NC Republicans push new bathroom bill years after boycotts over similar legislation

Republican lawmakers in North Carolina are pushing a wide-ranging bill that would limit the rights of transgender people in the state — an effort that attracted swift rebuke from Democrats in the General Assembly.

The proposal, submitted Tuesday, seeks to codify definitions of sex to include only male and female descriptions. It would also prevent people from changing their gender on their birth certificates or driver’s licenses after they’ve had gender reassignment surgery. And it seeks to regulate which bathrooms people are allowed to use in some state buildings — a callback to a piece of legislation that brought boycotts to the state almost a decade ago.

North Carolina’s most recent Republican governor lost his job in 2016 amid a national backlash aimed at the state over a similar GOP-backed bathroom law that some residents, businesses, entertainers and athletics groups considered discriminatory against transgender people.

The bathroom rules in the bill filed Tuesday attracted eyeballs because of their similarities to 2016’s House Bill 2. But the bathroom rules in the new legislation, Senate Bill 516, aren’t as sweeping.

The 2016 law banned transgender people from using the bathroom of the gender they identify as in all city, county and state buildings. The new bill wouldn’t apply to many government buildings. But it would apply to public schools and prisons, as well as some institutions that receive government funding such as domestic violence shelters.

It also stops short of a full ban, essentially saying transgender people can only use bathrooms, changing rooms or sleeping quarters of the gender they identify as, if nobody else is present. People who believe they encounter a transgender person in a bathroom or other off-limits area would also be allowed to sue the agency in charge of that facility.

“A single or multiple occupancy restroom, changing facility, or sleeping quarters within a covered facility in this state shall only be used by one designated biological sex at one time,” the bill proposes. “If more than one designated biological sex is able to access or use a single or multiple occupancy restroom, changing facility, or sleeping quarters, then the covered facility shall have administrative rules or policies specifying that only one biological sex may use the area at any point in time.”

The bill's lead sponsor Sen. Vickie Sawyer, R-Iredell, declined to comment on her bill Tuesday. So did a spokeswoman for state Senate leader Phil Berger.

'Men are men, women are women'

The new bill goes substantially farther than HB2 did in other areas of law unrelated to bathroom use, including its efforts to define sex, prevent changes to driver’s licenses and repeal a law allowing transgender people who have undergone gender reassignment surgery to change their gender on their birth certificate.

The bill also clarifies that transgender children who stay with classmates overnight on field trips, lock-ins or other school activities have to room with members of their birth gender, not the gender they identify as.

“North Carolina must return to the common sense understanding that men are men, women are women, and men should not be allowed to rob women of their safety and privacy by invading their private spaces," Ashley Vaughan, a spokeswoman for the NC Values Coalition, a group that advocates for socially conservative policies including restrictions on LGBTQ rights.

The effort comes as Republicans in North Carolina and other states have taken up a new focus on transgender topics, an issue that has energized voters in the GOP base.

Republican lawmakers passed multiple laws in the 2023-24 legislative session focused on medical care and athletic team participation by transgender children.

On Monday, Senate Republicans filed a separate proposal, Senate Bill 442, to change the rules for child abuse, clarifying that it's OK for parents or foster parents to refuse to acknowledge their transgender children's gender identities — and that doing so shouldn't open them up to be charged with child abuse for inflicting mental or emotional injuries on the children.

Democratic lawmakers decried the efforts Tuesday, saying Republican lawmakers need to move on from their focus on transgender people.

“We need to be done with that,” Sen. Julie Mayfield, D-Buncombe, said during a press conference. “We need to recognize who people are. We need to allow them to live their lives, and we need to be done with treating people as anything less than full human beings, deserving of respect and dignity.”

Mayfield was among a group of Democratic lawmakers who on Monday filed a bill seeking to strengthen employment and housing protections and adopt nondiscrimination policies in part for the LGBTQ community.

“They want to live their lives as we all do,” Mayfield said. “They want the freedom to work toward and achieve their dreams like any of the rest of us do. They want the freedom to determine their economic future like the rest of us do, and they want to do that without the artificial barriers that currently exist in our society on multiple levels.”

Shifting national trends

Pat McCroroy, the Republican former North Carolina governor, lost his gubernatorial reelection bid in 2016 in part because he signed House Bill 2, which also limited which public bathrooms transgender people could use. That law, known as HB2 for the shorthand of its bill number, was seen as discriminatory by a number of businesses.

The law prompted PayPal, the online money-transfer service, to cancel a $3.5 million global operations center that would have employed 400 people in Charlotte. Lionsgate Films moved production for a comedy series pilot from Charlotte to Canada. Other firms threatened to halt expansion plans in the state. The NBA, NCAA and Atlantic Coast Conference canceled athletic events. And more than 200 CEOs signed a letter calling on state leaders to repeal the law. The law was partially repealed after Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper defeated McCrory in 2016.

But in recent years, the mood appears to have changed. Several states have adopted similar laws that regulate bathroom use — with limited pushback — and some Democrats are changing their tune on trangender issues. Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom recently spoke out against allowing transgender women and girls to compete in female sports.

That in part is why McCrory thinks the bill filed Tuesday would face less scrutiny than HB2.

"The political environment has changed dramatically during in the last nine years, so I don't anticipate corporate America, the sports entertainment industry, the media and the Democratic Party to give much pushback to this bill,” McCrory told WRAL News Tuesday while declining to say whether he supports the bill. “The public clearly understands the issue of protecting women's sports, locker rooms and prisons, which are the exact same issues that we were talking about nine years ago.”

At the federal level, Republican President Donald Trump focused heavily in the 2024 presidential campaign on criticizing his Democratic opponent Kamala Harris for supporting transgender rights. Since taking office Trump has attempted to reverse rules put in place by former Democratic President Joe Biden allowing transgender people to serve in the military, but federal judges have blocked the effort, allowing trans service members to remain in uniform.

When North Carolina first passed HB2, the 2016 presidential primaries were in full swing. Originally, Trump — then just one of many candidates running for president — criticized the law, saying there seemed to be no need for it: “There have been very few complaints the way it is,” Trump said on The Today Show in April 2016. “People go, they use the bathroom that they feel is appropriate. There has been so little trouble.”

By July 2016, Trump had changed his stance, saying he supported HB2. “I’m with the state on things like this,” he said. “I’ve spoken with [McCrory], I’ve spoken with a lot of people, and I’m going with the state.”

And in 2023, when speaking at the North Carolina Republican Party’s annual convention, Trump candidly addressed the GOP’s quick re-focusing on transgender issues.

After earning booming applause for promising to fight against “critical race theory and transgender insanity,” Trump went off script and addressed the audience, comparing that standing ovation to the relatively light smattering of applause he had earned earlier in the speech when he talked about cutting taxes.

“I talk about transgender, everyone goes crazy,” Trump said. “Who would have thought? Five years ago, you didn't know what the hell it was.”

WRAL News Reporter Ryan Bisesi contributed to this report.