Callum Bradford is a 16-year-old transgender student in Chapel Hill. We interviewed him to hear his thoughts on two anti-LGBTQ bills introduced in North Carolina.
Republican lawmakers introduced more than 200 anti-LGBTQ bills nationwide in January. Seventy-one percent of LGBTQ youth—and 86% of trans and nonbinary youth—said state laws restricting the rights of LGBTQ young people have negatively impacted their mental health, according to a recent poll.
The bill’s signing comes as Democrats and LGBTQ advocates have expressed growing fear over the possibility that the landmark 2015 Supreme Court case Obergefell v. Hodges—which legalized gay marriage nationwide—could be overturned following the Court’s decision to strike down Roe v. Wade earlier this year.
The Respect for Marriage Act does not require states to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, but it does require states that ban same-sex marriages to recognize these marriages as long as the marriage was valid in the state where it was performed.