18 Absurdly False Claims North Carolina Just Made to Defend HB2
North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory’s Newest Brief Filed in Federal Court Is as Abhorrent as You’d Expect
North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory and his band of merry men submitted a brief in opposition to the United States’ motion for preliminary injunction against his state’s discriminatory and anti-trans law, HB2, and it’s even more disgusting and abhorrent than you’d think it would be.Â
Opening up with a tired statement about safety that’s been proven false time and time again, the argument begins, “As the Act’s text and legislative history make clear, the General Assembly was focused—not on disparaging transgender individuals—but rather on a commonsense concern for preserving everyone’s privacy and safety.†Ironically, while the brief opens up with a promise that the argument isn’t against transgender people, the authors spend the next 80-something pages denying the mere existence of trans folks and the United States’ desire to treat them with respect.Â
The brief spends a surprisingly large amount of time trying to push the incorrect notion that “biological sex†is a concrete concept and can be defined solely on the basis of external genitalia, even going so far as to call on Congress to define the concept of “biological sex†while also saying that the testimony of scientific experts (who disagree with them) is useless and inadmissible. Â
If you can stomach it, McCrory’s men spend nearly ten pages outlining bogus “medical†theories as to why transgender people are mentally ill, hormone therapy is dangerous, and adults who choose to have some form of surgical intervention are never, ever happy. None of this is true, of course, and though the State goes to great lengths to portray legitimacy, though their sources cited aren’t exactly experts. (The American College of Pediatricians is a hate group designed to look like a medical association, for example.)
The brief contains more than a few absurd statements. Here are some highlights of the most abhorrent. It’s worth noting that none of these are true:
- “Intersex†isn’t a real thing. (p9)
- Pretty much every man everywhere is just dying to dress like a woman and sneak into bathrooms to molest your daughters. (p22)
- Law enforcement officials won’t be able to arrest anyone for doing anything wrong because of non-discrimination laws. (p23)
- The NCAA has a standard of acceptance for trans people in sports teams, which justifies NC’s discrimination. (p26)
- People who have different types of genitalia are scary. (p28)
- Gender identity is nothing more than a “feeling†that people use to trick others. (p30)
- An injunction would prohibit the people of NC from governing themselves (even though HB2 prohibits local municipalities from governing themselves). (p31)
- The reality of verbal and physical attacks trans people suffer isn’t worth writing a law against because it’s abuse from citizens, not the State. (p34)
- Because trans people don’t go to the police to report safety concerns, their concerns aren’t valid. (p34)
- Non-discrimination laws would mean “any male†could use a women’s restroom legally. (p34)
- Trans people claim they won’t use the bathroom because of safety concerns but that’s not true nor a good reason for a safety law. (p35) (Yes, it’s true that trans folks avoid the bathroom for safety, here’s a study.)
- Treating trans people with respect and letting them use the proper bathroom isn’t a good treatment for gender dysphoria. (p35)
- Gender dysphoria goes away once puberty starts. (p36)
- Any harms to trans people are outweighed by harms to non-trans people. (p37)
- Even if a trans person is harmed by anti-trans policies, just being trans is harm enough and they’re already suffering, so harming them more is ok. (p37)
- Since “gender identity†isn’t real and only “biological sex†is, HB2 doesn’t discriminate against transgender people. (p44)
- Since non-discrimination laws that mention gender identity have never passed Congress, we don’t need to worry about it. (p46)
- None of this applies to Title IX since external genitalia is the only thing that matters in determining sex. (everywhere)
North Carolina’s brief goes from bad to worse to absolutely disgusting and can be summed up in one sentence: The idea of transgender people messes with what we think our world is and that scares the crap out of us, so it’s bad and wrong.
If you’ve got the energy and are looking for a good way to make yourself blindingly angry, you can read the entire brief here courtesy of the fabulous folks at Equality Case Files.
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Image by DonkeyHotey via Flickr and a CC license
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Maine Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Graham Platner is under fire after releasing a video declaring that new allegations against him are false, yet he is “taking time to reflect” on a path forward.
Politico on Monday afternoon reported that a woman who dated Platner, Jenny Racicot, “says he forced her to have sex with him nearly five years ago despite her repeated objections, an allegation Platner denies.”
“Racicot said she had an on-and-off relationship with Platner,” Politico reported, “for more than two years before he entered her rural Maine home uninvited one night in late 2021, deeply intoxicated, and forced himself on her while she repeatedly told him to stop. She said she cut off contact with him after telling him the encounter was not consensual.”
In a video posted to social media eleven minutes after the Politico story dropped, Platner says, “I wanted to directly address the troubling, serious, and false allegations against me. Any accusation of nonconsensual behavior is categorically false.”
He said he and his supporters “were united in a love of Maine, a belief that our politics must change, in a focus on defeating Susan Collins.”
“So, regardless of the inaccuracy of the reporting, but mindful the political reality will inflict, we are taking the time to reflect on the best path forward for the state that I love, the people that I love, the movement I belong to, and the goal of defeating Susan Collins.”
