The recent passing of a law in North Carolina banning local anti-discrimination laws has begun to worry some that we will see similar bills popping up around the country. The bill, HB2, forces transgender individuals to use the bathroom designated to their biological sex at birth in public schools and universities, as well as prohibiting individual cities from raising their minimum wage, among other impositions that seem completely unnecessary and contrary to republican's usual championing of local authorities. This happened after Charlotte passed legislation prohibiting discrimination of trans people.

Last month a similar bill was vetoed in South Dakota by its republican governor, stating that the bill "does not address any pressing issue concerning the school districts of South Dakota" and that such rare cases were best left to local school officials. Other similar bills have popped up here and there, including in Houston, and another similar bill has just been introduced in Illinois. It seem that these republicans have an image in their minds of a trans person being an inherently perverted man in a dress getting a kick out of peeping at women in restrooms. Likely though, they have used a restroom with a trans person before and not known it, and everything was okay and life went on. They don't seem to understand that this imagined discomfort of using the restroom with someone of the opposite sex is exactly what these bills will cause.

(Buck Angel, trans male porn star and activist)

Aside from all of the obvious logical fallacies in the supporting arguments for these bills, it is in violation of Title IX, a law which states: "No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance."

In case that isn't clear enough, in 2014, the Department of Education released a memo which towards the end stated: "All students, including transgender students and students who do not conform to sex stereotypes, are protected from sex-based discrimination under Title IX."

(Michael Hughes, born female, doesn't think he belongs in a women's restroom. Do you?)

In this case, Federal Government trumps State Government. State governments should not have the right to decide who they can discriminate against, especially when such laws as Title IX already exist. The Federal Government should be able to nullify any anti-anti-discrimination laws, and perhaps state legislators should educate themselves about the people their laws actually affect. Discrimination towards any group of people should not be acceptable anywhere in this country.