North Carolina’s HB2.0: Proposed Changes Retain Transgender Discrimination
When passed HB2 codified a host of egregious legal realities not even including its most-recognized targeting of the transgender community for discrimination in places of public accommodation. HB2 also stagnates local level minimum wage legislation as well as removes all legal mechanisms within the state of North Carolina to legally sue for any type of discrimination.
The Charlotte Observer reported on the proposed changes to HB2 saying:
For example, the revisions appear to reinstate and even broaden LGBT and transgender protections on hiring, firing and other workplace issues, Gresham said. But it excludes bathroom access from being classified as discrimination.
The draft would make it easier for people who’ve had reassignment surgery to be recognized by requiring a “certificate of sex reassignment,” not necessarily a birth certificate, to prove their new gender. It would also increase penalties for violating people’s privacy in bathrooms or locker rooms.
HB2 would still target and discriminate against transgender men and women with the added detriment of being forced to obtain sex reassignment surgery and then register that surgery just to qualify for a modicum of legal protection under state law. That requirement would leave a majority of the transgender community without protections as many trans persons either choose not to undergo reassignment surgery and/or cannot afford it.
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