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Proposals Would Expand LGBT Protections In North Carolina

SEAN BUETER/WFDD

Gay rights advocates and their supporters at the legislature say expanding discrimination protections and repealing remnants of the North Carolina "bathroom bill" will make clear that LGBT people aren't second-class citizens.

House legislation includes a bill that would ban so-called “conversion therapy” for minors. It would prevent licensed counselors, social workers and psychiatrists from using their professions to attempt to alter a child's sexual orientation.

Another bill would repeal the remnants of the controversial House Bill 2, which among other things directed transgender people to use public bathrooms in accordance with the gender on their birth certificates.

The law led to a backlash that included the loss of some high-profile sporting events. It was partially repealed two years ago. The new bill would end the restrictions that remain.

Paul Garber is a Winston-Salem native and an award-winning reporter who began his journalism career with an internship at The High Point Enterprise in 1993. He has previously worked at The Augusta (Ga.) Chronicle, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, The News and Record of Greensboro and the Winston-Salem Journal, where he was the newspaper's first full-time multimedia reporter. He won the statewide Media and the Law award in 2000 and has also been recognized for his business, investigative and multimedia reporting. Paul earned a BA from Wake Forest University and has a Master's of Liberal Arts degree from Johns Hopkins University and a Master's of Journalism and Mass Communication from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He lives in Lewisville.

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