On Wednesday, North Carolina lawmakers voted to override Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto of several bills surrounding irreversible, experimental transgender care, transgender athletes, and teaching about sexual orientation and gender identity in schools.
The pieces of legislation are H.B. 574, the Fairness in Women's Sports Act, SS.B. 49, the Parents' Bill of Rights, and H.B. 808, Gender Transition/Minors.
According to The Hill, the North Carolina House voted 74-45 Wednesday to override H.B. 808. The state Senate later voted 27-18 to pass a ban on irreversible, experimental transgender care for young people. Lawmakers later overrode Cooper’s veto on H.B. 574 to protect women’s sports from male-bodied athletes who identify as “transgender women.”
“This is just a mean-spirited bill,” State Democratic Rep. Marcia Morey, a former Olympic swimmer, reportedly called the bill “mean-spirited.”
“We’re not talking about world-class athletes,” she claimed.
Last month, when Cooper vetoed the bills, he issued statements around each one in a press release.
"Parents are the most essential educators for their children and their involvement must be encouraged, but this bill will scare teachers into silence by injecting fear and uncertainty into classrooms,” he said of S.B. 49. “This “Don’t Say Gay” bill also hampers the important and sometimes lifesaving role of educators as trusted advisers when students have nowhere else to turn.”
Regarding H.B. 808, Cooper stated: "A doctor’s office is no place for politicians, and North Carolina should continue to let parents and medical professionals make decisions about the best way to offer gender care for their children. Ordering doctors to stop following approved medical protocols sets a troubling precedent and is dangerous for vulnerable youth and their mental health. The government should not make itself both the parent and the doctor."
As for H.B. 574, Cooper said “we don’t need politicians inflaming their political culture wars by making broad, uninformed decisions about an extremely small number of vulnerable children that are already handled by a robust system that relies on parents, schools and sports organizations.”
In April, Townhall reported how a state lawmaker in North Carolina switched from the Democratic Party to Republican Party, giving the House a GOP supermajority.
State Rep. Tricia Cotham represents a Democrat-leaning district near Charlotte. When she made the decision to join the GOP, she said in a press conference that her party became “unrecognizable.”
“The modern day Democratic has become unrecognizable to me and to so many others throughout this state and this country. The party wants to villainize anyone who has free thought, free judgment, has solutions, who wants to get to work to better our state, not just sit in a meeting and have a workshop after a workshop, but really work with individuals to get things done because that’s what real public servants do,” Cotham said. “If you don’t do exactly what the Democrats want you to do, they will try to bully you. They will try to cast you aside.”
At the federal level, House Republicans have been working on legislation to protect women’s sports, parents’ rights, and protecting children from transgender care.