“Those were the goals when we launched this campaign. And they remain my goals today.”
“Throughout it all, you never turned your back on me. And I will not turn my back on you now. Every one of you deserves to see that vision come to fruition and see Susan Collins defeated. And we will use every tool at our disposal to do so.”
The Bulwark’s Tim Miller, a political commentator who served as the communications director for the Jeb Bush 2016 presidential campaign, blasted Platner.
“I’m sorry but ‘we are taking time to reflect on the best path forward’ is not an option on the table,” Miller wrote. “Either it’s false and you campaign with vigor or it’s true and you get out / apologize to everyone you let down.”
Journalist Ryan Grim, commenting on Platner’s video, noted that Platner “strongly suggests he is considering dropping out. Already Troy Jackson and Chellie Pingree, both gubernatorial candidates, are being kicked around in Maine circles as potential replacements.”
Several others, including Puck News’ Peter Hamby, predicted Platner will be dropping out.
Platner had postponed several campaign events before the Politico story was published.
— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) July 6, 2026
President Donald Trump is facing backlash after posting a video of children — including showing their unblurred faces — graduating from kindergarten, with some of the girls purportedly wearing hijabs.
“President Trump posted a captionless video of graduating kindergarteners on Truth Social on Monday, goading his supporters into verbally attacking little children simply for being Muslim,” The New Republic reported. “The clip is from Gateway STEM Academy, a majority-Black K-8 public charter school in St. Paul, Minnesota. It shows about 21 children in caps and gowns on stage singing a song together. Most of the girls are wearing hijabs.”
The original post of the video which Trump reposted reads: “Public school in St. Paul, Minnesota. Every girl is in a hijab … in kindergarten.”
Trump did not add any comments. TNR called the post “Islamophobic, weird, and creepy,” while noting that the comments section of Trump’s post was filled with calls “by racist, xenophobic MAGA supporters” to “deport the children and ban hijabs.”
TNR also noted that it “should come as no surprise that Trump isn’t above attacking children who just learned how to read, but this post is still particularly discomforting—and will certainly contribute to the already potent level of anti-Muslim sentiment in the U.S. and in Minnesota.”
Critics blasted Trump.
“There is something deeply unsettling about the president of the United States—the most powerful person in the world—going after kindergarten schoolchildren in Minnesota because they wore hijabs, as Trump has done this morning on his website,” The Bulwark’s Sam Stein wrote.
One social media commentator wrote, “Trump posted an unblurred video of more than a dozen Muslim kindergartners to Truth Social, exposing the children’s faces while targeting them for their religion.”
Another added, “Trump is a bigot. The president took to Truth Social to attack kindergarteners in hijabs. These are little kids. The president isn’t just a bigot, he’s also a coward.”
The original video was posted to the X social media platform in June.
U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) at the time commented, “If you are in a public school in America, you should be speaking english.”
Image via Reuters
President Donald Trump’s apparent efforts to delay releasing the $5.8 million civil judgment to E. Jean Carroll are being met with a warning by the journalist’s legal team, who suggest there could be a legal maneuver for Trump to employ to forgo paying the judgment in either of the two cases he lost.
According to The Guardian, on July 4, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered Trump to release the $5.8 million judgment, which is in escrow, to Carroll by this coming Tuesday — or explain why he would not do so.
Carroll’s attorneys think Trump may be trying to buy time to mount another legal strategy, telling the judge that Trump’s request for an extension “appears to be little more than yet another play for time.”
“The case is separate from Trump’s appeal of a Manhattan civil jury’s 2024 award of $83.3m to Carroll for defamation,” The Guardian explains. “But her lawyers have suggested a legal scenario in which the president might seek to conjoin the cases and further delay payment of both.”
Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan (no relation to the judge) wrote, “We can only assume that defendant is seeking … to buy time so he can try to concoct some new basis to put off paying plaintiff presumably in connection with his forthcoming petition and motion for a rehearing.”
Trump’s former attorney, Justin Smith, in one of his final acts, wrote to the Supreme Court suggesting that his client would be appealing the $83.3 million civil judgment.
Smith argued that the Supreme Court “may wish to consider the petitions together,” given they involve the same parties.
The larger judgment case involves possible questions of presidential immunity, and that has Carroll’s attorneys concerned.
“A conjoined case, Carroll’s lawyers fear, could result in both judgments being wiped out,” The Guardian reports.
The president has also made clear he is no fan of Judge Kaplan, after the jurist made several rulings that “angered” Trump.
“What else can you expect from a Trump Hating, Clinton appointed judge, who went out of his way to make sure that the result was as negative as it could possible be,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in 2023, “speaking to, and in control of, a jury from an anti-Trump area which is probably the worst place in the US for me to get a fair ‘trial’.”
Image via Reuters
Platner Scorched Over ‘Taking Time’ Video After New Accusation
Trump Sparks Fury Online After Posting Unblurred Video of Muslim Kindergartners in Hijabs
One Legal Maneuver Threatens to Undo Everything E. Jean Carroll Won
Inside the Group Helping MAGA Voters Walk Away — And What Finally Pushed Them
