It is a privilege to pee. Repeat after me: it is a privilege to pee. Especially in North Carolina, it is a privilege to be able to use the bathroom that you are comfortable in. Moreover, it is a privilege to not have to worry about your gender or sexual orientation when applying to jobs, finding housing or thinking about your personal safety on a daily basis.

The recent bill passed by the North Carolina Legislative body under the tutelage of Gov. Pat McCrory, House Bill 2 is a two-pronged approach designed to subjugate the LGBT+ community, and more specifically, the trans community. My communities.

First, the legislation mandates that local ordinances that do not align with the state’s nondiscrimination laws for the workplace and public accommodations are now banned. Therefore, because the state does not have any laws in place to ban discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender, this prevents cities and local ordinances from implementing policies to protect these individuals in these settings. 

Second, this policy requires that you use the bathroom and locker room determined by the sex listed on your birth certificate. It seems that to most, this portion of the bill does not change anything, but consider that it alienates and hurts transgender people by prohibiting them from using their gender-appropriate restroom. For binary transgender people, this can be changed by sex-reassignment surgery and an arduous amount of bureaucracy. This harms transgender people who have not had sex-reassignment surgery, whether they intend to or not, and gender non-conforming people.

This bill was conceived when the city of Charlotte pushed for a local ordinance to protect LGBT+ individuals and fill a gap in the state legislature by banning discrimination against LGBT+ people in some settings. Almost immediately, North Carolina’s Republican governor, McCrory, and largely Republican legislative body passed into law the statute that overturns Charlotte’s policy and disadvantages the already-marginalized individuals in the queer community. 

I’m trans. My pronouns are they/them/theirs. To me, HB2 is an act of violent transphobia and homophobia built upon prejudice and bigotry. In the creation of this bill, it is abundantly clear to me that the majority of the North Carolina General Assembly and McCrory are hugely ignorant about what exactly it means to be transgender, and how the policies that they enact affect those who live in their state. 

House Speaker Tim Moore said, “It’s a public safety issue,” citing the myth that men will enter women’s bathrooms pretending to be trans in order to assault women. Yet, prior to this bill, transgender people were using the bathrooms of their choice without causing harm to others. Newsflash: transgender people are going to continue using their bathrooms the way they always have. Is the General Assembly suggesting that we have security guards checking birth certificates at each restroom to ensure that we’re using the right bathroom? Of course not — that’s unreasonable and a waste of money.

Furthermore, North Carolina already has laws to protect women from assault; another one will not protect women more. If the General Assembly truly valued the lives of women, they would have implemented ongoing educational and safety programs designed to prevent assault and provide support to survivors of sexual assault. 

HB2 affects NC State as a community because this piece of legislature affects the entire state; enacting these policies demonstrates on a national scale that North Carolina is not progressive, inclusive or interested in protecting the civil rights of its citizens. For years now, we’ve been known as the “Rip Van Winkle State,” and this policy only strengthens that idea. Yes, gay marriage is legal here, despite the state’s best efforts, but there is nothing there to protect us from people who will discriminate against and do harm to LGBT+ individuals.

NC State, we can be better than this. We can protest against state legislation, vote for community members who have an established public trust and interest in vying for a more progressive state and involve ourselves in the politics of changing North Carolina Policy. We owe it to our own community to promote inclusion and tolerance on campus and to directly demonstrate solidarity toward marginalized peoples both on campus and across the state. Change starts here and now.