Transgender people are a normal part of our community and deserve your respect

Welcome to NC Voices, where leaders, readers and experts from across North Carolina can speak on issues affecting our communities. Send submissions of 300 words or fewer to opinion@newsobserver.com.

Sexual orientation

Recently proposed anti-transgender legislation in North Carolina underscores centuries of religious prejudice against different human sexualities. Even though a person’s body may be telling them one thing about their sexuality, their church may tell them otherwise.

On June 29, 2016, “9 Months That Made You” premiered on PBS. The website description says: “Discover the thrilling story of how you were made. Follow the gestation process, the most exquisite biological choreography found in nature.”

Scientific evidence is clear that sexual orientation is a result of a complex interplay of genetic, hormonal and environmental influences during gestation. When born, you are what you are.

Human sexuality exists on a broad spectrum that runs between firmly heterosexual and homosexual, and everything in between. Whether you believe it or not, a human being can be born with the physical attributes of a male or female and be the opposite gender genetically and hormonally.

If you want to sit in your church and hate people, that is your choice. However, don’t act like a modern-day Spanish Inquisitor; leave the final judgment to God.

If you are going to call yourself pro-life, it’s necessary to embrace all life. All of God’s creation deserves respect and protection; anything less diminishes all of us and places our existence in jeopardy.

Science simply lays bare the beauty and complexity of God’s creation. When you deny science, you deny God’s creative genius. LGBTQ folks are a normal part of the world community. They deserve respect. Their happiness will not diminish anyone’s religious freedom or personal sexual identity.

If your faith gives you strength, that’s good, but it should not be a tool of hate or discrimination.

Robert Mulder, Raleigh

The SAVE Act

The only reason the SAVE Act, which would give more independence to some of the state’s most skilled nurses, keeps getting stuck in dead-end committees is because of intransigent physicians groups. The delay costs North Carolinians hundreds of millions annually while exacerbating healthcare access problems.

Quality healthcare is about using evidence to treat someone and adjusting when new or better information becomes available. Physician resistance to the SAVE Act is antithetical to that basic cornerstone of evidence-based care.

Study after study has shown bills like the SAVE Act would improve healthcare, but we seem to be stuck in the same political gridlock people despise.

The patient safety argument that physicians groups have leaned into is, frankly, insulting. Just a few years ago, a medical practice cited North Carolina’s “modest” supervision rules as a way to recruit physicians because they could earn “almost passive income,” adding up to $60,000 a year by supervising just four nurse practitioners.

Bottom line: Nurses are the most trusted profession in the country — 19 years running, per Gallup — and patients trust highly trained nurses to know when to refer to a specialist or seek advice from a colleague. A mandated contract doesn’t change that underlying premise.

Let’s break the politics of the pocketbook and give patients to a well-deserved win. I urge the power brokers at the N.C. General Assembly to allow the SAVE Act to move forward.

Tina Gordon, Raleigh

CEO, North Carolina Nurses Association

NC wind power

As a state senator, I was pleased to see the April 4 editorial highlight the vast potential of offshore wind energy to revitalize N.C. energy production and spur economic growth.

I have long championed wind power as a sustainable solution to domestic energy needs, which is why I am proud that the First District is home to the state’s only onshore utility-scale wind farm — Amazon’s wind farm in Pasquotank County.

Developing offshore energy resources is the next logical step in building a stronger energy economy for our state. Not only will offshore wind development help create jobs, but it will contribute much needed tax revenue to local communities and the state.

North Carolina should continue moving forward to develop all of our clean energy resources — a necessity post-COVID-19.

Bob Steinburg, Raleigh