Elton John chastises North Carolina for 'failure of compassion' on bathroom issue

"As the father of two children, I would hope their world is free of discriminatory, hateful legislation like North Carolina’s," John said in his blog essay in The Hill, a Capitol Hill-focused news outlet, Tuesday.

Sir Elton targeted North Carolina Govenor Pat McCrory for signing that state's new law that bans transgender people from using restrooms in government buildings and public schools that correspond to their gender identity.

The law spurred a slew of entertainers, businesses and sports organizations to vow to stay away from the state in protest.

World-renowned violinist Itzhak Perlman, who cancelled his Wednesday performance with the North Carolina Symphony after he was told he would not be able to include a personal statement opposing the state's new law, which also limits anti-discrimination policies for LGBT people, in the event program.

In an interview with the Associated Press on Tuesday, Perlman said he will not perform in North Carolina until the law is reversed.

"If I'm invited, I will come once the law's repealed. But as long as this thing is there, I have to take a stand," Perlman said.

McCrory also sued the Justice Department for its position that the bathroom law is illegal, and the Justice Department is suing North Carolina for an alleged pattern of discrimination based on gender. The "bathroom bill" movement has even become a potent wedge issue in the 2016 presidential campaign.

McCrory issued a statement Wednesday responding to John's essay.

“Having attended a few Elton John concerts since 1974, I am obviously a fan of his music but his own left-wing political views, shared by President Obama, are respectfully different when it comes to common-sense expectations of privacy in locker rooms, rest rooms and showers – especially in our schools," the statement said. "This is now a national debate that should welcome dialogue regarding the balance between basic expectations of privacy and equality.”

John says McCrory and like-minded officials in other states, mostly in the south, are trying to pretend that transgender people don't exist and would have no civil rights even if they do.

"...What’s worse than the discriminatory bill itself, and the millions in taxpayer dollars McCrory is wasting to defend it, is that the governor signed it after admitting he had never met a transgender person," John wrote. "Although McCrory later walked his statement back, the message he sent was clear: the actual experiences of transgender people have no place in a debate over their basic rights."

This "brand of ignorance" is dangerous, and goes beyond bathrooms, John wrote.

Although he is not a U.S. citizen, John is speaking up because, he says, this issue is related to one of his main charitable endeavors, fighting HIV/AIDS through his Elton John Foundation. Trans women, for instance, are 49 times more likely to have HIV than the general population, he wrote.

Forcing trans students to use bathrooms corresponding to their birth certificates is inconvenient, impractical, potentially traumatic, even unsafe, he wrote.

"The failure of McCrory and other lawmakers to see this is a failure of compassion, a failure to recognize the difficult and frequently unwelcoming world transgender people must navigate every day, stigmatized by the fear and ignorance of others," John wrote.

Many entertainers and businesses have withdrawn their services from states like Tennessee and North Carolina after the creation of what many view as an anti-LGBT 'bathroom law.' VPC