North Carolina police departments aren’t enforcing bathroom law

The nationwide controversy over North Carolina’s discriminatory, anti-trans and anti-LGBT HB2 took an interesting twist on NPR’s “All Things Considered” this week. Robert Siegel, a host of the show, asked Damien Graham, the communications director for the City of Raleigh, “Since HB2 is on the books in North Carolina, at least for right now, we wondered how it was being enforced across the state. It turns out it's not.”

Graham replied, “The bill doesn't speak to enforcement nor penalty.

“There was certainly a time period where we had to dig into the bill and have our attorneys look at it long and hard, but because, again, there wasn't any specific language that spoke to enforcement or even penalty, there wasn't clarity about what to do about it.

“And so as a result, you know, if we get a complaint, we will respond to that complaint just as we would any other complaint, but we wouldn't have a means of penalizing someone. We couldn't arrest someone, for example, for using potentially the wrong restroom.”

Siegel followed up by asking, “Have they received any complaints in Raleigh about who's using which restroom?”

Graham replied, “None that I’m aware of, no.”

Siegel pointed out that NPR had contacted 10 police departments in the state, “Most of them didn't want to talk about this. But those we reached in Chapel Hill, Greensboro and Asheville confirm that they had also gotten zero complaints.”

The basis of the requirement that transgender persons must use bathrooms that “conform with their biological sex” is what MediaMatters calls a myth: “That sexual predators will exploit nondiscrimination laws to sneak into women’s restrooms by pretending to be transgender.”

Their lead continues, “The ‘bathroom predator’ myth has been repeatedly debunked -- by experts and government officials in 16 states and the District of Columbia, and school administrators in 23 school districts and four universities. Despite overwhelming evidence, many media outlets continue to uncritically repeat the debunked myth peddled by anti-LGBT groups.”

MediaMatters has repeatedly revealed the truth of the matter. During the battle over HERO (the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance) they wrote, “Fox News anchor Mike Huckabee urged fans to bombard Houston city officials with opposition to a proposed non-discrimination ordinance, baselessly asserting that the measure would  ‘be unsafe for woman and children.’

“This isn't the first time Huckabee has resorted to hysterical, factually groundless arguments to crusade against basic non-discrimination protections. In 2012, he condemned a proposed non-discrimination ordinance in Kansas by stoking fears about inappropriate bathroom and locker room behavior. Conservatives relied on such fear-mongering in their unsuccessful campaigns against transgender protections in Maryland and California, even though states and localities that have already implemented transgender protections haven't witnessed spikes in sexual assault in restrooms and locker rooms. Such facts notwithstanding, opponents of the Houston ordinance have taken to calling it the ‘Sexual Predator Protection Act.’”

MediaMatters quoted public officials as saying sexual predators pretending to be transgender. “Not even remotely” a problem (Minneapolis); “Zero allegations” (Oregon); and “It’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.” (Baltimore PD).

In addition to the allegations of sexual predators being completely disproven, there is the question of how police departments would enforce the law in any case. In the NPR segment, Ari Shapiro, also a host, asked Christina Hallinsge, the public information officer for the Asheville PD, how they would do enforcement.

Hallinsge replied, “The only way for us be able to enforce HB2 would to actually have officers posted outside of public restrooms requesting someone's birth certificate. And I know for certain that we could not do that. That would take everyone that we have on staff. It would take them off the streets, off patrol and having to put them at bathrooms.”

It appears that, in the midst of the national debate over the undeniably discriminatory nature of North Carolina’s HB2, one question is almost never asked: How are you going to enforce this law?

And another quandary, which is being pushed by trans advocates: When a trans man enters a women’s restroom because of the “F” on his birth certificate, or a trans woman enters a men’s restroom because her birth certificate says “M”, what is going to happen then?  

The Gayly – May 12, 2016 @ 1 p.m.