Nikolai Mather: Kyle – thank you so much for joining us. So tell us about this bill. If it's passed, what new restrictions would it introduce?
Kyle Ingram: Yeah, so this bill should be very familiar to North Carolinians. It's quite similar to HB2, which roiled the state when it was first introduced in 2016. It seeks to restrict transgender people's access to bathrooms in public buildings.
This one's a little different than HB2 in 2016 – at the time, that one was a bit more widespread of a bill. It dealt with state government buildings writ large, and the one that was introduced here in the legislature pares that down just a little bit. It would apply to public schools, including universities, as well as jails, domestic violence centers and rape crisis centers that receive state funding.
NM: But no private businesses, correct?
KI: At this point, there's nothing in the bill that would affect private businesses.
NM: Gotcha. Not quite HB2, but in that same vein. There's also a section on ID laws – so right now in North Carolina, if you're trans, you can request a new birth certificate or a new driver's license with a corrected gender marker. But that bill would change that, correct?
KI: Yeah, this bill would remove the ability of transgender people to do either of those things. It says that the birth certificates that a person has to correspond with their biological sex assigned at birth. As it currently stands, like you mentioned, a transgender person who gets that [sex reassignment] surgery is able to send a request to the state for a new birth certificate. And this bill just strikes that language from the state law. It removes the ability to send in that request, and it also states that driver's licenses have to reflect the biological sex that someone was assigned at birth. They can't reflect their gender identity or any changes to their gender that they've had since they were born.
NM: So if this bill is passed, do we know yet what would happen to the people who have already made those changes? Like, does the bill say whether or not they would have to change those documents back?
KI: So, I've tried to talk to one of the bill sponsors about this and several other questions. Senator Vickie Sawyer, out of Iredell County, sponsored this bill. She sponsored other legislation dealing with transgender people in the past. She successfully brought a bill in 2023 to ban transgender minors from playing women's sports. I tried to catch her in a committee hearing yesterday. She said she wasn't prepared to talk about the bill yet. I've sent her and the other sponsor [Republican Senator Brad Overcash] a list of questions, including, "What would happen to transgender people currently who changed their birth certificate?" And I've not gotten an answer.
I will say: if you look at the bill, in that specific section about the birth certificate changes, it says that it would apply to any request for a new birth certificate received after the bill is enacted. So that would lead me to believe that trans people who have currently changed their birth certificate would be able to keep that.
NM: You and I were still in high school when HB 2 passed. It's been nine years since North Carolina passed the first trans bathroom bill in the United States. What do you think has changed about the political landscape since then?
KI: Yeah, I mean, when HB2 passed in 2016, there was a massive backlash in North Carolina. Analysts at the time expected that we were going to lose billions of dollars in revenue from lost business. You had celebrities talking about how offensive they found this legislation to be. And even Donald Trump himself at the time said that he thought that the bill was unnecessary, though he later changed his mind on that.
But now we find ourselves in an environment where Republican lawmakers across the country for years now have been introducing similar legislation targeting trans people: trans people in bathrooms, trans people in sports, the ability to talk about gender identity to people in schools. And thirteen states have now enacted similar legislation to the one that has been filed here. All similar bathroom bills. So the tide of the country seems to have really turned against the transgender community in this way.
NM: Well, how have North Carolina Democrats responded to this bill? Does the party seem, you know, pretty united on it, or is there a potential for a veto override?
KI: I think some of them are still wrapping their heads around it. I mean, it's only been one day, as we speak, since the bill has been introduced. But it was somewhat of a coincidence that yesterday, some Democrats had already planned a press conference to speak on a slate of pro-reproductive health and pro-LGBTQ bills that they'd filed in the legislature. And they took that opportunity to speak a little bit about this new bathroom bill. Senator Julie Mayfield grew tearful when she said that we should not return to the days of HB2 in North Carolina. You also saw the chair of the North Carolina Democratic Party, Anderson Clayton, send out a press release yesterday evening denouncing this bill, saying that it was HB2 2.0, and that it was an attempt to distract and divide North Carolinians.
So you've seen Democrats speak out against it. But Democrats find themselves in a very precarious situation in the legislature right now, where in the House, if we did get to a veto override, it only takes one House Democrat to defect or be absent from the legislature in order for them to successfully override a veto from the governor.
NM: I guess we'll have to see. But for now, what are the next steps for this bill? Could it pass as quickly as HB2?
KI: I don't know. Republicans have not wanted to talk about this so far. You know, we have a House session coming up as we speak where we're going to try to ask the speaker about it, and if this is something [he'd] like to see go forward, but we have gotten no sense at all from leadership on if this is something they're going to push quickly or deliberate on.
Generally, the track would be that this would go through a few committees before it reaches a floor vote. I imagine if it does come to a floor vote, Republicans will have no problem passing it in both chambers, but again, it will come to that likely veto override from Governor Josh Stein.
NM: That was Kyle Ingram from the News and Observer. Kyle, thank you for your reporting.
KI: Thanks so much for having me.
Read Kyle Ingram's coverage of SB 516 here.
