Sociation Today

The Social Consequences of HB2:
A North Carolina Effort to Reverse Civil Protections for Transgender People

by

stef m. shuster

Appalachian State University

On March 23, 2016 in what some may call a coup of the democratic process, the North Carolina legislative body held a special one-day session to pass through the Public Facilities Privacy & Security Act, otherwise known as House Bill 2 in response to a Charlotte city ordinance passed in February of that same year adding LGBT protections to the non-discrimination policies. In one day, HB2 was introduced on the floor, voted on, and signed into law by then governor, Pat McCrory. Bobbie Richardson, a Democratic member of the NC House of Representatives, in voicing concerns that the bill was rushed through so quickly that most did not even have time to read through it before the vote was called said, "I'm not sure what is really in this bill. Is it a possibility that we could be given at least 5 to 10 minutes to read this for ourselves, from front to back?" (Baier and Tiberii 2017).

In public discourse, former governor of North Carolina, Pat McCrory, suggested that the bill helped to, "protect young girls from predatory men in bathrooms" (Harrison 2016) in that it limits the use of school and state agency bathrooms and locker rooms designated for, and used by, people based on their assigned sex at birth. In another interview in April of 2016, with Chuck Todd of Meet the Press, McCrory stated that,

What we've got to do is deal with this extremely new social norm that has come to our nation at a very quick period of time, and have these discussions about the complexity of equality while also balancing the concept of privacy, including even privacy in the most private of areas of our life, which is a restroom, locker room, or shower facility in our high schools.

While McCrory pointed to the need for thinking through conceptions of privacy, the implicit idea is that cisgender people's needs (people whose assigned gender at birth and gender identity coincide) should be prioritized. Ironically, the ACLU sued the state of North Carolina (Carcaño et al. v. McCrory et al.) for violating the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution regarding equal protections, and also the right to privacy for transgender individuals.

    This bill has captivated our collective national imagination and provoked anger, ambivalence, and righteousness. Perhaps it was a confluence of events that brought this bill to the fore of national media attention and provoked major sports teams, musicians, businesses, and production companies from pulling out of contracts in the Tar Heel state. Projected estimates from a recent Associated Press analysis (2017) place the economic costs of HB2 as high as 3.76 billion dollars in lost revenue over the next dozen years.

    Indeed, in a Foucauldian (1990) sense, it seems that the lid has been blown off the toilet as more people are openly talking about the use of bathrooms since the passage of this bill. What has become apparent in these national conversations, and as Westbrook and Schilt (2014) remind us, is that bathrooms and other similarly gender-segregated spaces are volatile sites of interaction for trans feminine people (and, I might add, non-binary and trans masculine people). Missing from public discussion, however, is a nuanced examination of how state legislators codified social mores – built upon false assumptions, scapegoating, and stereotypes – into law and how HB2 extends far beyond the reach of who uses which bathroom and other public facilities. Contained within the language of the bill are additional social consequences that have not come to the fore in national rhetoric.

    It is the wide-reaching aspects of HB2 that served as a platform for a panel session at the recent North Carolina Sociological Association (NCSA) conference, held on February 17, 2017 at High Point University. This essay builds upon some of the key points raised during the panel, and based upon the lived experiences of the panelists and panel moderator. All of the participants are affiliated with institutions of higher education in North Carolina and confront, on a daily basis, the effects of HB2.

    Here, I begin by outlining the panel itself to offer readers a sense of how it was constructed and to offer tools for those who may be interested in replicating the format for critical conversations around issues that involve hard-to-reach populations of people and mired in dichotomous thinking of complex social issues. Then, I turn my attention to several key themes that arose during the panel. I conclude with a few recommendations offered during the panel, for educators and allies of trans and non-binary people. I do not represent a singular voice. I bring my particular social positions into this conversation as a trans, non-binary, gentle masculine, queer white person who has been involved in gender and queer justice movements over the last two decades. I draw on pieces of the conversation from the panel, interlaced with my own experiences, to analyze the intended and unintended consequences of HB2.

The Structure of the NCSA Panel

    Three individuals generously offered their time, emotional energy, and lived experience to join the panel: 1) Seb Jove is an undergraduate student in Studio Art at Appalachian State University; 2) Cassiopeia Eagle is a recent graduate of History at High Point University; and 3) Angela Mazaris is the Director of the LGBTQ Center at Wake Forest University. I served as the panel moderator and am an assistant professor of sociology at Appalachian State University.

