A controversial state Senate bill restricting transgender access to bathrooms and locker rooms is dead for now.
The bill filed in March by a group of Senate Republicans has drawn comparisons to House Bill 2, the 2016 anti-transgender legislation that led to boycotts.
The new bill would require people to use bathrooms and other facilities that match their gender at birth. And it would ban transgender people from changing their birth certificates.
Senate leader Phil Berger said the new bill won't get a hearing ahead of a legislative deadline this week; bills that don't pass either the House or Senate by Thursday are considered dead under the legislature's rules.
"I don't see that at this point the runway exists for that bill to be passed by the Senate between now and crossover on Thursday," he said, adding that he thought it was inaccurate to compare the bill to House Bill 2.
But Sen. Jay Chaudhuri, D-Wake, said he's still concerned the bill could resurface later. "Just because we haven't heard a bill similar to HB 2 doesn't mean that it couldn't pop up next year," he said. "Oftentimes, a lot of the controversial bills are run during the election year because it's a way to energize the (Republican) base."
Sen. Lisa Grafstein, D-Wake, added that "it's hard to celebrate the lack of something happening, because we've seen so many bad things happen, we had so many anti-trans bills last year, anti-LGBTQ bills last year. "
Lawmakers aren't completely avoiding transgender-related legislation this year. The House passed a bill that would allow more medical malpractice claims by "de-transitioners" — people who received gender-affirming care before they turned 18 and later decided to return to their birth gender.
Another bill on the Senate's calendar this week would prevent child abuse claims against parents who decline to support their children's gender transition. A parent or guardian "who raises a juvenile consistent with the juvenile's biological sex," the bill says, "shall not be subject to a petition supporting abuse or neglect" over that decision.
