We are starting with bathrooms.  You should know that HB2 isn’t just about the bathroom. The backlash to the law is about so much more than that.  We will talk about all of it, but we need to start with bathrooms.  When a state politicizes peeing, you pay attention.

Jordan Green from Indy Week wrote about an exchange between Judge Thomas Schroeder and Butch Bowers, who is the attorney representing Governor Pat McCrory in a lawsuit stemming from HB2:

“A transgender female who dresses as a female, lives life as a female, and, to all outward appearances, is female is now supposed to use a men’s bathroom,” Schroeder mused. “How on earth is that supposed to work?”

“Partially by single-occupancy bathrooms, which admittedly are not available in all instances,” Bowers replied. “And this would be purely speculation on my part: some transgender individuals will continue to use the bathrooms they always have.”

“They would be violating the law,” Schroeder shot back.

“There’s no enforcement,” Bowers admitted.

“Then why have a law?” the judge asked.

The man hired to defend it admitted that HB2 does nothing to stop bathroom invasions.  At this point, you could stop reading.  Honestly, everybody should’ve seen and shared that Indy article last month and said, “Welp.  This has all been silly.  Let’s get rid of that law and get back to east-west barbecue debates.”

Schroeder was appointed by President George W. Bush.  He declared that North Carolina’s voter ID law was constitutional.  That might be relevant information to you.

HB2 bathroom

Mocking Pat McCrory in an HB2-era bathroom. (Photo by Jeffrey Clayton)

If a man walks into a women’s restroom, HB2 can do nothing about it.  You can’t use it to lock him up, fine him, call his mother, or give him a swirly.  If you feel like a crime related to the bathroom has been committed, you can charge somebody with indecent exposure, trespassing, or something else that already existed prior to the passage of HB2.

Is this getting through to you, HB2 supporter?  HB2 does not do the thing you want it to do.  Your state representative never got that far.

Lt. Gov. Dan Forest likes HB2.  A lot.  After the NCAA pulled events out of North Carolina, he wrote a statement.  Politicians love making statements.  He ended with, “We value our women too much to put a price tag on their heads.”

“Our women.”

The safety of women is important to HB2 supporters.  Has HB2 made North Carolina safer?  Almost 40 percent of men in North Carolina believe it has.  But, only 21 percent of women believe that.  According to Public Policy Polling, more than half of North Carolina women surveyed believe that the law has not made the state safer.

(Via Public Policy Polling)

(Via Public Policy Polling)

Forest blamed the Charlotte City Council for HB2 in Tuesday night’s lieutenant governor debate.  He said, “They said that in the city of Charlotte, you have to take the (gender) signs off your bathrooms.”  Of course, that is a lie.  Now, I don’t know if he is lying or if it is whoever this “they” is.

The News & Observer’s Colin Campbell noted, “The Charlotte ordinance did not require the removal of gender-specific bathrooms, nor did its provisions involve signage.”

It seems odd to talk about Forest without mentioning Gov. Pat McCrory.  This is a McCrory campaign commercial.  FULL DISCLOSURE: McCrory did NOT pay for the placement of this video.

“Other folks were actually pushing to make our schools allow boys to use the girls’ locker rooms and showers.  Are we really talking about this?”

McCrory said that in the video.  I wrote that part out just in case you skipped over it.

I am not sure who the “other folks” are.  McCrory was Charlotte’s mayor.  He might know Charlotte’s city attorney Bob Hagemann.  Because, Hagemann told the Charlotte Observer that “schools were expressly excluded from the city’s ordinance.”

There could have been “other folks” pushing for boys to get into girls’ locker rooms and showers at schools.  But, it wasn’t the Charlotte City Council.

Let’s summarize with a list:

  1. You can’t enforce the bathroom part of HB2
  2. Women don’t think it makes them safer
  3. The state politicians who love HB2 either don’t know anything about the ordinance they wanted to replace…or they are liars

 

I think this makes it all really clear.  HB2 is just dumb.

Since March, there have been no arrests because of violations to the bathroom provision of the law.  Of course, that’s because there’s nothing in the law that could allow that to happen.  But, that doesn’t mean that the law hasn’t been broken.

