“The so-called “deal’ that North Carolina lawmakers are attempting to ram through today would effectively ban LGBTQ non-discrimination protections statewide through 2020 and permanently bar cities from passing laws that ensure transgender people can access facilities in accordance with their identity,” said a statement released by the Human Rights Campaign that calls the new law “unconstitutional.”

Ben Graumann, Director of Communications at LGBTQ foundation Equality NC says the bill leaves transgender NC residents "in a limbo and it's going to leave them there for four years until the end of 2020." The compromise plan, announced Wednesday night by the state’s Democratic governor and leaders of the Republican-controlled legislature, was worked out under mounting pressure from the NCAA, which threatened to take away more sporting events from the basketball-obsessed state as long as the law, also known as House Bill 2, remained on the books. The new measure rescinds House Bill 2, the so-called bathroom bill also popularly known as HB 2, which required transgender people to use the bathrooms, changing rooms and showers in state-run buildings that correspond to the sex on their birth certificate rather than their gender identity. The House and Senate passed a “compromise” bill Thursday repealing the infamous House Bill 2 that cost the state at least $630 million in lost business and was projected to translate into $3.7 billion in losses over the next decade, according to the AP. “With so many trans young people facing discrimination, trans women of color being murdered, and real problems facing our country, it is a disgrace that North Carolina is acting once again to target our vulnerable community.”

“If you vote for this bill you are not a friend of the LGBTQ community,” Equality North Carolina executive director Chris Sgro told reporters Thursday morning. He said Cooper, whom gay rights activists supported in North Carolina’s gubernatorial election last year, could get the blame for backing a “dirty deal.”

“This repeal is nothing but a replacement of the same discrimination of the original HB2,” ACLU staff attorney Chase Strangio told ABC News in a statement today. “Compromise requires give and take from all sides, and we are pleased this proposal fully protects bathroom safety and privacy,” the state’s top Republican lawmakers, Senate leader Phil Berger and House of Representatives Speaker Tim Moore, said in a statement released late Wednesday. The NCAA stated last week that it had moved the championships “because of the cumulative impact HB2 had on local communities’ ability to assure a safe, healthy, discrimination free atmosphere for all those watching and participating in our events.”

It remains to be seen how the NCAA will view the legislative action. In basketball-crazed North Carolina, the withdrawal of National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) tournament games and the National Basketball Association All-Star game, which had been awarded to Charlotte, reverberated throughout the state.
The state legislature of North Carolina repeals the Public Facilities Privacy & Security Act, more commonly known as the "transgender bathroom bill." In its place, the legislature enacts a ban on cities in North Carolina from enacting "civil rights" protections for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people through 2020.