A coalition of organizations is challenging a new North Carolina law that overturns local anti-discrimination ordinances and requires people to use a bathroom that corresponds to their biological gender.
The American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina, Equality North Carolina and Lambda Legal filed suit in March on behalf of Joaquín Carcaño, a transgender man and public health expert at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill; Payton Grey McGarry, a transgender man and student at the University of North Carolina-Greensboro and Angela Gilmore, a lesbian and North Carolina Central University’s associate dean for academic affairs.
The lawsuit charges that the rapid process used to pass the measure was “rife with procedural irregularities.”
“[T]he legislature introduced and passed H.B. 2 in a matter of hours, and the governor signed the bill into law that same day,” the lawsuit claims. “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 suit, Carcaño v. McCrory, also states that the law is blatantly unconstitutional because it violates equal protection rights.
