North Carolina gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson’s transgender comments spark GOP backlash
Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, the GOP front-runner in the state's gubernatorial race, implied that transgender women should be arrested for using women's restrooms.
Two Republican candidates in North Carolina’s race for governor condemned the front-runner Monday for his comments about transgender people using the restroom.
Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, who is the leading Republican candidate ahead of the state’s primary for governor on March 5, implied at a campaign event this month that transgender women should be arrested if they use women’s restrooms.
“We’re going to defend women in this state,” he said in a speech at a campaign stop in Cary. “That means if you’re a man on Friday night and all of the sudden on Saturday, you feel like a woman and you want to go in the women’s bathroom in the mall, you will be arrested — or whatever we got to do to you.”
North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, a Republican candidate for governor, at a rally Roxboro on Jan. 26.Chris Seward / AP fileAt an event in Greenville, Robinson said people who “are confused” about their gender should “find a corner outside somewhere to go” to the bathroom.
“We’re not tearing society down because of this,” he added, seven years after North Carolina partly repealed HB 2, also known as the “bathroom bill,” which barred transgender people from using the restrooms and changing facilities that match their gender identities in most public spaces. The bill drew nationwide criticism and boycotts, and it was projected to cost the state billions.
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