    Before the conference convened, we brainstormed together how to structure the panel, what topics we wanted to explore, and what areas we wanted to keep off limits to this particular discussion on the social consequences of HB2. We then co-constructed a list of pre-determined questions for the panel to respond to. Anyone who wanted to opt out of responding to a question for any reason was encouraged to do so. The pre-determined questions for the panelists included: 1) What impact have we seen on our campuses from HB2? For students, faculty, staff, and alumni?; 2) What are some of the unintended or unstated consequences of HB2 that do not typically come up in public discussions?; 3) Can you share a story of a personal challenge that has arisen as a result of HB2?; 4) How have our different institutions responded to HB2? What parts of that response were valuable? What else might we have wanted?; 5) Can you share a story of an unexpected but positive outcome as a result of community organizing or conversations around HB2?; and 6) What would you want to relate to allies as far as what we can do to affirm trans and non-binary people who live in North Carolina?

    We also created ground rules for the audience to keep in check any possible problematic questions that might come about during the question and answer session that followed the panel's pre-determined questions. While we each agreed that the audience "should" be encouraged to ask questions, as the panel was scoped as a learning opportunity, we also wanted to ensure that panelists were protected, to some degree, from off-topic questions that frequently appear in trans panels such as, "tell us about your transition status." All four of us have been involved in trans and/or gender justice organizing, to some degree, and aware of how even well-intentioned people sometimes do not know the basic norms for engaging trans people and allies in public dialogue. The ground rules for the audience included: 1) Being mindful of intent versus impact; 2) Please do not ask panelists about surgical status, coming out stories, etc.; and 3) Maintain the focus of the questions on social, cultural, or personal impacts of HB2. In the end, all of the audience members respected the rules and we had a healthy discussion about the consequences of HB2 in the everyday lives of the panelists who are members of institutions of higher education in North Carolina.

    While two of the three panelists are at private institutions, the point remains clear that HB2 has provoked surveillance and scrutiny of gender nonconforming and/or trans-identified people beyond the confines of public institutions. In the private homes or dorms, public spaces, and classrooms, all of the panelists shared rich, painful, and at moments, joyful experiences (because of ally-building and witnessing advocacy from our cisgender and/or heterosexual counterparts) as a result of HB2.

Intended Consequences

Legislative actions codify norms governing social life by placing into law what a governing body (or populace) deems as expected behavior of a citizenry. Thus, from a social scientific perspective, we can understand laws as communicating these expectations and norms. First, I focus first on two intended consequences of HB2: 1) Creating boundaries of access in public facilities; 2) Banning municipalities from pro-social action. While HB2 is written matter-of-factly, there are also – as Merton (1957) suggested decades ago – unintended consequences of social practices and laws. That is, by signaling a norm of expected conduct or behavior, laws signify moral codes in creating distinctions between "normal" (i.e. law-abiding) and "abnormal" (breaking laws) behaviors and groups of people. While not an exhaustive list, some of the major unintended consequences of HB2 that panelists spoke about include: 1) The redefinition of gender; 2) Increased Surveillance; 3) Pitting cisgender working class people against trans and non-binary people; and 4) Creating a Caustic Environment in Higher Education.

Creating boundaries of access in public facilities

One of the most heavily emphasized areas of contention in HB2 was how the bill itself created boundaries around who could use sex-segregated public facilities. The specific language of HB2, in regards to bathrooms and changing facilities, reads, "Local boards of education shall require every multiple occupancy bathroom or changing facility that is designated for student use to be designated for and used only by students based on their biological sex." Advocates of the bill repeatedly emphasized that this language was "common sense" legislation. Lieutenant Governor, Daniel Forrester, in speaking at the Family Research Council-hosted Values Voter Summit, rationalized the following, "The color of a person's skin has absolutely nothing to do with what bathroom they use. The color of a person's skin has absolutely nothing to do with where they sit on a bus or where they sit at the lunch counter, or what water fountain they drink out of it. But you know what? A person's biology has everything to with which bathroom they use" (Johnson 2016). Perhaps a more precise quote from Forester would be, "A person's urinary and intestinal tract systems have everything to do with how they use the bathroom." Stated differently, most humans have relatively the same configurations for the process of urination. The reproductive organ that is used to expel urine may differ across humans, but the major biological components involved in urination are relatively the same: a brain, kidneys, ureters, a urethra and a bladder.

