All North Carolinians need to write to their legislators to oppose passage of all four of these House Bills!

These four North Carolina House Bills were brought to our attention by the North Carolina Values Coalition: 

• House Bill 449 – Prohibit Defense Based on Sex and Gender – This bill prohibits (in homicide and assault prosecutions) the discovery of, perception of, or belief about another person's actual or perceived sex, gender, gender identity, or sexual orientation, whether or not accurate, specifying the same is not provocation negating malice as an element of murder. Specifies that the statute does not preclude the admission of evidence of a victim's or witness's conduct, behavior, or statements that is relevant or otherwise admissible.
• House Bill 450 – Equality for All – With respect to housing, employment, public accommodations, credit, insurance, education, and jury service, it makes gender identity and sexual orientation a protected class and prohibits discrimination on such bases in all of these areas.  Requires nonpublic schools, charter schools, community colleges, school boards, and the University of North Carolina from discriminating against such students in admissions, enrollment, and education.  Opens all women-designated bathrooms and changing facilities to transgender girls.
• House Bill 451 – Full Repeal of HB2 – Repeals Article 81A - Preemption of Regulation of Access to Multiple Occupancy Restrooms.

• 143-761 - Preemption of regulation of access to multiple occupancy restrooms, showers, or changing facilities.

State agencies, boards, offices, departments, institutions, branches of government, including the University of North Carolina and the North Carolina Community College System, and political subdivisions of the State, including local boards of education, are preempted from regulation of access to multiple occupancy restrooms, showers, or changing facilities, except in accordance with an act of the General Assembly.

• House Bill 452 – Mental Health Protection Act – This bill prohibits conversion therapy on any individual under the age of 18 or who is disabled.  “Conversion therapy” is defined as:

Any practices or treatments that seek to change an individual's sexual orientation or gender identity, including efforts to (i) change behaviors and gender expressions or (ii) eliminate or reduce sexual or romantic attractions or feelings towards individuals of the same gender.  Conversion therapy shall not include counseling that provides assistance to an individual undergoing gender transition or counseling that provides acceptance, support, and understanding of an individual or facilitates an individual's coping, social support, and identity exploration and development, including sexual-orientation-neutral interventions to prevent or address unlawful conduct or unsafe sexual practices, as long as such counseling does not seek to change an individual's sexual orientation or gender identity.

NC Values Coalition posits that these bills: “seek to implement coercive gender identity and sexual orientation laws within the State of North Carolina.”  They also state these bills:

• Create unfair playing fields for girls in athletics, forcing them to compete against biological males who have an unfair advantage physically.
• Threaten the right of parents to raise their children consistently with their beliefs, instead mandating curriculum in schools that affirms and promotes gender ideology and depriving parents of the right to refuse harmful medical experiments that alter the God-given sex of their children.
• Harm efforts to find loving homes for kids in our nation’s overloaded foster care system by forcing faith-based adoption and foster care providers to violate their beliefs or stop their important work.

To read more, please go to the NC Values Coalition website:  https://www.ncvalues.org.   

All North Carolinians need to write to their legislators to oppose passage of all four of them!

I hope this is of value!

Demetria Carter