ACLU Sues Over Controversial North Carolina Transgender

Bathroom Law
The defendants are Gov. McCrory, Attorney General Roy Cooper III and W. Louis Bissette Jr., the
chairman of the Board of Governors of the University of North Carolina.
A push by Republican leaders in the North Carolina General Assembly helped pass the law in an
attempt to overturn a measure the city of Charlotte implemented last month that allowed
transgender people to use the restroom aligned with their gender identity.

The law, approved last week by the state

legislature and signed by Gov. Pat
McCrory, bans people from using
bathrooms that don't match the sex
indicated on their birth certificate. It
also prevents North Carolina cities and
counties from establishing ordinances
that extend protections covering sexual
orientation and gender identity to
restaurants, hotels and stores.
The suit, which asks for an injunction to
keep the law from being enforced,
argues that North Carolina lawmakers
are "explicitly writing discrimination
against transgender people into state
law."
The American Civil Liberties Union and
advocacy groups filed a federal lawsuit today in response to a controversial North Carolina law that
opponents say discriminates against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities.
After signing the law last week, McCrory defended its intent in a statement, saying Charlotte's
ordinance on bathrooms was a "radical breach of trust" and the new North Carolina law would "stop
this breach of basic privacy and etiquette."
Many corporations and business leaders across the country have condemned the law. The ACLU's
lawsuit was filed in conjunction with other advocacy groups that threatened legal action in response
to the North Carolina bill in order to protect gay and transgender North Carolinians against
discrimination.

The groups further pressed that lawmakers introduced and passed the law in a "process rife with
procedural irregularities," and made no attempt to cloak the discriminatory focus.
"The basic expectation of privacy in the most personal of settings, a restroom or locker room, for
each gender was violated by government overreach and intrusion by the mayor and city council of
Charlotte," McCrory said.
The plaintiffs in the case are Joaqu?n Carca?o, a transgender man and public health expert at the
University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill; Payton Grey McGarry, a 20-year-old transgender man and
student at the University of North Carolina-Greensboro; and Angela Gilmore, a lesbian who is the
associate dean for academic affairs at North Carolina Central University. The suit argues that by
requiring the plaintiffs to use bathrooms that don't align with their gender identity, the state is
violating their civil rights.
"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," the lawsuit reads.