Last week federal judge Thomas Schroeder blocked the University of North Carolina from enforcing the state’s HB 2 law’s transgender bathroom restriction only in the cases of the three plaintiffs, two students at UNC and a North Carolina Central University law professor.
Schroeder says he did not find North Carolina’s argument that HB2 will protect the privacy and safety of cis-gendered people to be rooted in concrete evidence.
Joaquin Carcaño, one of the plaintiffs working at UNC Chapel Hill, celebrates this victory as he announced, “Today is a great day for me and hopefully this is the start to chipping away at the injustice of HB2 that is harming thousands of other transgender people who call North Carolina home.”
The American Civil Liberties Union, Lamba Legal and Equality North Carolina filed the lawsuit in March, arguing that HB2 is a “cruel, insulting, and unconstitutional law”.
Since the state passed the bill in March, HB2 has arguably become the most widely recognized anti-LGBT law in the United States. One part of the law requires that schools, universities and other government operated facilities must ensure that individuals use the bathroom matching the sex on their birth certificate. The law also forbids cities and towns from passing laws that would prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.
