Wave of NC Cities Passing Gender Identity Ordinances Threatening Misdemeanors/Fines, After Sunset of HB2 Era Prohibition

RALEIGH – Here we go again. This time after a solid few years of progressive and accelerating Woke Cultural Revolution has created a more welcoming environment for enforcing the dogma of identity politics, a wave of cities in North Carolina are passing ordinances that amount to HB2-Lite.

The push is orchestrated by the familiar Far Left LGBT group Equality NC (some one should tell them ‘equality’ is out of style now), who animated much of the HB2 opposition a few short years ago. The ordinances add gender identity and sexual orientation to protect classes, prohibiting discrimination on those grounds in service or employment.

The ordinances passed so far in half a dozen cities (the usual Woke supects) stop just short of the Men in Women’s Bathrooms feature of HB2. Instead, do things like bar any organization — a business with a specific need? A church hiring staff? — from considering gender identity in hiring decisions. Some cities (and the list is growing) list employment hiring protections for certain hair styles associated with race or ethnicity.

Prefer your front desk receptionist not to be a transwoman or have dreads for any number of reasons? Too bad, bigot/racist.

The punishments for each violation is a misdemeanor and up to a $500 fine per day.

However, it’s not just the starting line up of deep blue cities passing these ordinances. As Andrew Dunn reports in the Carolina Journal, the activists are pressuring dozens of North Carolina counties, towns, and cities to join in on the Woke Wave, including:

• Asheville
• Black Mountain
• Boone
• Buncombe County
• Cary
• Charlotte
• Davidson
• Davidson County
• Fayetteville
• Gastonia
• Greenville
• Hendersonville
• High Point
• Huntersville
• Matthews
• Mecklenburg County
• Raleigh
• Rocky Mount
• Statesville
• Watauga County
• Weaverville
• Wilmington
• Winston-Salem

So, will this trigger an HB2 level of controversy? Probably not. For one thing, as mentioned above, the world is far different than it was when the Charlotte ordinance and House Bill 2 saga occurred. For better or worse, it’s far more Woke, and enforcing obedience to Woke philosophy via affirmative policy reforms has become astonishingly common.

What’s more, with out the obvious flash point of the transgender bathroom issue, and with the controversy itself still seared in collective memories, state lawmakers aren’t likely to counter the trend with clarifying legislation.

That means it’d be up top business owners, professional associations, and religious organizations to take it up in court, when the ordinances impede on their constitutionally protected freedoms.

In the mean time, dozens of North Carolina cities will be looking to pass these rules, so they can charge you with a crime, and fine you hundreds of dollars a day for simply denying a she/her transgender woman sporting a stubble employment as your Baptist Church’s Daycare Director. Great.

Read more about the push, and the history of the HB2 saga, here.