North Carolina’s Bathroom Bill: A Political Strategy Evolution From 2016 to 2024
North Carolina approved the nation’s first bathroom bill in 2016, mandating that people use the restroom that corresponds to the gender on their birth certificate. There was a massive backlash, including statewide boycotts. The political consequences brought Republican Gov. Pat McCrory down.
Bathroom laws have resurfaced in recent years, passing in eleven Republican-controlled states ranging from Florida to Utah. Mississippi legislators passed a restroom measure to the governor’s desk last week. However, high-profile boycotts, cutbacks on firm growth, and canceled concerts have not followed suit this time.
So, what happened?
The journey from 2016 to now entails political strategy, legislative polling, and a firm understanding of prior setbacks. Women’s sports.
2016: “An Unmitigated Disaster”
The national reaction to North Carolina’s 2016 bathroom bill, House Bill 2, was unprecedented.
PayPal canceled a planned expansion that would have created 400 jobs, and the NCAA pulled its tournaments from the state. Performers ranging from Bruce Springsteen to Cirque du Soleil canceled shows. The Associated Press calculated that the cost of lost business to the state would be $3.76 billion over the following 12 years.
Erin Reed, a journalist and activist who follows LGBTQ issues, called it “an unmitigated disaster for the Republican Party in the state.”
By 2017, the Bill Had Been Rolled Back
“And so, following that,” adds Erin Reed, “there was a good four-year period where anti-trans legislation kind of took a back seat. They licked their wounds and took a step back. “And they began planning.”
Initially, Republicans across the country sought to separate themselves from the issue. Donald Trump, then-Republican presidential candidate, blasted the North Carolina bill during a TODAY Show town hall in 2016.
A year later, he reversed recommendations that provided legal protections for transgender kids who want to use bathrooms that match their gender identification. “There have been very few complaints about the way things are. People go, and they use the restroom that they believe is suitable,” he explained at the time.
Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis stated during a Florida Family Council GOP gubernatorial event in 2018 that “Getting into the bathroom wars — I don’t think that’s a good use of our time.”
However, five years later, DeSantis signed legislation making it illegal for transgender people to use public facilities that do not correspond to their assigned sex at birth.
Looking Beyond North Carolina and Bathroom Bills
Terry Schilling of the American Principles Project, a conservative think organization, helped push transgender bathroom laws back into the political spotlight. He claims that after 2016, he met with North Carolina Governor McCrory to discuss what had happened and began plotting.
Schilling claims that their primary concern was determining which states would be immune to economic boycotts for various reasons. They decided on two: “They just can’t boycott Texas. “It’s just too big and too much of an economic powerhouse,” Schilling says. “And they certainly can’t boycott Florida, the home state of Walt Disney World.”
They also looked beyond bathroom bills. Schilling claims that his organization discussed legislation that would exclude trans women from domestic violence shelters or keep gender identification out of civil rights laws. However, nothing really clicked. Until a few years back.
“The women’s sports issue was the first thing that really took off,” says Schilling, “because it had that magic formula of having an incredible amount of public support amongst the American people, but also politicians were willing to run on it and campaign on it.”
And they did. By 2021, ten states have approved legislation prohibiting transgender athletes from competing in women’s sports. By 2024, that figure has risen to half of the states.
According to Schilling, transgender sports measures paved the way for subsequent legislation. Policies that restrict gender-affirming treatment for children and limit how gender is discussed in schools. In addition, restroom bills will be returned. “I don’t think you could have done it by just focusing on the bathrooms,” says Schilling. “I think it would be dead right now without the women’s sports issue.”
The Current Landscape
With LGBTQ prohibitions in over half of the country, some claim that boycotts like the one that occurred in 2016 are not realistic. Last year, California lifted its travel restriction on state business travel to states with anti-LGBTQ statutes. “I do believe that now is a different time because it’s like a threshold issue for being a serious Republican,” says Terry Schilling of the American Principles Project.
Utah became the eleventh state to pass a bathroom bill in January, requiring people to use bathrooms in schools and government-owned buildings that correspond to their birth gender. This year, lawmakers introduced restroom laws in many other Republican-led states, including Arizona, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, and West Virginia.
However, journalist Erin Reed wonders if proponents of these laws will have the same level of support among the general electorate when they seek reelection.
“I don’t think it will help them win elections. “Now, it may win them in primaries,” Reed argues. “This is not the first LGBTQ moral panic, and it won’t be the last…and I think that right now we are in that period where people are getting hurt.”
The Biden administration is attempting to halt some restroom restrictions, claiming they violate Title IX’s nondiscrimination law. Republicans in numerous states are contesting the decision in court.