Governor, Senate, House Reach Agreement to Repeal HB2, Protect Bathroom Safety and Privacy

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On Thursday, March 30, the General Assembly passed and Gov. Cooper signed into law a compromise that repeals the law known as “HB2.” This new law continues to protect bathroom safety and privacy and keeps men out of women’s bathrooms, locker rooms and changing facilities.

Specifically, this compromise does three things:

  1. Repeals HB2.
  2. Protects safety and privacy in bathrooms and shower facilities by leaving regulation of multi-occupancy facilities to the state – which returns us to the way things were prior to passage of Charlotte’s bathroom ordinance.
  3. Implements a moratorium on local ordinances similar to Charlotte’s and dealing with other issues besides bathrooms until December 1, 2020.

For more than a year, Senate Republicans have led the fight to protect bathroom privacy and ensure women and young girls are not forced to share bathrooms and locker rooms with grown men. And as former Gov. McCrory explained here, we did not compromise on those protections. The radical bathroom policy proposed in Charlotte and supported by the far left is prohibited under this law.

But unfortunately, because of the misleading attacks of far-left special interest groups and the unwillingness of the media to tell both sides of the story, “HB2” had become a distraction from North Carolina’s success story of outpacing the rest of the United States in job growth and being a national leader in tax cuts and reform. Our recent national rankings tell the tale:

  • Most dramatic improvement in the Business Tax Climate Index ’s history—from 44th to 15th in one year (Tax Foundation 2015)
  • No. 1 Most Competitive State (Site Selection 2015)
  • No. 2 Best Business Climate (Site Selection 2015)
  • No. 2 Best State for Business (Forbes 2016 )
  • No. 3 Best State for Business (Chief Executive 2016)
  • No. 3 Lowest State & Local Tax Burden on Business (E&Y/COST 2015)
  • No. 4 Best Regulatory Environment (Forbes 2015)
  • No. 5 Lowest Business Costs (Forbes 2015)
  • No. 5 America's Top States for Business (CNBC 2016)
  • Winner of Site Selection’s 2016 Prosperity Cup (Site Selection 2016)
  • Top 12 Destinations for World Travel – Raleigh, NC (Forbes 2017)

These rankings haven’t been reported on in many local newspapers – because regardless of these outstanding accomplishments, as long as “HB2” was still on the books, it was the only thing the media was willing to talk about.

Compromise is difficult for both sides, but this law fully protects bathroom safety and privacy, and removes the distraction of “HB2” once and for all.


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  • Will Tomlinson
    published this page in News 2017-04-28 17:04:56 -0400