Additionally, in the private homes of most Americans, most bathrooms are not segregated by sex. There is nothing "common sense" about biological sex other than what we assume to be common sense, is often social, culturally, and historically contingent. As Hacking (2000) and other scholars of science and technology studies have demonstrated, scientific knowledge is shaped by social and cultural factors. This line of thinking on constructing scientific "facts" and packaging them as "Truth" extends to sex and gender categories, as well. Fausto-Sterling (2000) and other scholars (see Laqueur 1990) have documented that what one society in any given moment deems as the basis of sex categorization may change over time, with technological advancement, and cultural notions of "sex." From an intersex advocacy perspective, the question remains where should our intersex students use the bathroom if the determination is based on biological sex, and knowing that most bathrooms demarcate two-and-only-two sexes of female and male.

Banning municipalities from pro-social actions

    Beyond creating a boundary around who may use what bathroom, and on what basis, HB2 also limits the agency of local governments from enacting laws that are more stringent than the state of North Carolina. While HB2 has gained a lot of national attention because of the emphasis on bathroom regulations, the bill extends to two key areas as well in limiting local governments from enacting pro-social laws. The "Wage Hour Act" that appears in HB2 prohibits municipalities from setting their own minimum wage that is different from the State-based level. Similarly, HB2 prohibits municipalities from creating protection clauses for groups of people (i.e. lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer, and transgender) not recognized by the State as in need of anti-discrimination coverage.

    McCrory and other advocates of HB2 contended that the problem with the Charlotte ordinance that included LGBTQ people in a non-discrimination policy was that, "It's not government's business to tell the private sector what their bathroom, locker room, or shower -- um -- practices should be" (Todd 2016). If the State legislators who passed HB2 were sincere in keeping government out of businesses, it seems illogical that HB2 would be a viable solution. That is, by punishing Charlotte for enacting anti-discrimination laws that protect LGBTQ people, the State swooped in and prohibited local government from making decisions on behalf of their citizens.

    In regards to the minimum wage portion of HB2, if you live in Charlotte, Raleigh, Durham, or other locales where the cost of living is significantly higher and you and your local government wish to impose a higher minimum wage to account for the fact of the cost of living, HB2 prohibits this action. To demonstrate how this plays out, it is more expensive to live in Boone, North Carolina than Raleigh, North Carolina – the "seat" of state government and where many of the people who signed HB2 into law reside (e.g. Daniel J. Forest, Lieutenant Governor, and Pat McCrory, (now former) Governor). Yet the median family income in Boone is $26,000 less than the median family income of Raleigh. This means that if Boone citizens deemed it necessary to elevate the minimum wage to accommodate for the fact of a higher cost of living, we would not be able to do so because the General Assembly prohibited this action.

    In Section 3.1 of HB2, a legislative declaration is written that takes some thought to disentangle the nuance of what the bill states and the ramifications of it in regards to non-discrimination policies. In part 1 of section 3.1, the bill outlines that it is the, "public policy of the State to protect and safeguard the right and opportunity of all persons to seek, obtain, and hold employment without discrimination on account of race, religion, color, national origin, age, biological sex or handicap by employers" (words italicized were changed through HB2). Then in section C it states that, "The General Assembly declares the regulation of discriminatory practices in employment is properly an issue of general, statewide concern, such that this Article and other applicable provisions of the General Statutes supersede and preempt any ordinance, regulation, resolution or policy adopted or imposed by a unit of local government." To break it down into everyday language – it means that if there are other ways that groups of people can be subjugated or oppressed (such as by gender, or sexuality) local governments cannot write their own anti-discrimination laws that are in conflict with the State's if the State has not deemed these groups a matter of "statewide concern."

    Why the state of North Carolina would not want to protect LGBTQ identified people from discrimination is a bizarre twist in our contemporary society and movement towards including these communities under the auspices of human rights. But rather than asking Charlotte and other cities to remove these groups from their ordinances to await legal evaluation, legislators took it upon themselves to both supersede local governments (which seems at odds with the typical narrative of the GOP, and the Tea Party which helped elect Daniel Forest to office) while also writing discrimination into the laws. Further still, by clarifying "biological" sex in HB2, the legislature is intentionally creating boundaries around what they perceive as a static and stable 'fact' of social life while dismissing trans people's claims to a sex category that is not the same as their birth assigned sex.