The law was broken at the North Carolina Executive Mansion.  Pat’s place.  CBS reporter Omar Villafranca, who is a man, asked to use the bathroom.  Staff showed him to the only one made available to the press.

It was the women’s room.

That’s a clear violation of the law.  Of course, you cannot arrest Villafranca.  Once again, there’s no enforcement for the bathroom part of HB2.  Could you arrest the staff for directing him to that bathroom on some sort of aiding and abetting charge?  I don’t know.  I am not a lawyer.

Those of you who have actually existed in society know that this story is silly.  You have been to countless concerts, bars, and sporting events where lines for restrooms get long.  You have seen dozens of women slip into the men’s bathroom for time saving reasons.  Because, this is a society that can handle that sort of thing and because stalls exist.

HB2 was passed in one day during a special session of the North Carolina General Assembly.  They literally all drove to Raleigh to talk and vote on this thing that doesn’t actually do the thing they want it to do.  It’s like middle school.

Once, when I was in middle school, a bunch of kids decided they didn’t like this one girl.  Let’s call her Sally because I didn’t go to middle school with anybody named Sally.  For a little while, these children would say bad things about Sally to each other.  Then, for some reason, it became really important for these kids to get together and specifically write down that they didn’t care for this poor Sally.   It really wasn’t about why they didn’t like Sally.  It was just important that they convened this special meeting to talk about her.  Of course, the letter didn’t really do anything except make Sally feel bad.  As you can probably assume, that was their only real goal.

I don’t really care if you are confused by that analogy.  It’s my story.

This is a good time to suggest taking Aaron Keck’s HB2 enforcement quiz (I did poorly).

Enough bathrooms.

I am going to highlight the four factors the NCAA considered when they decided to pull out of North Carolina.  I think the NCAA sucks, but they did a good job pointing people to the specific reasons why they, or any major organization, will struggle to do business in the Tar Heel state:

  • North Carolina laws invalidate any local law that treats sexual orientation as a protected class or has a purpose to prevent discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender individuals.
  • North Carolina has the only statewide law that makes it unlawful to use a restroom different from the gender on one’s birth certificate, regardless of gender identity.
  • North Carolina law provides legal protections for government officials to refuse services to the LGBT community.
  • Five states plus numerous cities prohibit travel to North Carolina for public employees and representatives of public institutions, which could include student-athletes and campus athletics staff. These states are New York, Minnesota, Washington, Vermont and Connecticut.

 

(By the way, if you feel like discussing possible merits or hypocrisy of the NCAA, Bruce Springsteen, or anybody else that happens to be pulling out of North Carolina, have at it.  The reaction happened.  It is a part of HB2’s problem, but it’s not central issue.) 

The bathroom deal is a sideshow.  The real deal is the fact that HB2 banned cities, towns, and counties in North Carolina from enacting laws that prevent discrimination against people in the LGBT community.  Charlotte wanted to extend their discrimination ordinance to include protections for sexual orientation and gender identity.  That’s a common goal among major cities in the United States.  When the city passed their nondiscrimination ordinance, they joined New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, Phoenix, San Diego, Austin, Detroit, Seattle, Boston, Denver, and many more cities that protect people in the LGBT community from discrimination.

HB2 took Charlotte out of that group and prohibited them from trying to get back in it.  The only reason you could possibly be in favor of a law that bans cities from protecting people in the LGBT community is that you don’t like people in the LGBT community.

That’s why you need laws to protect people in the LGBT community.

It’s dumb that Pat McCrory would want to do this to his own city.  He knows better.  McCrory knows how hard Charlotte has worked on their goal of becoming a “world class city” over the past several decades.  He was a big part of it.  Then, he moved to Raleigh and spat all over that legacy.  Hugh McColl, a retired CEO of Bank of America and the de facto leader of Charlotte ascendance to where it was this winter, said HB2 is, ““inappropriate, unnecessary legislation that will hurt North Carolina.”

McColl was right.

It is inappropriate because there are about 245,000 people in North Carolina who can be fired, demoted, or be denied service because of this law.  It’s unnecessary because the headline grabbing provision of the law is unenforceable.  It hurts North Carolina because awesome things keep on leaving.

But, I am not as articulate as McColl.

That’s why I say that HB2 is just dumb.

Because, it’s just dumb.