NC high school student, lesbian couple join legal challenge of HB2

A transgender high school junior from Winston-Salem and a lesbian couple from Charlotte have joined a lawsuit challenging House Bill 2.

The move comes two days after a federal appeals court ruled that a policy barring a transgender boy from using the boy’s restrooms at his Virginia high school was discriminatory.

The North Carolina student, Hunter Schafer, 17, was one of three plaintiffs who joined two transgender state residents and a lesbian law professor challenging North Carolina’s HB2.

The ACLU of North Carolina and gay rights advocates Lambda Legal announced the additions in a release on Thursday.

The new plaintiffs are:

▪ Schafer, a junior at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts High School in Winston-Salem who was diagnosed with gender dysphoria in the ninth grade. By her sophomore year she was using the girls’ restroom and feminine pronouns.

At the School of the Arts she lives in the girls’ dorm, but because of HB2, the lawsuit contends, she could be forced to use the boys’ restroom, “which would cause her serious anxiety and expose her to threats of harassment and violence.”

“I just want to be able to concentrate on school, grow as an artist, and have fun while doing that,” Hunter said in the release. “I’m not a man. I have always felt more comfortable in the girls’ dorm at school and the girls’ restroom, and using them has never been a problem. It’s humiliating and scary that there’s now a law that would force me to go to a boys’ bathroom when I clearly don’t belong there.”

▪ Beverly Newell, 45, a real estate agent, and Kelly Trent, 39, a registered nurse, a married lesbian couple who live in Charlotte. They contend they experienced discrimination when a fertility clinic where they had scheduled an appointment canceled it, saying it does not serve same-sex couples.

“It’s unnerving to know that we could be turned away by any business for being a same-sex couple and have no recourse because of HB2,” Newell said in the release. “HB2 has encouraged this type of conduct, and we no longer have the ability to file discrimination complaints when this type of thing happens in our home city of Charlotte. The bill has made it OK to harm LGBT people. The state of North Carolina is better than this.”

The complaints come amid national and international backlash against HB2, which was adopted and signed into law in March.

The sweeping law overturned a Charlotte ordinance that would have allowed transgender residents to use public restrooms that correspond to their gender identity. House Bill 2 also barred cities from passing anti-discrimination ordinances that go beyond the state law, which does not include LGBT protections. It also decreed that anyone who thought they were wrongfully fired from a job because of discrimination could no longer challenge those decisions in state court, only in federal court.

“High school students like Hunter should be able to go to school to learn and thrive. She should have the same privacy and respect that every student in North Carolina has, and she shouldn’t be treated differently simply because she’s transgender,” Tara Borelli, senior attorney with Lambda Legal, said in a statement. “HB2 is an attack on some of the most vulnerable members of our community, transgender young people. A law like this has devastating effects on transgender students who already feel vulnerable and alone.”

Chris Brook, legal director of the ACLU of North Carolina, said HB2 gives businesses in North Carolina a “green light to discriminate” against people such as Newell and Kent.

“Beverly and Kelly deserve to feel secure in knowing that when they go about their daily lives in Charlotte and interact with businesses open to the public, any discrimination they encounter is illegal,” Brook said in a statement.

“HB2 robs them of that.”

The three join a lawsuit that was filed several weeks ago in federal court in the U.S. Middle District of North Carolina.

This story was originally published April 21, 2016 at 11:13 AM with the headline "NC high school student, lesbian couple join legal challenge of HB2."