Bath Shower Ha Na

On May 9, North Carolina Gov . Pat McCrory (R) and U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch announced dueling lawsuits regarding HB2, a law that requires people to use public restrooms according to the sex they were assigned at birth, rather than the one they identify with. (Monica Akhtar/The Washington Post) From the moment North Carolina Gov . Pat McCrory (R) signed that  controversial bathroom bill into law, he pretty much guaranteed its content would end up in court. North Carolina became the first (and so far only) state to restrict where transgender people can use public bathrooms and locker rooms, and gay rights advocates almost immediately filed a lawsuit challenging the law's legality. Now the state is suing the government, and the government is suing the state. Basically, lawsuits all around. The federal government says the law violates federal civil rights laws and ordered  North Carolina to get rid of it. North Carolina GOP officials argue there's no law that ...

Less than two months after failing to pass a “bathroom bill” restricting access for transgender people , Texas lawmakers are trying again amid fierce opposition from Democrats, civil rights groups and leading businesses. A special legislative session will start on Tuesday in Austin. Among the main items on the agenda is a measure to limit transgender access to restrooms and changing facilities. The issue is the latest battleground in the conflict in Texas between moderate, pragmatic Republicans and far-right, ideologically driven conservatives emboldened by the rise of Donald Trump. That clash is embodied by antipathy between two of the state’s most important politicians: Joe Straus, speaker of the House and a relative moderate, and Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick , a Christian conservative who was the state chairman of Trump’s presidential campaign. Passing a bathroom bill is a top priority for Patrick. In a sign of the pressure being placed on moderates as Texas politics lurche...

By Jon Herskovitz AUSTIN, Texas, Aug 14 (Reuters) - Texas measures to restrict access for transgender people to bathrooms in schools and public buildings appear doomed after moderate Republican powerbrokers blocked the bills and hundreds of businesses opposed them. The so-called " bathroom bills " have caused rifts among Republicans who control the state's legislature, leaving no likely path to passage before a 30- day special session wraps on Wednesday, analysts and lawmakers said on Monday. "The bathroom bill in this session is dead and buried with dirt over its coffin," said Mark Jones, a political science professor at Rice University in Houston. Enactment in Texas, the most populous Republican -dominated state, could give momentum to other socially conservative states for additional action on an issue that has become a flashpoint in the U.S. culture wars. But House Speaker Joe Straus , a pro- business Republican who controls the agenda in the body, has s...

MONTREAL — It was not quite 10 minutes after he had kissed the blue court, thanked the Montreal crowd and waved to his mother — who anxiously sat in the corner, behind the baseline and above the wall. It was not long after he’d left the court, to the kind of thunderous roar that Jarry Park had reserved for a Bill Stoneman no-hitter or Gary Carter home runs . It was not quite 11:00 on Thursday evening, after he’d passed the throng of hundreds waiting for him along the outdoor concourse, through a dark tunnel into an indoor building and a plush, empty, carpeted locker room . It was not quite 10 minutes after the greatest accomplishment of Denis Shapovalov’s young life that this 18-year-old stood shirtless in the middle of that locker room with his physiotherapist, Nick Martichenko, his coach, Martin Laurendeau, and Canadian Olympic doctor , Nick Sauve, and breathlessly wondered aloud , “What the hell just happened?” And nobody in the room could really answer his question. Canadian tennis...