In response to growing pressure from the National Basketball Association, North Carolina lawmakers are attempting to revise their transphobic HB2 law into something more palatable—unfortunately, most of them are still stuck in the 19th Century. While the revision now appears likely to get a vote, the "fix" continues to explicitly target transgender individuals for discrimination even as it restores the right of workers to file discrimination claims in state court.
The new draft reportedly allows transgender individuals who can't get their birth certificates changed because their state doesn't allow such a change to apply for a "certificate of sex reassignment." But it does nothing to ease the requirement that trans people have documentation confirming their gender—it just adds another bureaucratic layer to their nightmare. (For real—NO THANKS! you bunch of idiots in the NC legislature.) Samantha Allen has the details:
On the surface, this may look like a concession that would allow more transgender people to access public restrooms in North Carolina.
But in reality, this proposed certificate would only apply to a tiny minority of transgender people, namely those born in Tennessee, Idaho, Kansas, and, in some cases, Ohio who have since had sex reassignment surgery (SRS). These are the only four states in the country that do not allow transgender people to alter their birth certificates even after SRS.
Naturally, Gov. Pat McCrory—who rushed to sign the ill-considered bill into law—thinks he's on to something with the changes and has met with both GOP and Democratic lawmakers, a potential sign that there's not enough GOP support to pass the bill without the help of Democrats, reports Colin Campbell.
“I think there will be a good chance of a bill coming to a vote,” said Sen. Jeff Jackson, a Charlotte Democrat.
Jackson made his comment as senators returned from the governor’s mansion, where they met with McCrory for about an hour.
Here's a list of the leaked revisions, via the Greensboro News & Record’s Joe Killian:
- Keep the bathroom provisions as they are.
- Remove part of the law that prevents North Carolinians from suing for employment discrimination in state courts. A number of Republicans — including Gov. Pat McCrory — called for this change soon after the law’s passage.
- Bring the state’s anti-discrimination laws into line with federal workplace and public accommodation anti-discrimination standards. It is not clear the extent to which this would explicitly cover LGBT people from discrimination.
- Enhance criminal penalties for sex offenses committed in places like bathrooms and changing rooms.
- Create a “certificate of sex reassignment” for North Carolinians who come from states without a way to update birth certificates. Since many transgender people do not wish to have surgery to obtain a new birth certificate, LGBT advocates oppose such a plan. They also express concern that this would effectively create a state registry of those who have had such surgeries, raising privacy issues.
Hard to believe anyone's worried about privacy issues when NC lawmakers have proven so competent.
