North Carolina Gov. Rolls Back Some 'Bathroom Bill' Protections

North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory signed an executive order Tuesday rolling back several controversial provisions of the state's controversial "bathroom bill." The law banned local governments from passing anti-LGBT discrimination laws and required transgender people from using only the bathrooms designated by their sex at birth.

In the wake of the law, which went into effect April 1, PayPal withdrew plans for an expansion in Charlotte, other businesses threatened to move elsewhere, governments refused state-sponsored travel and several major performers canceled shows they had scheduled across North Carolina.

McCrory's executive order essentially undoes many of the most criticized aspects of the bill. A press release from the governor's office outlined several of the changes as a result of the executive order:

• Private businesses or people can establish their own rules for bathroom and locker-room usage.
• Private businesses and local governments can pass their own, discrimination policies.
• State employee protections now include sexual orientation and gender identity.

The executive order, though, still holds what McCrory calls "common sense" rules in government buildings and schools about bathroom and locker rooms.

"Gov. McCrory’s actions today are a poor effort to save face after his sweeping attacks on the LGBT community, and they fall far short of correcting the damage done when he signed into law the harmful House Bill 2, which stigmatizes and mandates discrimination against gay and transgender people," Sarah Preston, ACLU North Carolina's executive director, said in a statement.

"With this executive order, LGBT individuals still lack legal protections from discrimination, and transgender people are still explicitly targeted by being forced to use the wrong restroom."

The original law was approved in an eleventh-hour, special state session after Charlotte passed sweeping protections for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people, including letting them choose which bathrooms to use.

The law, as with many similar ones around the country, was framed as a fight over bathroom privacy.

But experts and activists called the law short-sighted and discriminatory. Local law enforcement admitted that they didn't even know how they would enforce the law — Do you post officers outside every bathroom and demand birth certificates from people before they enter?

PayPal was the first major domino to fall, when the online payment company announced they were backing out of a planned expansion into Charlotte. Bruce Springsteen and Bryan Adams both cancelled scheduled performances in the state. And several states a major cities said they would ban nonessential, state-sponsored travel to North Carolina.