Unintended Consequences

While I glossed over some of the more intricate details of the intended consequences of HB2, the NCSA panel focused much more on the unstated consequences of HB2, and how this bill impacts our everyday lives as members and allies of trans, gender nonconforming, and/or non-binary communities. I shift the attention, here, to those unstated consequences to exemplify for readers some of the key points of discussion during the panel.

Redefining gender

    Forty years of scholarship on gender and sex have suggested that these categories are culturally, socially, and historically contingent. The language of HB2 suggests that, "Biological sex is the physical condition of being male or female, which is stated on a person's birth certificate." One of the lasting problems with this definition of "sex" is that it redefines gender as always-already in relation to sex categories. West and Zimmerman (1987) suggested that while in interactions, individuals typically conflate gender and sex categories, this definition offered by legislatures erases the distinctions between the two while creating a difficult position for both those who are read in social life as trans people, or those who transition but do not change their documentation. For example, if a trans woman wishes to use the women's bathroom, but grew up in a state that does not recognize the possibility of changing a sex marker on their birth certificate, it creates a double-bind wherein following the law means using the men's bathroom but breaking the law means using the women's bathroom. Visibly recognized trans people and non-binary people who present their gender more ambiguously are burdened by the expectations of the state.

    For non-binary people, HB2 is also difficult to negotiate. Indeed, there are no bathrooms for non-binary people to use to comply with the law outside of single stall restrooms. In many public institutions, these are not readily available. Indeed, as a non-binary trans person, I am often misread in social life as a man. But to follow the law technically would translate to having a virtual map in my head of all of the single stall bathrooms on campus.

    Further still, as a feminist, I am concerned with the idea that being a member of a sex category is a physical "condition." This rhetoric is bound in the understanding of pathologizing some people's bodies over others. Indeed, the medical community's understanding of "transgender" is ground in a pathological definition of abnormality (see shuster 2016) and HB2 simply reconstitutes this misunderstood notion where transgender is equated with pathology. Medical historians have also documented out how body politics and medicalizing discourse combine to subordinate non-dominant groups – women (Stubblefield 2007), people of color (Gamble 1997), people with disabilities (Thomson 1997), and poor people (Schweik 2009), by presenting their health, well-being, and bodies as a pathological condition. This rhetoric that subjugates marginalized people is built from the same medicalizing logic that anyone who is not a white, middle to upper class, able-bodied cisgender, heterosexual man (i.e. the majority of people who compose the North Carolina General Assembly) has a "condition." Yet many of the panelists described how their relationships to their bodies were anything but "abnormal" or a "condition" and that to suggest otherwise is to engage in problematic rhetoric that does not honor the multiple pathways that people come to identify as trans, as well as moving out of mid-twentieth century trans-shaming.

    By placing the onus of the definition on birth certificates, North Carolina legislators perhaps unintentionally created a situation where one state (North Carolina) trumps another state's autonomy to make decisions in their legal classifications and documentation needed for paperwork. For example, I was born in Kentucky where the state law regarding changing birth certificates makes clear that, "Kentucky will issue an amended certificate of birth upon receipt of a sworn statement by a licensed physician indicating that the gender of an individual born in the Commonwealth has been changed by surgical procedure and a certified copy of an order of a court of competent jurisdiction changing that individual's name." This entails a several step process that legitimizes a licensed physician, rather than the surgeon, or if a trans person consults with a mental health therapist. For members of the Bluegrass State, there is also a baffling requirement to have a surgical procedure to change a gender (rather than sex) that serves to re-conflate the two categories. Additionally, name change procedures – in addition to surgical procedures – can be costly for trans people.

    In contrast, North Carolina's laws for changing birth certificates requires, "to change the sex on that individual's birth record because of sex reassignment surgery, if the request is accompanied by a notarized statement from the physician who performed the sex reassignment surgery or from a physician licensed to practice medicine who has examined the individual and can certify that the person has undergone sex reassignment surgery." For trans men, sex confirmation surgery might be understood as top surgery or bottom surgery. Yet it seems that the state likely would assume that "sex reassignment surgery" entails genital-based surgery. For those familiar with the state of surgery for trans people, at the time of this writing, genital surgery for trans men is complicated, and carries for many more risk than reward. While the surgical procedures are improving over time, many trans men opt out of genital surgery and instead use testosterone and top surgery (removal of the breast tissue and fat). For trans women, who often face high rates of under and unemployment, the financial burdens of surgery also makes it difficult to meet this standard. In the state of North Carolina, only three surgeons are listed as specializing in gender confirmation surgery.

