TJ Walker (speaker) discusses North Carolina's 2016 controversial legislation restricting transgender people’s use of public bathrooms and the resulting backlash: major entertainers and sports organizations (notably the NBA and NCAA) canceled events in the state. Walker, who has personal ties to North Carolina, outlines economic harm to cities that rely on tournament tourism, criticizes the Republican-controlled state government (naming Governor Pat McCrory) for doubling down, and argues the most viable remedy is electoral change — voting in different leaders. The piece connects civil-rights concerns, corporate/sponsor pressure, and local economic consequences.
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Its crisis time in North Carolina. No, I don't mean tornadoes or hurricanes that they can deal with. It's worse, at least in the eyes of many North Carolinians. The NCAA organization has banned college basketball from playing any tournament games in North Carolina. Now, in North Carolina, which is, by the way, what I consider my home state, I moved there at age 5, lived there through college, so all of my formal education was conducted in North Carolina. Still have family there, so allow me to seem like I'm picking on them a bit, because you can pick on your own. North Carolina famously passed legislation last year that banned cities from letting transgendered people go to bathrooms of their choice. This struck many people across the ideological spectrum as a solution in search of a problem. It's seen as a thinly disguised attempt to attack, vilify, mock transgendered people, gay people, anybody who in fact is different. The law specified you had to go to the bathroom of your birth gender. And this just struck a lot of people as bigoted nonsense. Major celebrity musicians, comedians, people like Bruce Springsteen have canceled shows in North Carolina. The NBA has canceled engagements in North Carolina. Those two things didn't hurt. But now you're really cutting to the bone of many North Carolinians. You're saying you cannot have NCAA basketball tournament games there. Now, North Carolina, for some strange reason, has had more NCAA tournament basketball games than any other state. And I for one, am a huge fan, full disclosure of NCAA basketball, and went to almost all the home Duke basketball games when I attended that university. So. So I am sympathetic to people who love watching NCA basketball, but North Carolina is in a whole heap of trouble. They have a Republican legislature, Republican governor, there's no one who can veto nonsense. And that. Excuse me for seeming overtly partisan, but that's what this is. In many states, you've got a Democratic legislature, a Democratic governor. So if you're a Republican, you can sort of posture on these issues, placate a certain special interest group, make them feel good, and no laws are changed, nobody's hurt. There really are no checks and balances in North Carolina these days. So what far right conservatives want, they get put into law. But they're seeing now that the rest of the world doesn't see it that way. And it has become a crisis of sorts for businesses, for the economy of certain cities that depend on tourism. Places like Greensboro that traditionally have gotten a lot of extra revenue from tourists coming to watch NCAA basketball events, other events, their coliseums are now hurting. So far, the Republican governor, Pat McCrory and others in the legislature are digging deeper. They're doubling down. They're saying they're not changing. How is this going to resolve? How can this crisis be averted when it comes to North Carolina's reputation? Sadly, I don't see any easy way out. I don't see the Republicans backtracking and say, oops, we were wrong. The only real solution for North Carolinians is they're going to have to vote in new leaders of a different party. I'm not saying it's got to be the Democratic Party, but you're going to have to vote in new new leaders, most likely from another party. It could be the Green Party, could be the Libertarian Party. Or you're going to have to vote for new legislators of the same party who have a different philosophical view on this issue. Because the NCAA is an organization that has to be responsive to sponsors. And there are sponsors who sell products to people all across America, black, white, yellow, brown, gay, straight, transsexual. And they simply cannot be seen as endorsing with millions of dollars, acts of bigotry. And that's the real problem with this particular piece of legislation that just strikes, I won't say all people, but it strikes most people. People as formalized, institutionalized bigotry. I don't think it's going away. I mean, North Carolina could say, okay, we don't mind being another. Alabama or Arizona had this whole situation where they refused to recognize Martin Luther King Day and were ostracized by the national, in some ways, international community. But I don't think there's any soundbite to have this go away. I don't think there's a press conference that can be held. Sometimes crises come from actual policies being wildly offensive to key interest groups. And in this particular case, North Carolina businesses, hotels, restaurants, the economy at large is interested in the business groups who sponsor NBA basketball games and NCAA basketball games and concerts, and they simply cannot force their will on the rest of the world. If you win a majority of the legislative seats in North Carolina and the governor's mansion, you can force your will on the majority of citizens in that state. You can't do it to the rest of the country. We'll see. I have a keen interest in North Carolina having still family there and visit there from time to time, but we'll see.
