North Carolina gubernatorial candidate says trans women should be arrested over bathroom use

Two Republican candidates in North Carolina’s race for governor condemned the front-runner Monday for his comments about transgender people using the restroom.

Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, who is the leading Republican candidate ahead of the state’s primary for governor on March 5, implied at a campaign event this month that transgender women should be arrested if they use women’s restrooms.

“We’re going to defend women in this state,” he said in a speech at a campaign stop in Cary. “That means if you’re a man on Friday night and all of the sudden on Saturday, you feel like a woman and you want to go in the women’s bathroom in the mall, you will be arrested — or whatever we got to do to you.”

At an event in Greenville, Robinson said people who “are confused” about their gender should “find a corner outside somewhere to go” to the bathroom.

“We’re not tearing society down because of this,” he added, seven years after North Carolina partly repealed HB 2, also known as the “bathroom bill,” which barred transgender people from using the restrooms and changing facilities that match their gender identities in most public spaces. The bill drew nationwide criticism and boycotts, and it was projected to cost the state billions.

Robinson’s two Republican opponents, state Treasurer Dale Folwell and attorney Bill Graham, criticized him.

“Mark Robinson is history’s latest example of someone rising to power through hate,” Folwell said in a written statement to NBC News. “If he really cared about NC or the Republican party he would resign now. If he wanted the Senate to run a piece of legislation to his liking, maybe he should show up more than 10% of the time.”

Alex Baltzegar, Graham’s spokesperson, said Robinson “will lose and hurt all Republican candidates if he is the nominee.”

“His comments about the Holocaust being hogwash along with his demeaning comments about women will wreck GOP chances for regaining the White House and the Governorship here in North Carolina,” Baltzegar added in an emailed statement.