“In the 41 years I have been in law enforcement in South Carolina, I have never heard of a transgender person attacking or otherwise bothering someone in a restroom,” Sheriff Lott wrote in a letter to the committee studying the state’s bathroom bill. “This is a non-issue.”
Laws to address non-issues can have serious repercussions. The hastily passed bill in North Carolina, which said people must use public restrooms based on the gender on their birth certificate and prohibited local governments from passing nondiscrimination ordinances, has been roundly condemned by corporate leaders, civil rights groups and religious leaders.
The law cost the state hundreds of jobs after PayPal scrapped plans to open a global hub in Charlotte and Deutsche Bank suspended plans to expand its operations in the state. Executives from 80 major companies, including Google, Apple and Facebook, wrote a letter to the governor of North Carolina, Pat McCrory, urging repeal of the law, arguing that it would make it “far more challenging for businesses across the state to recruit and retain the nation’s best and brightest workers.”
