Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson believes trans people should be arrested for using public bathrooms, insists they ‘find a corner outside’ instead

Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson is (once again) facing backlash after (once again) expressing his disgusting views on transgender North Carolinians, this time telling audiences at two rallies that transgender people should be arrested for using the bathroom and should instead “find a corner outside” to relieve themselves.

Although Robinson’s campaign refused to answer any questions or make any statements when reached by media outlets, his words indicate that he would like to bring back House Bill 2, also known as the “bathroom bill.” 

As a reminder, HB 2 led to international embarrassment and billions of dollars in economic losses for our state when movie studios, sports leagues, multiple corporations and musicians refused to do business in North Carolina for years.

In two speeches earlier this month, Robinson told supporters that transgender people who previously identified as male should be “arrested” if they go in a women’s bathroom.

At a campaign stop in Cary, Robinson said, “…if you’re a man on Friday night, and all 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.”

He made similar comments at a stop in Greenville but added, “If you are confused, find a corner outside somewhere to go. We’re not tearing society down because of this.”

In March 2016, legislative Republicans passed House Bill 2, which was then signed into law by former Gov. Pat McCrory. One year after the bill became law, the Associated Press released an analysis that showed the bill would have cost the state at least $3.76 billion in lost business over a dozen years had Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper not helped push a repeal of the bathroom requirements in the bill.

Though Cooper was able to get rid of the bathroom requirements, the state economy had already lost nearly $3 billion, the AP reported at the time. The rest of the bill was repealed in 2020 when a remaining provision of the law expired.

The eagerness to punish and degrade the LGBTQ+ community simply for existing is nothing new from Robinson, but his apparent belief that transgender people should be treated like animals by “find[ing] a corner outside somewhere” to relieve themselves is a sentiment he hasn’t expressed before.

Robinson has called transgender people “demonic,” the “Antichrist” and said they are “[d]ragging…kids down into the pit of hell.” 

In a November 2021 sermon at a Winston-Salem church, Robinson compared the gay community to “what the cows leave behind,” “maggots” and “flies.” A month before that sermon, also in a church, Robinson called all LGBTQ+ North Carolinians “filth.” 

On March 19, 2023, Robinson gave a sermon at Trinity Baptist Church in Mooresville, where he told attendees that the rainbow flag makes him “sick.”

“Yes, I said it. Makes me sick every time I see it when I pass a church that flies that that rainbow flag, which is a direct, a direct spit in the face to God Almighty,” he said.

Unfortunately, at least among many Republicans, Robinson’s views on the LGBTQ+ community aren’t abhorrent enough to garner any condemnation. 

Right-wing legislatures throughout the U.S. pushed anti-LGBTQ bills at never-before-seen levels. According to the ACLU, there were 510 anti-LGBTQ bills filed in the U.S. in 2023. Eleven anti-LGBTQ bills were filed in North Carolina last year and five of them are now the law. The remaining six bills are considered by the ACLU to be “advancing” in the legislature.