A lawsuit filed against North Carolina Gov. Patrick McCrory overnight Monday blasts a contentious policy that prevents municipalities from passing LGBT protections.
Joaquin Carcaño and Payton McGarry — both transgender men — are among five plaintiffs targeting McCrory and state Attorney General Roy Cooper III to claim that the Public Facilities Privacy and Security Act, which was rushed into law on March 24, exposes LGBT residents to “invidious discrimination.”
APPLE, GOOGLE, AND FACEBOOK OBJECT TO NEW NORTH CAROLINA ANTI-LGBT LAW
“Lawmakers made no attempt to cloak their actions in a veneer of neutrality, instead openly and virulently attacking transgender people, who were falsely portrayed as predatory and dangerous to others,” according to documents filed in the Middle District of North Carolina.
The Republican majority state General Assembly approved the bill to stop what McCrory described as a “breach of basic privacy and etiquette.”
With McCrory’s signature, the policy went into effect and blocked statewide anti-discrimination policies as the city of Charlotte tried to pass a LGBT-friendly measure.
KING: NORTH CAROLINA LGBT LAW MATTERS FOR EVERYONE
The lawsuit focuses on higher education and asserts the bill will jeopardize $4.5 billion in federal funding for allegedly violating Title IX.
House Bill 2 prevents transgender men and women from using public restrooms that reflect their gender identity and nullifies policies that would have prohibited discrimination against sexual orientation. It is considered a blow to recent gains by the LGBT community, following last year’s historic marriage equality ruling.
The new law is a major concern to McGarry, a 20-year-old business administration and accounting major at the University of North Carolina-Greensboro. Just as the student found acceptance after starting hormone therapy in April 2014, he now fears that could change, according to the lawsuit filed by the ACLU for North Carolina and Lambda Legal.
“Expelling him from the multiple occupancy restrooms and locker rooms available to all other male students is stigmatizing and marks him as different and lesser than other men,” the lawsuit states.
Carcaño, a 27-year-old who works at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, began using men’s restrooms in late 2015 as part of his transition to living as a man. He had a mastectomy in January and is growing facial hair after starting hormone treatment in May.
The new law limits McGarry and Carcaño to bathrooms associated with their biological gender.
Carcaño, who oversees health programs for Latino transgender men and women in North Carolina, said the policy prevents him from using single-sex restrooms in his building and at the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services, a building he frequents as part of his job.
Angela Gilmore, a 52-year-old law professor at the North Carolina Central University, is another plaintiff in the lawsuit.
She and her wife fear the bill will jeopardize their dreams of retiring in North Carolina, should discrimination against gay men and women run rampant.
