The Republican supermajority in North Carolina’s state legislature Wednesday evening voted to override vetoes from Gov. Roy Cooper (D) to enact three bills targeting transgender youth.
The state House and Senate override votes passed largely along party lines, making three bills state law: one that bans doctors from providing gender-affirming care for minors, one that restricts how gender identity can be used in schools, and one that prohibits transgender athletes from competing on girls’ sports teams.
Cooper blasted the override votes, saying, “These are the wrong priorities, especially when they should be working nights and weekends if necessary to get a budget passed by the end of the month.”
By contrast, one of the bill’s sponsors, state Sen. Joyce Krawiec (R), said in a statement, “We need to take a cautious approach and limit access to these life-altering medical procedures, and today’s vote to override Gov. Cooper’s veto does just that.”
A reported 566 anti-transgender bills have been proposed in 49 states so far this year. Of those, 80 have passed while 128 have failed. Another 358 remain active. That’s compared to 26 bills passed in 2022 out of 174 proposed.
According to the Williams Institute, a UCLA think tank, roughly 300,000 of the tens of millions of students between ages 13 and 17 identify as transgender. A 2107 survey by Human Rights Campaign suggested that fewer than 15% of transgender youth play sports.
