Everything you need to know about last week’s House Bill 2 repeal
The N.C. General Assembly voted to repeal House Bill 2 last week. Sounds great, right? But what the hell does that actually mean for Charlotte, for N.C. and for the LGBT community? And how did this compromise happen so quickly?
Observer reporter Katie Peralta, who has been covering HB2 and its fallout for much of the past year, joined us on this week’s podcast to answer those questions.
In case you’ve forgotten (or blocked it out), HB2 was the law N.C. passed last spring to nullify a Charlotte LGBT nondiscrimination ordinance that, among other things, allowed transgender people to use bathrooms based on their gender identity. HB2 wiped that out — along with other local ordinances — and also said that people must use the bathroom that corresponds with the gender on their birth certificate. (Thus: The “bathroom bill.”)
Legislators repealed HB2 Thursday with House Bill 142.
Peralta explained what’s in the new bill, why the repeal happened now (as opposed to the repeal bill that failed miserably in December) and what it means for Charlotte, the state and the LGBT community.
Just before we hit record, Peralta published an article about the NCAA saying N.C. is back in the running for hosting championship games now that HB2 is gone. The ACC, whose football championship was moved out of Charlotte last year, said something similar last week. And the NBA will reportedly discuss bringing the All-Star Game to Charlotte in 2019 at its Board of Governors meeting this week.
So yeah, a lot has happened in the past week. Good thing we had Peralta around to break it all down for us.
Other things discussed on this week’s podcast:
– Sarah Crosland’s new book, “Secret Charlotte: A Guide to the Weird, Wonderful, and Obscure,” which was released last week. (Shameless self promotion FTW.)
– Cemeteries.
– Elephant smushing. (I kid you not.)
– And what you should be doing this weekend, according to Sarah.
The CharlotteFive Podcast — presented by The Charlotte Observer and powered by OrthoCarolina — is a weekly podcast that aims to get you Charlotte Smart, Fast with fun, interesting and useful news about the city. It’s hosted by Corey Inscoe and Sarah Crosland, and produced by Richard Brooke and 2Waves Media.
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Photo: Chris Seward/The News & Observer
This story was originally published April 4, 2017 at 11:32 PM with the headline "Everything you need to know about last week’s House Bill 2 repeal."