Re: bill banning males from playing on females' teams"The concern is growing across our nation and across our state that biological males are starting to participate on women's and girls' sports teams, which is patently unfair – and as we've seen in a number of instances, especially in North Carolina, is just very unsafe." Re: bill preventing sex-altering treatments for minors"This is an effort to just protect the health and well-being of our minors, because they are frankly just too young to make decisions about surgeries and drugs that will sterilize them and remove perfectly healthy body parts …." John Rustin |
GOP supermajorities in the House and Senate enacted — over Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper’s opposition — a bill that's aimed at preventing doctors from administering drugs and surgeries to young people who believe they want to change their sex.
The law takes effect immediately. But minors who had begun treatment before Aug. 1 may continue receiving that care if their doctors deem it medically necessary and their parents consent.
North Carolina becomes the 22nd state to enact legislation restricting or banning gender-manipulation procedures for those under 18. But most face legal challenges, and local LGBTQ+ rights advocates vow to take the ban to court. The Senate voted 27-18 to complete the veto override after the House voted 74-45 earlier. Two House Democrats joined all present Republicans in supporting the override bid.
Parents know best
"What we have seen out of North Carolina with the legislature overriding three vetoes is a recognition that … we need to be protecting our kids, whether that is protecting fairness for young women on the playing field or protecting children from dangerous and experimental gender transition drugs and surgeries. State after state after state is looking at the science, hearing the stories of young people impacted by this gender ideology and taking meaningful steps to do it." "I think we are up to about 18 states now that are enacting laws to ensure that parents and not the government are making decisions about their child's education, about when they are exposed to certain ideas and being able to make things like medical decisions and educational and religious decisions affecting their child." Matt Sharp, attorney |
Republican Sen. Joyce Krawiec, the bill's primary sponsor, argued the state has a responsibility to protect children from receiving potentially irreversible procedures before they are old enough to make their own informed medical decisions.
Earlier, the Senate and House voted minutes apart to override another veto of a bill that limits what teachers can teach with regards to LGBTQ matters in the early grades. The law now requires that public school teachers in most circumstances alert parents before they call a student by a different name or pronoun. It also bans instruction about gender identity and sexuality in K-4 classrooms.
Bill sponsor Sen. Amy Galey, an Alamance County Republican, said parents have a right to know details about their children's education. “Parents need to be brought into the conversation from the very beginning, not treated with suspicion or as the source of that anguish,” she said.
Both chambers also voted Wednesday to override Cooper’s veto of another bill banning males from playing on girls' teams from middle and high school through college. It, too, immediately became law.
The House kicked off the day's rush of votes with the athletics bill, and the Senate completed that override soon after.
Recent high school graduate Payton McNabb, of Murphy, said she's living proof that the law is needed to protect the safety and well-being of female athletes.
“The veto of this bill was not only a veto on women’s rights, but a slap in the face to every female in the state,” said McNabb, who says she suffered a concussion and neck injury last year after a transgender athlete hit her in the head with a volleyball during a school match.
Editor's note: Sidebars added after story originally posted.
