Gupta made the claim at a forum held on Tuesday by the Washington Council of Lawyers.
U.S. Attorney’s Office in Jackson, Miss.
“Even after the Supreme Court’s landmark gay marriage decision last year in Obergefell v. Hodges that guaranteed all people ‘equal dignity in the eyes of the law,’ we see new efforts to deny LGBTI individuals the respect they deserve and the protection our laws guarantee,” Gupta said.
North Carolina’s H.B. 2 requires people to use bathrooms according to their biological sex, rather than by their self-proclaimed gender identity.
“The Justice Department recently sued the state of North Carolina to challenge the provision in H.B. 2 that prevents transgender individuals from using restrooms and changing facilities consistent with their gender identity,” Gupta went on to say.
“As I said the day we announced the lawsuit, calling H.B. 2 a ‘bathroom bill’ trivializes what this is really about. H.B. 2 translates into discrimination in the real world.”