The Man Who Signed North Carolina's Old Anti-Trans Bill Just Adores Its New One

If you were wondering whether North Carolina’s recent move to ostensibly repeal HB2, its notoriously transphobic “bathroom bill,” was maybe, actually, not so good, let this put your curiosity to rest: former Governor Pat McCrory, who signed HB2 into law just over a year ago, is thrilled that the LGBTQ community “lost the battle” over equal rights.

“The good news is this—the HRC [LGBTQ equality group Human Rights Campaign] lost the battle,” McCrory crowed during a radio interview with Tony Perkins, head of the viciously anti-gay Family Research Council, over the weekend.

“The fact of the matter is, they did not get a full repeal of HB2,” McCrory continued. “They do not have the power at the local level to change the definition of gender.”

North Carolina’s new law has been roundly criticized as a half-measure that, though it technically repeals HB2, but still leaves the state’s LGBTQ community open to discrimination. Even current Governor Roy Cooper, who defeated McCrory last November thanks in no small part to the McCrory’s enthusiastic support for the increasingly unpopular bathroom bill, admitted the repeal “wasn’t a perfect deal or my preferred solution.”

McCrory even predicted happy days ahead, telling Perkins, “hopefully with the new Supreme Court justice that’s been nominated by President Trump there’ll be a ruling that’ll keep the definition of gender as we’ve been using in the 1964 Civil Rights Act for generations.”