ESPN columnist rips NC GOP freakout over NCAA tournament pull-out: 'No one's gotten raped'

Senior ESPN writer LZ Granderson responded on Tuesday to the NCAA withdrawing several events from North Carolina by denouncing state Republicans' defense of the anti-LGBTQ law known as HB2 through scare tactics involving rape, Media Matters reported.

"I'm a sports fan, you're a sports fan, we've all been in sports arenas, in which we've seen women come out of men's restrooms because the lines in women's restrooms are too long, right?" he asked Sportscenter host Cari Champion.

"I've done it, yeah," she said.

"Right? No one's gotten raped," he responded. "In fact, this is the law that was created not because there was a rash of rapes that were happening in public restrooms, but because local government did not support what the Department of Education issued two-and-a-half years ago in regard to transgender students."

Conservatives supporting the heavily-criticized legislation have argued that it was necessary to protect minors from predators using trans-inclusive policies as an excuse to assault them in restrooms.

On Monday, the NCAA announced that it would be moving its mens' basketball tournament and several other championship events out of the state in response to the law, which has already cost North Carolina next year's NBA All-Star Game.

Kari Mueller, a spokesperson for the state GOP, scoffed at the decision, saying, "With this logic, I genuinely look forward to the NCAA merging all mens' teams and womens' teams into a unified unisex team, 'cause that's exactly where this logic is gonna get us."

Granderson quickly slammed her remarks as "disingenuous."

"In North Carolina, it is now legal for a DMV officer to not issue me a driver's license because they may not agree with me being openly gay," he told Champion. "That's the extent of which this law goes. It's not just about 'bathroom bill,' which we have gravitate towards, but it makes it legal for government officials to discriminate against LGBT people.

Watch the discussion, as posted by Media Matters, below.