Southern Queer Newsroom
March 3 was a primary election date in Texas and North Carolina, and while the bigger names like James Talarico are taking the spotlight, a smaller win for trans rights happened in the North Carolina House of Representatives.
Nasif Majeed, who represents NC House District 99, voted last year to pass an anti-trans bill after the governor vetoed the bill. His vote to override the veto left the tally at 72-48, exactly 60%, and was the deciding factor in making that bill law. Senate Republicans included language that instituted book bans in libraries, codified a binary and false view of sex and gender, and made it so that updating a birth certificate would not replace the certificate with an updated gender marker, but instead create an additional document with the updated gender marker and preserve the original, leaving a paper trail of every trans person who legally changed their gender. The law also strips gender-affirming care from trans inmates, much like SB185; Georgia's law was permanently blocked by a judge because it violated protections against cruel and unusual punishment, and the ACLU is currently suing North Carolina to get a similar outcome.
Because of this and other times he aligned with the Republican Party, he was ousted by voters on March 3, who instead overwhelmingly voted in favor of Veleria Levy. According to her campaign website, Levy campaigned on raising the minimum wage to a living wage, building affordable housing, and implementing responsive constituent services for the office. The seat is a safe Democratic district in northern Charlotte and no Republicans filed to run in the general election in November, so she will be guaranteed a seat in the next session.