Even though HB2 is by no means the only source of discrimination for trans people in North Carolina, it is a legal mandate of discrimination and a message of rejection of trans existence. (Photo: Sam Howzit / Flickr)
I probably should have given up on 2016 long before disgraced outgoing North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory convened yesterday’s fifth special session of the North Carolina General Assembly to ostensibly follow through on an agreement with the City of Charlotte to repeal the state’s anti-trans law, HB2. But I still had faith that the year would end with some positive news and perhaps in 2017 trans people in North Carolina might wake up to a slightly less hostile world.
I was foolish.
This was another lesson in staying vigilant, distrusting those in power, and holding on to our collective vision for justice rather than relegating our survival to the power brokers in government who care little about our interests.
So what happened this week in North Carolina?
On Monday, Governor-elect Roy Cooper and elected officials in the City of Charlotte announced a “deal” whereby the City of Charlotte would repeal its non-discrimination ordinance that protected LGBT people from discrimination and, in turn, the North Carolina General Assembly would convene another special session to repeal HB2. From the outset this deal was problematic as it only legitimized the North Carolina General Assembly’s faulty narrative that HB2 was a necessary reaction to a basic set of legal protections enacted by the City of Charlotte.
Make no mistake, HB2 is a mean-spirited, discriminatory mandate that is unprecedented in scope and impact and has nothing to do with the existence of civil rights protections in Charlotte or anywhere else. The only connection between Charlotte’s non-discrimination law and HB2 is the distorted narrative crafted by GOP leadership in North Carolina that claimed that protecting trans people from discrimination (in Charlotte) opened the door to “men in women’s…