Making amends: North Carolina governor rolls back some aspects of anti-LGBT law

North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory made a concession on a controversial new law known as House Bill 2 in an executive order signed Tuesday. Employment policy will now cover discrimination claims related to sexual orientation and gender identity.

House Bill 2 (HB2) is commonly known as the “bathroom bill” that limits anti-discrimination protections for the LGBT community and requires transgendered individuals use the bathrooms corresponding to their birth gender, not their identified gender. The law also prevented local governments from creating their own ordinances and legal protections for transgender people.

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However, Gov. McCrory claims to have had a change of heart.

“Simply put, I have listened to the people of North Carolina, and the people of North Carolina are entitled to both privacy and equality,” he said in a press release.

Executive Order Number 93 does not repeal the hotly contested bathroom and changing room aspects of the bill, but it does allow “municipalities to adopt ordinances prohibiting discrimination in house and real estate transactions” and other changes, such as requiring “each city, county or other local public entity to adopt goals for participation by minority businesses and to make good faith efforts to recruit minority participation in line with these goals.”

The bill also seeks legislation to reinstate the right to sue in state court for discrimination. This is a large problem with HB2 that was created by what appears to be a clerical error, according to the Atlantic.

But are McCrory’s actions too little too late? The American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina seems to think so, releasing a statement saying, “Governor McCrory’s actions today are a poor effort to save face after his sweeping attacks on the LGBT community, and they fall far short of correcting the damage done when he signed into law the harmful House Bill 2.”

McCrory still maintains the belief that a post-operative transgendered individual should use the bathroom of their birth gender, rather than use one corresponding to their identified gender.