Although the Northern Carolina Law has generated many events, the bathroom policies adopted in recent years have received little national or business response, although many of them are much wider than HB 2.
Logan Casey, director of political research at the Movement Advancement Project, said that the part of the reason why there were more HB 2. In 2016, the year when the bill became law, state legislators had introduced approximately 250 bills targeting LGBTQ rights, and many of them were bathroom restrictions and “religious freedom” bills, which are intended to protect the persons and businesses who say they respect the laws of non-discrimination of the State and the premises that violate their religious beliefs.
This year, said Casey, it follows more than 700 anti-LGBTQ invoices, against almost 600 last year, and they affect everything, from the access of trans people to the bathrooms, sports and health care to which students of the LGBTQ material can be exposed in schools.
“The simple volume of attacks has made much more difficult for even the general public to really follow everything that is happening,” said Casey. “It was a large part of what allowed so many things to happen both, it is because they flood the area with all these anti-LGBTQ attacks.”
‘I feel distinguished’
Of the 19 United States according to which transfers in restrictions, six have prohibitions that apply to all spaces belonging to the government, including schools and colleges from kindergarten to the 12th year; Eight states restrict the use of bathrooms in kindergarten schools in the 12th year and at least certain buildings belonging to the government; And five states only restrict the use of bathrooms in K-12 schools, according to MAP.
Most of these states also have a law or a policy that legally defines “sex” in a manner that could have an impact on the access of trans people to the bathrooms. Four additional states – Indiana, Nebraska, Kansas and Texas – define sex in a manner that could affect the access of trans people to the toilet but does not have official “bathroomids” in books.
Supporters of measures that restrict access to bathrooms and other gender -separated installations argue that allowing trans women to use women’s bathrooms could threaten the security and privacy of women. However, A 2018 study From the Williams Institute of the UCLA School of Law revealed that allowing Trans to use installations that align themselves with their gender identity does not increase security risks.
Some states have widened the scope of their bathroom restrictions in recent years. Arkansas, for example, Adopted a law in 2023 Obligning trans people to use the bathroom of their birthdays in public schools from kindergarten to 12th year and public charter schools. Earlier this year, the state has passed Another law expanding this measure Apply to shelters, correctional establishments and all public buildings, which include public colleges and universities.
A trans woman working at a university in Arkansas, who asked to be anonymous because she fears how to speak to the press could affect her current and future job in the state, said that the restriction of the bathroom, for her, “means segregation”. The day after the promulgation of the extended law, the woman said that her boss had told her that she had to cross the building to use a single occupation bathroom. If this bathroom is occupied, which she often said, she must cross the campus to the only other bathroom with unique occupation.
“I feel distinguished for something I have no control over,” she said. “I am also treated to any of my Cisgenres colleagues. It makes me feel dehumanized. ”
She added that some of the reactions of her colleagues were overwhelming, because “they reacted as if I were to be happy, as if I had a private bathroom, and I do not understand how they could arrive at this conclusion.”
Following the law, she said, she accepted another job outside the public university system that she will start next month. In the meantime, she said, more of her colleagues have started to make her mistreat her.
“At this point, I really want me to be released at work,” she said.
Bathroom restrictions, said Casey, can contribute to workplaces and more hostile schools for trans people because they can be interpreted as discrimination of the “enlightening” government.
Many bills, such as Arkansas, also use a vague language, which, according to Casey, is intentional, because it can “provide” that the law is applied more widely.
“Due to confusion and fear around these invoices, as well as the hostile climate to which they contribute, there can often be erroneous perceptions that they also apply to private spaces,” said Casey. “It makes much more difficult for trans people to really know in these states what are their rights and are not, and can lead to much more affected prohibitions than the letter of the law provides it.”
Casey noted that there had been an increasing number of cases in which even the women cisgenres, who are not trans, were questioned in the toilet. For example, in May, two women filed a complaint for discrimination against a Boston hotel Where they say that a security guard has followed them in the bathroom and accused one of them of being a man. Neither the Massachusetts nor Boston have measures restricting the use of the bathrooms of trans people.
A different environment now than in 2016
The North Carolina General Assembly adopted HB 2 in response to a Charlotte order in 2016 which widened existing non-discrimination protections in the city to include LGBTQ persons. Expansion has specifically protected the law of trans persons to use the bathrooms that line up with their gender identity.
When HB 2 passed the same year, the backlash was fast and large -scale. Consequently direct of the law, Paypal announced that it would no longer open A new operations center in Charlotte, which would have included the investment of $ 3.6 million in the state. The NCAA has announced that it would not keep championship events in the state, and eminent musicians, including Bruce Springsteen, Ringo Starr, Demi Lovato, Nick Jonas and Maroon 5, all the performances have canceled, citing the law.
Michael Walden, a retirement professor at North Carolina State University who gave interviews on the boycotts when they occurred, said that the status of North Carolina as one of the first states to adopt such a law triggered more protest and attention to the issue and, therefore, companies had to quickly find how to react.
“When many companies have seen that there was a huge counterpoup, they did not want to be associated with this, which is understandable,” said Walden.
Recently, however, companies have probably “assessed that the environment is different,” he said.
“They observe certain demonstrations. They observe certain rallies and steps, etc., but nothing as we saw 10 years ago,” said Walden.
Trans rights have also become more and more politicized and painted as controversial. Walden has noted that in recent years, the North Carolina has joined the more than two dozen states that have promulgated laws prohibiting certain medical care related to transition for minors and prohibit trans students from Play in school sports teams who line up with their gender identity. None of these laws generated national reactions or a business world response in the way HB 2 did.
“My analysis would be that the average company does not want to take a stand on all of this, either pro or stupid, unless they think they really have to satisfy their customers or their investor base,” said Walden.
The LGBTQ rights landscape was also very different in 2016, the year after homosexual marriage has become legal on a national level, said Casey.
“Opponents of LGBTQ equality were really somehow launching and looking for a new way of continuing to use LGBTQ problems as a corner problem for a wider radical program, and bathroom prohibitions and religious exemptions were really the two things on which they were concentrated at that time, and both were relatively unsuccessful,” said Casey.
He underlined both the HB 2 and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which adopted in 2015 and led to Criticism of technology giants like Apple and Yelp. Following the potential commercial effects of Indiana could have on the state, legislators quickly changed the measurement To explicitly prohibit it to be used to justify discrimination.
More bathroom prohibitions are probably on the horizon. Fifteen states Considered them so far this year, including three which have succeeded in expanding their existing prohibitions, according to the American Civil Liberties Union. A judge Blocked the law of Montana In May, when a trial against this takes place.
A new broader version of the deceased prohibition by North Carolina could also be resurrected. Earlier this month, Governor Josh Stein, a Democrat, oppose his veto to a large -scale bill This would redefine sex in the state to recognize only birth of birth and prohibit Carolinians from the North Trans to change sex on their birth certificates and their driving licenses. The law explicitly requires dormitories in public school trips are separated according to birth of birth and could affect the bathrooms that Trans can use in schools and public buildings. Although Stein has opposed his veto to the bill, the Republicans of the General Assembly of the State could prevail over his vetos and Plan to try to do it when They meet on July 29.