    Taken together, the redefinition of gender by the inclusion of the word "biological" is more insidious than it might first appear. As panelists described, navigating institutions, paperwork, and documentation is a process fraught with problems in a lack of clarity surrounding how "gender" and "sex" are operationalized, as well as the reality of having to face people involved in these institutions who may not be trans aware.

Increased Surveillance

While much of the conservative media emphasized the need for HB2 in order to protect young girls from sexual predators, left out of the logics of this rhetoric involves ensuring the safety of trans people. In responding to the question about one of the unstated consequences of HB2, one of the panelists – Cass – suggested that because so many people are talking about trans people in the state, there is a sense of increased surveillance in public spaces. She shared in an email that,

Just after the passage of HB2, I was in a mall. While using the women's room in the food court, I noticed women staring at me as I walked in. When I sat in the stall, one woman whispered to her friend, "was that a man?" I felt terrible. It was like a punch in the gut. I had been out and in the process of transitioning for years, and after I'm slapped across the face by the state in which I was born and raised, I'm insulted yet again by someone who knows nothing about me. I'm almost certain that the concern from these women came from the fear mongering, false stories of men dressing up as women to go into the bathroom stalls and sexually assault little girls.

From this painful story that Cass shared, it is unsurprising that more people are aware of trans individuals. In the state of North Carolina, however, it is not just a heightened awareness, but one of the spill over effects is that trans people or gender nonconforming people are subject to more surveillance in their use of public facilities and spaces. This additionally subjects people to criminalization and police enforcement against trans people. While many have noted that there is little enforcement of HB2, the specter of being arrested and/or subject to sanctions is omnipresent.

Bettcher's (2007) work exemplified how trans people are often cast in dualisms of either pretending to be something one is not, or deceiving cisgender people for those who go unnoticed in public life as trans people. It is a lose-lose situation for everyone when we monitor others in the bathrooms and in public spaces. Yet the message remains clear in that trans people's needs and rights are not as important as the hypothetical possibility in the slippery-slope argument that a man can pretend to be a woman to assault young girls in the bathroom. Within the same logic, the protection of trans individuals from harassment and violence is dismissed by legislators by removing the authority of city's to enact anti-discrimination ordinances.

Pitting cisgender working class people against trans and non-binary people

In spite of the catchy moniker of the "bathroom bill," one troubling trend is that many national media outlets disregard the far-reaching power involved in HB2 by limiting municipalities from setting their own wages. Because this limitation is placed within the same bill that has attention on trans people's rights in the bathroom, the bill pits cisgender working class people against trans and non-binary people. Remarkably, all of the musicians and companies pulling their contracts from the state have done so in the name of advocating for trans people. Yet this very action detrimentally impacts working class people in the state in lost jobs and revenue. Furthermore, trans and non-binary people are over-represented in working class populations (Grant et al. 2011) which creates a double layer of economic instability and insecurity.

Another example of how HB2 pits two subjugated groups against each other can be found in the liberal response to HB2. In May of 2016, Attorney General Loretta Lynch offered unprecedented public remarks condemning the state of North Carolina for the passage of HB2. She shared that,

This action is about a great deal more than just bathrooms. This is about the dignity and respect we accord our fellow citizens and the laws that we, as a people and as a country, have enacted to protect them – indeed, to protect all of us. And it's about the founding ideals that have led this country – haltingly but inexorably – in the direction of fairness, inclusion and equality for all Americans.

She concluded her remarks directly to trans people,

Let me also speak directly to the transgender community itself. Some of you have lived freely for decades. Others of you are still wondering how you can possibly live the lives you were born to lead. But no matter how isolated or scared you may feel today, the Department of Justice and the entire Obama Administration wants you to know that we see you; we stand with you; and we will do everything we can to protect you going forward.

