WASHINGTON — The District has become the latest in a series of cities and states to ban official travel to North Carolina in the wake of that state’s new law regarding gay, lesbian and transgender residents.
Mayor Muriel Bowser on Friday signed an order reading that “no officer or employee of the District of Columbia is authorized to approve any official travel to North Carolina.”
The Public Facilities Privacy and Security Act prohibits North Carolina cities and towns from writing and passing their own laws prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity within their jurisdictions, and reverses a Charlotte ordinance that had been in place. It also requires people to use public bathrooms that are assigned to the gender listed on their birth certificate.
The law also bans cities and towns from passing their own minimum wages higher than North Carolina’s $7.25 per hour.
Bowser’s order says that “ensuring individuals are free from discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity is a compelling government interest,” and that official travel to North Carolina is banned until the law “is permanently enjoined, repealed or amended” to allow cities and towns to make their own laws on the subject.
The order adds that “the laws and public policies of the District of Columbia should support the values of inclusiveness and respect for all.”
So far, the states of Connecticut, Vermont, New York and Washington, and the cities of Boston, Seattle and San Francisco, have banned official travel to North Carolina, Fortune reports. Private companies, including the NCAA, have criticized the law.
