Mayor Jennifer Roberts told the Charlotte Observer that the Charlotte City Council only agreed to rescind its nondiscrimination bathroom ordinance in December 2016 because state leadership vowed to repeal the state’s notorious bathroom bill, House Bill 2.
The bill requires transgender people to use the bathroom that corresponds to the sex on their birth certificates and was passed by the state in 2016 in part to preempt Charlotte’s ordinance, which supports transgender people in their use of public bathrooms that correspond to their gender identities.
In a unanimous vote, the council repealed the ordinance within hours of Democratic Gov.-elect Roy Cooper reportedly calling Mayor Roberts and council members with assurances that North Carolina Senate Republican Leader Phil Berger and House Speaker Tim Moore had committed to repealing the bill, if Charlotte would rescind its ordinance.
However, even though Charlotte rescinded the ordinance, the North Carolina legislature failed to repeal the bill. No repeal was considered in the state house of representatives, although its Senate voted. That version of the repeal included additional language that puts a moratorium on local bathroom ordinance efforts.
A few days later, the Charlotte City Council voted to undo amendments it had made to its non-discrimination ordinances. (Editor’s Note Jan. 6, 2017: Initially, the city council left in protections for employees of businesses that contract with the state, but a second vote on the ordinance repealed that amendment along with a stipulation that the ordinance would go back into effect if the state did not repeal HB2 by Dec. 31, 2016.)
Senate Republicans put forward a bill that would repeal HB2, but put in place a block on ordinances for six months.
Community Concerns
According to the Observer, reaction in the community is mixed. Many of the transgender community and human rights activists are not pleased the city symbolically rescinded what they consider to be a protection.
“I don’t think Charlotte needed to do anything,” said Scott Bishop, a Charlotte resident and a board member of Human Rights Campaign
City leadership is concerned about how the dispute will stymie the city’s progress.
“We want to be a 21st-century city that can compete,” Roberts said. “The real issue is that people who are coming to stay in our hotels or come to eat in our restaurants don’t want the owners of those hotels and restaurants to turn them away because they don’t support what they call ‘the gay lifestyle.’”
It’s also a turf battle where local authority and a city’s right to decide it’s future is questioned.
State Rep. Chris Sgro of Greensboro, who also leads a gay-rights group called Equality NC, questioned the state putting the city council in a position to have to rescind an ordinance already been nullified by the legislature.
They’re playing the blame game over and over again. All we want to do is let Charlotte be Charlotte. And let our cities thrive and prosper. And be laboratories of innovation and creativity and talent that we know they can be if they’re not preempted by the state every time they try to do something innovative,” said Roberts.
Human rights groups and proponents of the state’s bathroom bill are expected to continue lobbying the legislature over the law’s repeal, and a state commission may be appointed to study the issue if and when the state acts and the city also rescinds its bathroom ordinance.
Read the original coverage on the Charlotte Observer’s website.
