Prevent Sexual Exploitation/Women and Minors.

HB 805 started as a bill to combat online sexual exploitation. Age verification for porn sites, consent requirements for explicit content, tools for victims to get nonconsensual images removed from the internet. It passed the House 113-0. Every single member. Unanimous.

Then it went to the Senate. Senator Buck Newton rewrote it. The new version kept the exploitation provisions but added: a legal definition of sex as strictly biological (two sexes, male and female, determined at birth), a ban on state-funded gender-affirming care for prisoners, changes to birth certificate rules for transgender individuals, an extended statute of limitations for malpractice claims related to gender transition procedures, religious exemptions from classroom discussions, and parental control over school library books.

The full enacted title tells the story. It went from "Prevent Sexual Exploitation of Women and Minors" to "An Act to Officially Recognize Two Sexes in North Carolina, to Prevent the Sexual Exploitation of Women and Minors, to Limit the Use of State Funding, to Modify the Law Related to Birth Certificates..." and keeps going. The exploitation provisions are one piece of a bill that now covers seven different policy areas.

Democratic senators tried to split the bill so they could vote for the exploitation provisions separately. Republicans blocked that motion. Governor Stein vetoed it. The override passed 72-48 in the House with one Democratic crossover providing the deciding vote. The original House sponsor, Rep. Laura Budd (D-Mecklenburg), publicly appealed to the Senate to remember the bill's original purpose.