Tonight, Mark Robinson secured the votes necessary to become the Republican nominee for Governor in North Carolina. Robinson is one of the most virulently anti-LGBTQ+ elected officials in the country. He stoked the flames that allowed for the passage of three anti-LGBTQ+ bills in North Carolina in 2023 and has lambasted LGBTQ+ people, women, Muslims, and Jewish people.
He has specifically vilified transgender people at every turn – and just last month said that transgender women should be arrested for using bathrooms that are in line with their gender identity, and instead just “find a corner outside somewhere.”
Allison Scott (she/her pronouns), Director of Impact & Innovation at the Campaign for Southern Equality, said today:
“Mark Robinson’s ascension to the Republican nomination for Governor in our state is a disturbing signal of how extreme the GOP establishment has become in North Carolina. This is a man who has called LGBTQ+ people ‘filth,’ has helped make the NCGA a testing ground for extreme policies that harm all of us, and has called for transgender women like me to be arrested because of who we are. He wants a North Carolina where it’s prohibitively hard for us to exist – but we won’t let that happen. All fair-minded North Carolinians must come together in the months ahead and show that there is no place for Mark Robinson’s hateful, divisive rhetoric and policy stances in our state.”
An estimated 382,000 LGBTQ+ people live in North Carolina, and 26% are raising children.
This year, Campaign for Southern Equality launched Queer the Vote NC, our campaign that is pushing hard to make sure every single LGBTQ+ person and ally in NC gets to the polls to vote for our rights – and for a North Carolina where every single person can thrive.
2023 was marked by cruel attacks on LGBTQ+ equality, in both North Carolina and around the country – and now we know that 2024 is a generation-defining fork in the road for North Carolina. It will take all of us to ensure we don’t slide down the path of a dangerous and very real political extremism.
Read more of Robinson’s long history of anti-LGBTQ+ comments in a list compiled by the Campaign for Southern Equality.
