Vetoes Overridden: North Carolina Legislature Protects Victims of Leftist Mob Against Mayhem
"They've been trying for 30 years to capture the Tar Heel State, but they usually come up short. The unprecedented amount of policy artillery that the NC GOP-led legislature blasted onto the Dem forces in the form of veto overrides shows that the Left is engaging in delusional fantasies if they think NC is going to go blue," says Public Advocate supporter and lawyer Rob Brantley.
Vetoes Overridden: NC Legislature Protects Gender-Confused Minors, Parental Rights, and Women's Sports
The North Carolina Legislature held a veto override bonanza Wednesday, enacting at least five bills over the objections of Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat.
Among them were bills to protect minors from the harmful effects of irreversible gender-reassignment procedures, guarantee parental rights in education, and clarify that women's sports are for women.
HB 808 makes it "unlawful for a medical professional to perform a surgical gender-transition procedure on a minor or to prescribe, provide, or dispense puberty-blocking drugs or cross-sex hormones to a minor," with an exception for a "course of treatment" begun before Aug. 1. It enforces this prohibition through a private cause of action and license revocation.
The act also implements conscience protections for medical providers who object to performing gender-reassignment procedures and it prevents the use of state funds for gender-reassignment procedures on a minor.
"Recognizing the serious and the potentially permanent effects of the procedures that this bill addresses, it simply says they need to wait until they're 18 to make that kind of a decision," said state Rep. Hugh Blackwell, a Republican.
"Statistically, we have seen from studies in Europe high numbers of people who regret having undergone gender-affirming care as minors, and many go through the detransition process," said state Rep. Ken Fontenot, a Republican and a sponsor of the bill. "Sadly, even after people detransition, they cannot have children, and this is too serious and irreversible of a decision for minors to make before their brain is fully developed."
The veto override for HB 808 passed the House 74-45 (two votes to spare) and the Senate 27-18 (no votes to spare). A veto override in North Carolina requires a three-fifths majority. Notably, two House Democrats, state Reps. Michael Wray and Garland Pierce, voted against the bill's original passage in June, but voted for the veto override-and against a governor from their own party.