The U.S. Department of Justice filed an injunction Tuesday, July 5, asking the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina to block the enforcement of the state’s controversial “bathroom bill,” found in section 1.3 of House Bill 2. 

The DOJ issued a 70-page legal brief with its motion, outlining why this part of HB2 will negatively impact North Carolinians. It argues in that brief that this part of the bill “causes significant and irreparable physical, psychological, economic, social and stigmatic harm to transgender people.”

The DOJ went on to describe how “baseless” the cause of implementing this part of HB2 was.

The brief said that “[The] Defendants’ purported privacy and public safety interests in enacting and implementing HB2 are factually baseless and legally insufficient to justify this discrimination.”

The defendants in this case include Gov. Pat McCrory, The North Carolina Department of Public Safety, the University of North Carolina and the UNC Board of Governors. 

In May, Attorney General Loretta Lynch said the department was working to stop HB2 and announced the DOJ was suing North Carolina and the UNC System. 

Lynch likened the legislation to old Jim Crow laws in a speech last May, and called the bathroom bill “state-sponsored discrimination.” 

Also in May, the DOJ and the Department of Education sent a letter to states, including North Carolina, outlining the federal government’s interpretation of transgender discrimination and telling those states they were in violation of federal law. 

Earlier this spring, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the Department of Education could interpret the Civil Rights Act to include gender identity. 

The DOJ cited the Fourth Circuit Court’s decision that the law is unconstitutional, according to TWC News, and said that it is likely the ruling will be upheld.

There is no word thus far on when a judge will rule on the DOJ’s request.