North Carolina’s biggest city, Charlotte, remains one of three cities in the top 20 in population to not include protections for sexual and gender minorities.
There are already protections for people based off of race, religion, sex, etc., but there is nothing for sexual identity and gender identities. This ordinance would have allowed people to not be discriminated against as vendors, commercial consumers and any business that is contracting with the city of Charlotte would not be allowed to deny service to people based off of these identities ALONG WITH familial and marital status.
When I settled inside and debate started, the very first speaker made it very clear that the opponents would be out in full crazy, Christian-perversion, bigotry-riddled force. The major topic of debate centered around bathrooms. Transgender people would have been able to use either restroom that fit properly with their gender identity. But instead of trying to understand trans people, most opponents created an atmosphere filled with fear tactics and hateful rhetoric.
They tried to make it seem like there would be some huge wave of men dressing in wigs and women’s clothing solely for the purpose of molesting and assaulting women and children. Ludicrous yes? Plus, the other side had ZERO evidence to provide the council with, showing a causational relationship between enacting these laws and increased cases of violence against women and children in bathrooms. Even though 17 states and 200 local governments have similar laws on the books already.
We also heard the same generalized bigoted views from zealots hiding behind religion. Opponents brought up how being LGBT is sinful and ungodly and blah blah blah. I wanted to hop up and say first, Jesus said none of this. And second, who cares? Religious views should be kept personal and?don’t trump individual freedoms. Many supporters and the city attorney tried to point out these FACTS but of course these nut jobs don’t care about the facts.
There were many great speakers for the ordinance which helped make the event bearable for me. I was very pleased when people got up speaking about their trans children and how they are speaking for them because they care about their safety. Trans violence was brought up from trans people themselves, who gave testimony to how unsafe they felt going into bathrooms. ACTUAL examples of how this ordinance would impact people’s lives, not just fear-mongering hypothetical situations like the ones provided by the opponents.
Also, some psychologists and professors got up to give a lesson since there was so much ignorance in the room. One lady got up to eloquently explain the difference between biology (sex) and social construction (gender). She also explained how intersex people DO exist and don’t fit into the binary created by the bathroom system either, not just trans people.
But the pathetic rhetoric from the other side continued, including one lady even saying that “discrimination is not always a bad thing.” Excuse me? People of color also got up to speak about how this isn’t discrimination and that it can’t be compared to the civil rights movement for black people. Councilwoman LaWana Mayfield cleverly brought up people like Bayard Rustin, a black gay male, who was crucial to the civil rights movement. I was ashamed at the people of color who wanted to act like being black and gay are mutually exclusive. Or that discrimination isn’t “real” unless it affects them directly. ?Equality NC’s Crystal Richardson spoke about being a black lesbian and asked how she can be protected by the city of Charlotte for being black but not for being gay? I thought this was a brilliant moment.
But after hours of lively debate, the council got to finally speak. Things were rattled when prominent Democratic voice, Vi Lyles, announced she was adopting an amendment to keep non-discrimination for LGBT people but sexual identities and gender would be excluded from places like bathrooms and changing rooms. This would change the original ordinance. Two people, Mayfield and John Autry, passionately spoke against this amendment and said that we needed full equality, not incremental changes. Other Democrats seemed swept up in the hate speech and unsubstantiated rhetoric from opponents, and announced as well that they would support the amended ordinance. And of course, Republicans are bigoted so they were never going to support any of this to begin with.
Only two people supported the original ordinance and didn’t throw trans people under the bus: LaWana Mayfield and John Autry. Al Austin is a member of the council who is gay but supported the ordinance as amended, even though he stated that he didn’t want this and hoped we could be more progressive as a community. Patsy Kinsey is also supportive of full equality but said she had to “hold her nose” and vote for the amended ordinance because the original one simply didn’t have the votes. The amendment passed but the ordinance as amended didn’t pass because the true liberals who stood by the original one didn’t support it and neither did the Republicans. So absolutely nothing has changed about Charlotte’s discrimination protections and laws.
Sam Spencer was the first speaker on the pro-ordinance side. He quoted what we have all been saying, that sex is between your legs but gender is between your ears. He also later discussed more about the evening’s events with me, personally:
“I will never know what it’s like to be a trans person and endure all of the verbal abuse I heard last night, but to me the terrible rhetoric only served to further convince me these protections are needed.”
This is why allies are so important. He also said that trans people are the ones that will have to worry about bathroom violence, not a cis-person in a bathroom that allows trans people. He said he knows that politics is indeed about compromise, but doesn’t think putting the rights of some “on hold” is compromise. This is why he supported the original amendment. He also brought up that’some Democrats, Barnes and Phipps, who were more vocally against this ordinance, will be “persona non grata” in the Democratic Party for awhile. This could especially be a crucial point of insight as Barnes is running for Charlotte Mayor in this year’s election.
I agree with many of Spencer’s sentiments and was very disappointed that so many still held such antiquated and hateful views about the LGBT community. Numerous?people of privileged sexual and gender identities had the nerve to tell the LGBT people in the audience what was and wasn’t real discrimination. So many quoted the Bible as excuses for their bigotry. It was the same 1950s-style rhetoric that I disdain. I hope Charlotte can move forward and eventually give protections to everyone despite the fear-mongering that keeps so many individuals mentally and emotionally shackled.
