page_title: Public Facilities Privacy & Security Act
section_title: Public demonstrations
hierarchical_section_title: Public Facilities Privacy & Security Act / Criticism / Public demonstrations
caption_attribution_description: English: A rainbow feathered necklace hung over the Sir Walter Raleigh Statue outside the Convention Center in Raleigh, North Carolina
context_page_description: The Public Facilities Privacy & Security Act, commonly known as House Bill 2 or HB2, is a North Carolina statute passed in March 2016 and signed into law by Governor Pat McCrory. The bill amended state law to preempt any anti-discrimination ordinances passed by local communities and, controversially, compelled schools and public facilities containing single-gender washrooms to only allow people of the corresponding sex as listed on their birth certificate to use them; it also gave the state exclusive rights to determine the minimum wage.
  The bathroom portion of the bill generated immense criticism for preventing transgender people who did not or could not alter their birth certificates from using the restroom consistent with their gender identity, and for changing the definition of sex in the state's anti-discrimination law to "the physical condition of being male or female, which is stated on a person's birth certificate." The removal of municipal anti-discrimination protections was also criticized, as state-level protections do not explicitly cover discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity.
context_section_description: There have been numerous rallies against House Bill 2, including in Raleigh: on March 24, hundreds of people marched through Raleigh to the North Carolina Executive Mansion, and on April 1 people protested outside the Legislative Building. There have also been protests in Winston-Salem (on March 25), Asheville (on March 25, 300 protesters rallied with Rev. Jasmine Beach-Ferrara, director of Campaign for Southern Equality), Burlington (on March 16), and Hendersonville (on April 15). On April 3, 2016, over 700 people gathered at a rally in Greensboro to protest the law.
  There have been demonstrations and protest actions at Salem College (on April 12), High Point University, Wake Forest University, East Carolina University in Greenville (on March 31) the University of North Carolina at Asheville, and the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, where the protest included a rally inside an administrative building and a march across campus to block a city intersection at Tate and Spring Garden streets in the College Hill Historic District. Another protest was held in Greensboro on April 13, 2016, on the campus of North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University. There was also a rally at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte on April 7. Students from Warren Wilson College went to Raleigh to protest the legislation. Students at North Carolina State University and the University of North Carolina at Pembroke and at Wilmington held bathroom sit-ins.
  In early April 2016 more than 100 students at Appalachian State University held a rally and week long protest against the bill in the university's administrative building. Students blocked traffic in downtown Boone as part of the protest. The group Appalachian State Student Power demanded that the University Chancellor Sheri Everts and UNC System President Margaret Spellings to publicly denounce the law.
  On March 29, 2016, hundreds of people protesting against House Bill 2 shut down Franklin Street in Chapel Hill, North Carolina for several hours. On April 13, a rally organized by the Queer and Trans People of Color Collective in Uptown Charlotte stopped traffic for over twenty minutes.
  Some protests have been part of the Moral Mondays civil disobedience movement, including one on April 25, 2016, when protesters were forced to leave their seats in the viewing gallery after loudly protesting as the House adjourned for the day. By the end of the day, fifty-four protesters were arrested: eighteen who had been arrested earlier and thirty-six more who refused to leave, including Mara Keisling, executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality. Protesters had stood outside House Speaker Tim Moore's office and on the ground floor of the Legislative Building. 180,000 signed petitions against House Bill 2 were brought to the legislative building during the Moral Monday protests. Also on April 1, students at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington held a protest. A rally was held later that evening in Wilmington blocking traffic at the intersections of Oleander and College Roads.
  At an open house at the governor's western residence in Asheville on May 14, 2016 protesters from Tranzmission, Black Lives Matter, and JustEconomics of Western North Carolina gathered to show opposition to House Bill 2.
caption: A rainbow feather boa hung over the Sir Walter Raleigh statue outside the Raleigh Convention Center in protest of House Bill 2
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