled people more difficult. A person of the opposite gender than their family member who is over seven years of age cannot go into the bathroom with that family member.

Many celebrities voiced their frustrations on Twitter.

UNC students have also expressed their anger towards their state government on and offline.

Sophomore Nikki McCurry, a Communication Studies major, said: “If the safety and human rights of transgender and other LGBTQIA+ people really violates who you are, evaluate yourself as a person. It’s time to stop allowing the government and people in positions of power to continuously perpetuate negative stereotypes and outright wrong information.

“Today, I am ashamed to call this state home.”

In a state where teachers are underpaid, many are going to bed hungry and people are sleeping on the streets at night, our state government focuses on making discrimination legal.

If this upsets you, then you must get out and vote this November and every November. Vote out every politician who voted for and supports this bill. That is the only way we can change this. North Carolina can be so much better than this, but we the people have to exercise our right to vote.