Fox News anchor Chris Wallace did not mince words when discussing North Carolina’s controversial anti-LGBTQ law on his show Sunday.
Fox News’s Chris Wallace calls out North Carolina’s anti-LGBTQ law
“This seems to be a solution in search of a problem,” Wallace said, quoting conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer.
North Carolina’s law did two big things: One, it banned local nondiscrimination laws that include sexual orientation and gender identity. Two, it prohibited transgender people, who identify with a gender different than the one assigned to them at birth, from using the bathroom in schools and government buildings that aligns with their gender identity.
Supporters of the law say that the measure was necessary because letting trans people legally use the bathroom of their choice would allow men to disguise themselves as women, go into women’s bathrooms, and sexually assault or harass women.
But Wallace cited a PolitiFact report that concluded this type of attack has reportedly never happened: “We haven’t found any instances of criminals convicted of using transgender protections as cover in the United States. Neither have any left-wing groups or right-wing groups.”
PolitiFact actually understates the case, claiming that it found an attack linked to trans protections in Canada. According to PolitiFact’s report, a man in Toronto, which now has nondiscrimination protections for LGBTQ people, disguised himself as a woman to sneak into women’s shelters and attacked women.
But the attack happened months before Ontario (Toronto’s province) passed its nondiscrimination law. So the law couldn’t have been the cause.
Still, PolitiFact’s broad finding is correct: Even though both sides have actively looked for attacks linked to trans protections, they have found none. So as Wallace suggested, North Carolina’s law seems to be built on a myth.
