The local media frenzy about HB2 is finally started to subside.  At least a little bit.  Local television news has kept up a three-week long “who’s who” boycott list.

First, there was Bruce Springsteen, then Ringo Starr, and then Paypal.  Oh, and the big banks.  We can’t lose the big banks.  Don’t forget those paragons of virtue on all matters sexual, the NBA.

I started to get the idea that my beloved state of North Carolina was the last state in the union to keep men out of the ladies room.  You figure all you needed to do was cross the mountains into Tennessee and your first road-side gas station would be transgender-friendly.  Or you could drive to South Carolina where transgender bathrooms have been the norm for years.

Of course, none of this is true.

The LGBT community, in fact, keeps a running tally of who they consider transgender-friendly states.  There are about 13.  That is, there are still about 37 states that do not allow men into the ladies room or have not yet begun to ask the question.

But, North Carolina is being singled out, isolated, alienated, insulted, slandered, and blacklisted.  And all for what?  For having the same traditional standards as 37 other states?

Shame on us, I guess.  The good news?  Well, that Bruce Springsteen boycott may help slow down the migration from New Jersey to North Carolina.  A Tar Heel boy can dream, can’t he?

But, I will miss that song that made him famous, “Born to Run.”  All about how New Jersey sucks.  I really like that song.

 

— Alan Culton

 

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