The U.S. state of North Carolina sued the federal government Monday to keep its law requiring transgender people to use restrooms that correspond to their gender at birth rather than their self-identified gender.

The country’s Justice Department last week claimed the state law violated national civil rights standards. It gave North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory and the state’s expansive system of universities until the end of the business day Monday to “remedy the situation.”

But rather than abandon the controversial law, McCrory instead sued the U.S. government to keep it in place. At stake is the possible loss of millions of dollars in aid that the federal government sends annually to the mid-Atlantic state.

In announcing the suit, McCrory accused the administration of President Barack Obama of “bypassing Congress by attempting to rewrite the law and set restroom policies for public and private employers across the country, not just North Carolina. This is now a national issue that applies to every state and it needs to be resolved at the federal level.”

In a Sunday interview, the Republican governor said, “It’s the federal government being a bully. It’s making law.” He said the Justice Department is “trying to define gender identity, and there is no clear identification or definition of gender identity.”

Protests

The North Carolina law has touched off protests from some large businesses operating in the state, civil liberties groups, advocates for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender advocates and Democrats in the state.

Several prominent musicians, including Bruce Springsteen and Nick Jonas, and the bands Pearl Jam and Boston have canceled concerts in the state. Both Pay Pal, a funds transfer company, and Deutsche Bank canceled plans to expand into the state.[xyz-ihs snippet=”adsense-body-ad”]

But conservative state lawmakers, who pushed the measure through the North Carolina legislature before McCrory signed it, have continued to defend it as necessary to protect privacy in the use of public bathrooms and guard against men using women’s restrooms and possibly preying on them.

A new CNN/ORC poll Monday shows that 57 percent of Americans oppose laws like the one North Carolina enacted, with 38 percent supporting them.

While the North Carolina law was enacted by Republicans over the opposition of state Democratic lawmakers, Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential candidate, says he does not think the law is necessary.

“There have been very few complaints the way it is,” Trump told one interviewer last month. “People go, they use the bathroom that they feel is appropriate. There has been so little trouble, and the problem with what happened in North Carolina is the strife and the economic punishment that they’re taking.”

Trump invited the country’s most public transgender person, Caitlyn Jenner, who as a man won an Olympic gold medal, to use whatever restroom she wanted at one of his New York skyscrapers.

Jenner used a women’s bathroom and made a point of announcing afterwards that she had not been molested while doing so.

Source: VOA [xyz-ihs snippet=”Adversal-468×60″]

  bathroom, civil rights, discrimination, justice department, north carolina, restroom, transgender, violation