North Carolina Legislature Overturns Veto on Bills Targeting Transgender Health Care and Athletes

The North Carolina legislature on Wednesday banned gender-affirming medical care for transgender minors, barred transgender women and girls from competing on women’s sports teams, and banned classroom instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity. He voted to override Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto on three bills that limit leadership. .

Mr. Cooper vetoed all three bills last month, writing in his veto message that “the Republicans are under the triple threat of a political-cultural war.”

House Bill 808, a gender-affirming medical ban, prohibits North Carolina medical professionals from administering puberty inhibitors, hormones, or surgery to transgender minors. Those who started treatment before August 1 can continue to receive treatment with parental consent.

Effective immediately, the new law will also block state funds from being used to support government medical programs that provide “sex reassignment surgery, anti-pubertal drugs and heterosexual hormones to minors.”

The North Carolina House of Representatives secured a Republican veto majority in April after Rep. Tricia Cozam, a Republican, switched parties, but on Wednesday voted to overrule Cooper’s veto on the bill. passed 74-45. Later in the evening, the Senate passed a similar bill, 27-18, making North Carolina the 22nd state, and this year the 19th state, to pass a law banning gender-affirmative medicine for transgender youth.

State lawmakers Wednesday also voted to override Mr. Cooper’s veto on House Bill 574, which would bar transgender women and girls from middle school to college from competing on women’s sports teams.

Republicans said Wednesday the bill was necessary to preserve the dignity of women’s sport, but Democrats in both houses criticized the bill as “targeted abuse” of transgender youth.

“This is just a mean bill,” former Olympic swimmer Marcia Morey Democratic Rep. said Wednesday on the House floor. “We’re not talking about world-class athletes.”

Morey, who represented the United States at the 1976 Montreal Olympics, said the government did not intervene when she competed with women using performance-enhancing drugs.

“The government didn’t intervene, the Olympic Committee intervened. It was the right thing to do,” Morey said. “Let the governing sports bodies pass their own regulations. They are far more sensitive to sports fairness than politicians.”

Also on Wednesday, Congress removed Mr. Cooper’s veto from a third bill, known as the “Parental Bill of Rights,” which would bar teachers from kindergarten through fourth grade from engaging in classroom instruction on gender identity and sexuality. Decided to disable it.

North Carolina said a 2016 “toilet bill” that would bar transgender people from using public restrooms based on their gender identity sparked protests across the country and could cost the state more than $200,000. Prior to this year, he had largely refrained from promoting anti-LGBTQ policies. Business losses of $3.7 billion.

The legislation, commonly referred to as House Bill 2, was partially repealed after Mr. Cooper took office in 2017. A lawsuit challenging the bill to limit transgender toilet access was settled in federal court in 2019.