Florida is targeting LGTQ+ kids with laws that would shame, bully, and stigmatize them. It is not about parental rights; it’s about censorship and mandates of whether public schools can allow their teachers the right to teach or for trans kids to participate in sports. Teachers, who already are stressed, are now put at risk of legal action for even discussing gender issues in the classroom. What’s happening in Florida is only one example of what more than 200 proposed laws in other states are doing in the “culture wars” agenda of the radical right. It is part of the strategy to use gender identity as a wedge issue in their political gamesmanship.

Remy Fennel, one of 48 trans, non-binary, persons of color murdered last year in the US. She was killed on April 15th in Charlotte.

North Carolina has a hodge-podge system of discriminatory laws and ordinances even though it has backed off from the worst days of HB-2, which was a backlash against a local Charlotte ordinance several years ago. That legislation also created an economic backlash that caused the North Carolina General Assembly to modify it to a less discriminatory transgender requirement. We still do not have a state law that protects employees in the private sector from discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, but employees of state and local government are protected. Ordinances in 15 local municipal and county government now offer various levels of protection.

The ordinances in Raleigh and Wake County offer protections against discrimination based on “sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression” as well as national origin and ancestry, color, ethnicity, religious belief, disability and things like veteran status or the wearing of natural hair or hairstyles. The protections apply in places of public accommodation like restaurants and hotels as well as in employment.