Last night the North Carolina Tar Heels won their sixth NCAA championship. This, despite relocation of initial tournament rounds away from Tar Heel state in response to H.B. 2, a controversial law passed by North Carolina that restricted LGBT protections and barred transgender individuals from using restrooms that matched their gender identity.
On March 30, 2017, following a year of major economic damage due to organizations– including the NCAA’s– refusal to deal in the state, North Carolina repealed and replaced H.B. 2 with H.B. 142 (“the compromise bill”). Coincidence? Probably not. Last week just happened to be the deadline for consideration to host future NCAA championship games, an opportunity foreclosed to North Carolina unless it repealed the bathroom bill. Which it did, shortly before passing a new one.
To recap, H.B. 2 came about after the City of Charlotte passed a nondiscrimination ordinance which expanded protections to people based on sexual orientation and gender identity and expression, and permitted transgender individuals to use the restroom of their choice. Those protections were lost with the passage of H.B. 2 in March 2016.
In a good faith effort to promote repeal of H.B. 2, the City of Charlotte repealed its nondiscrimination ordinance in December 2016. This left LGBT and transgender individuals with noprotections at the local level.
Then came H.B. 142. The new law removed the explicit ban on transgender individuals using the bathroom of their choice, but added language that only the state Legislature could regulate access to bathrooms based on gender. Not state agencies or institutions, not state boards or departments. Not even municipalities, including the City of Charlotte. So while transgender individuals are now free to use the restroom of their choice, they do so at their own risk. After all, there are no laws to protect them, nor can there be absent new state legislation.
H.B. 142 also replaced H.B. 2’s permanent ban on cities enacting LGBT ordinances to a ban through 2020. The NCAA has not yet determined whether the changes in the new law are sufficient to persuade the organization to allow post-season play in North Carolina. As it stands, the Tar Heels still have a shot at scoring a second victory– the games’ return to their home state next year.