Wielding the power to withdraw federal funds from public education, many LGBTQIA+ advocates and allies applauded the stern warning. Indeed, it was an inspiring moment to witness and my first response was to also think, "hell yes!" as Lynch may be one of the highest-ranking people in federal administration to advocate so forcefully for trans people. But then, something seemed amiss and it took me a day to pinpoint what might be problematic about the federal government threatening to pull federal funding. Missing in liberal congratulatory notes, Facebook feeds, Human Rights Campaign press releases, and other memos from liberals who showered appreciation on Lynch and former president Barack Obama is that pulling federal funding from public institutions to punish the General Assembly would have far more of a devastating effect on teachers, students, and staff in the public school system. Why not punish members of the General Assembly who voted on HB2 by fining them or suing them for violating federal law, instead of people in public institutions of higher education?

Creating a Caustic Environment in Higher Education

    The ink was not even dry on my contract to begin a new position as an assistant professor position at Appalachian State University when HB2 passed. After two years in a postdoctoral position at Duke University, and having three years remaining on that contract, it provoked a great deal of anxiety in second-guessing my decision to take the position at App State, settling into the rural mountains of western North Carolina, and possibly the only trans person on faculty at a public institution. Working at Duke held a protective quality, because it is a private institution that is not mandated to comply with the same laws regulating public institutions of higher education. I wondered how HB2 would translate in my everyday work life; knowing that every time I used the bathroom or locker room I was technically breaking the law. That the sex marker on my legal documents does not match my presentation, and having experiences traveling back and forth across the state in search of housing in the summer of 2016, dealing with HR paperwork, and other institutional documents meant that I had already been scrutinized and subject to surveillance by well-intentioned people who had no idea how much emotional labor it takes to navigate a system that cannot accommodate people whose gender presentation, identities, and documents do not coincide.

    In the weeks leading up to my move out to Boone, it became difficult to imagine my role in the lives of my students in this political climate and if I would be supported by colleagues in constructing my classes as I typically do, but as an out trans and queer person. That is, as a sociologist, I couldn't help but analyze the potential consequences of HB2 in the cultural and social climate of App State, and how the bill might detrimentally impact the students I would work with and if volatile conversations around gender, state-sanctioned violence, and medical arenas would be burdened by the specter of fearing for my job security if I pushed students too hard and having my identities used against me. Indeed, in writing this essay, I have at moments wondered if when I go up for my third year review or tenure if taking a strong analytic stance against the consequences of HB2 will be misconstrued, and wielded as a weapon against me.

    From Cass' experiences, she shared that,

My university was officially neutral on the issue if I'm not mistaken. From my own experiences, the faculty has been very supportive. Many of the staff has approached me to tell me that they hate the passage of HB2 and were fine with how I was. I would have, however, liked for the school itself to take a stand. It's fine on a personal front to be told be my advisor, professors, and friends, that I am fine. It's another to hear the university to which I pay more than $40,000/year say nothing to defend me. I believe that the school said nothing simply because they didn't want to lose a lot of donors coming from old money around the country who tend to be very politically right.

Other panelists also described how educators, colleagues, staff, and faculty are more aware of trans issues now but often ask inappropriate questions to trans people. Panelists shared that some professors are "trying to do the best they can" but continue to teach about trans issues using outdated materials. Our administrators, too, as Cass' quote suggests are usually not equipped with the tools to navigate nuanced discourse when it comes to sex or gender (or really any identities or axes of oppression). This means that administrators may be trying to do the best they can, but keep flubbing when it comes to issuing statements preceding legislative action that impacts marginalized communities. In the classrooms too, panelists described how HB2 has led to some uncomfortable moments as peers may not be equipped with the knowledge to address nuanced issues, and in a classroom environment where educators are also not trans aware, may perpetuate problematic assumptions and information.

Taken together, HB2 has far-reaching consequences in the everyday lives of trans, nonconforming, and non-binary identified people. But HB2 also impacts cisgender people as well. In trying to parse through being supportive of trans friends and colleagues, they may unintentionally perpetuate the harm they seek to avoid. Furthermore, HB2 hinders local government from making decisions on behalf of their citizens, and creates a hostile environment for trans people in the name of protecting other populations of people.

