On Mar. 23, North Carolina passed an abhorrent anti-LGBT law known as House Bill 2 (H.B.2). The hateful law bans transgender people from using any and all public bathrooms that do not align with the gender assigned to them at birth.

“I’ve been harassed in school before, but it wasn’t in a bathroom and definitely not be a trans person,” an anonymous Neshaminy junior stated.

The law also effectively repealed other laws that protected LGBT individuals from sexual orientation and gender based discrimination.

On his official website, Gov. Pat McCrory defended his stance on H.B. 2, saying that “The basic expectation of privacy in the most personal of settings, a restroom or locker room, for each gender was violated by government overreach and intrusion…This radical breach of trust and security under the false argument of equal access…This new government regulation defies common sense and basic community norms by allowing, for example, a man to use a woman’s bathroom, shower or locker room.”

However, Gov. McCrory failed to acknowledge that trans people are not putting cisgender people in danger by using the bathroom or locker room that matches their identity. Trans people are more likely to be the victims of harassment or violence than a cis person, not just in bathrooms either.

A Media Matters publication concluded that allowing transgender people into bathrooms matching their identity did not lead to an increase in sexual harassment and/or assault.

“The law is the result of the narrow viewpoint of a group of uneducated lawmakers,” Neshaminy teacher and Spectrum advisor Sean Daly said.

A 2014 study by the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs reported that two thirds of the hate motivated homicide victims were transgender women of color.

“We hear from Republican lawmakers that a sexual predator has been waiting for the moment when putting on a dress and some lipstick will give him the access he needs to assault women and girls in bathrooms…This bill has nothing to do with the protection of women and girls in bathrooms and everything to do with how transgender individuals make the members of the North Carolina General Assembly uncomfortable. If this were really about the protection of women and girls then we would be hearing about tougher crackdowns on catcalling and men grabbing at women on subways, buses, and bars,” Melissa McLaren wrote in her Huffington Post article “Governor McCrory is a Bully”.

This law is absolutely unconstitutional and never should’ve been passed.