Moving Forward

Much has happened since February 2017 when the NCSA panel convened. Indeed, HB2 has been removed from the books and replaced with HB142. Yet, many LGBTQ activists have echoed concerns that this new version of the bill still holds elements of problematic assumptions regarding the rights of LGBTQ people in society, prevents cities from enacting LGBTQ-specific anti-discrimination laws, and prohibits public institutions of higher education, state agencies, boards, offices, departments, and branches of government from regulating access to multiple occupancy restrooms, showers or changing facilities. Indeed, HB2 seems to have been replaced with an even broader-reaching prohibition of trans-positive and LGBTQ-specific protection. While many applauded the efforts to repeal HB2, HB 142 is even more insidious in veiling the impact of the law. Yet this seems to be a topic for another conversation, and provokes new questions for the state of North Carolina and how educators, students, and staff may negotiate this new bill.

The final question at the NCSA conference encouraged panelists to share a few thoughts on what they might want to impart to the audience. As educators, staff, and students, it was important to grapple with lived experience and also use the panel as a space to teach others about to engage in gender justice to help support trans and non-binary people. With that, we recommend the following insights and pieces of advice for those sociologists who want to engage their students, colleagues, and staff members with deliberate intention and under the auspice of understanding that HB2 and similar laws create the potential for a hostile climate for trans, non-binary, and gender non-conforming people (of course, this is not an exhaustive list):

Please stop making assumptions about students', colleagues' and peers' gender identities. Related, if one is unsure of what pronouns of reference (not preference, as our pronouns are not something that you may decide to use or dismiss) people use, ask them. But make sure that you ask everyone, not just people you perceive to be trans. Names and pronouns are not options based on your level of comfort, but should be treated with the same respect as one might refer to cisgender individuals.
If you are an educator, "trans" issues tacked onto the back or front of a gender syllabus is doing an injustice to the topic, otherizes trans people and our experiences by relegating us to the one week that we are covered in class. Rather, integrate readings on trans issues and written by trans authors across your curriculum. Trans issues are not only related to gender. We negotiate systems of healthcare, education, marriage, family, relationships, class, race, workplace environments, culture, immigration, citizenship, media, social movements, and just about any other topic that is covered in the discipline of Sociology.
Allies are not allies because they call themselves that. Rather, the recognition of someone as an ally is something that is conferred by the community that one may be working with/alongside but is not a member of.
Trans faculty are few in numbers (sometimes we may be the only out faculty member on campus). It is difficult to work in an academic department (or really anywhere) that refuses to acknowledge the particularities of trans experience as a faculty member, the challenges we may face in our course evaluations, pedagogical strategies, how our scholarship is received, and what "service" looks like as a member of a marginalized and minoritarian community. Not all trans faculty members do gender scholarship, or are gender scholars. Just like cisgender faculty study a wide range of topics, so too do trans faculty members.
Many institutions are lagging in trans-affirming policies and practices related to students, educators, and staff. For students in particular, given the specific language of HB2 (or now, HB 142) gender-segregated spaces become even more difficult to negotiate in housing, recreational facilities, academic buildings, institutional documents and paperwork, and off campus as well.
IT departments might look to some of the institutions that are now enabling students (and ideally, eventually, staff and faculty) to have their chosen names appear with emails, on transcripts, and other institutional documents.
Being a member of a marginalized community that is not well understood and is frequently a subject of stereotypes and scapegoating can be emotionally exhausting. Begin a quest for more information by looking to some of the recent scholarship on trans studies in sociology, rather than assuming trans students, faculty, and staff are a ready-made source of information and speak on behalf of "The" trans community. We each have our own lived experiences, positionalities in social life, and histories. So, too, do cisgender people.

References

Baier, Elizabeth and Jeff Tiberii. 2017. "HB2: How Did WE Get Here?" WUNC, March 23. Retrieved May 10, 2017. (http://wunc.org/post/hb2-how-did-we-get-here#stream/0).

Bettcher, Talia Mae. 2007. "Evil Deceivers and Make-believers: On Transphobic Violence and the Politics of Illusion." Hypatia 22: 43-65.

Carcaño et al. v. McCrory et al. US District Court, 4th Circuit. (2016).

CNBC. 2017. "Bathroom Bill to Cost North Carolina $3.76 Billion," March 27. Retrieved May 19, 2017 (http://www.cnbc.com/2017/03/27/bathroom-bill-to-cost-north-carolina-376-billion.html).

Fausto-Sterling, Anne. 2000. Sexing the Body: Gender Politics and the Construction of Sexuality. New York, NY: Basic Books.

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