Nashville-based indie record label Curb Records and its charitable arm Mike Curb Foundation have filed a federal lawsuit challenging a controversial new Tennessee law that requires businesses to notify patrons with what the suit calls an “inflammatory, false, offensive, and discriminatory” warning sign if they allow transgender individuals to use their public restrooms.
House Bill 1182, which is scheduled to go into effect today (July 1), requires that those businesses — including the label and foundation’s office — post signs reading “THIS FACILITY MAINTAINS A POLICY OF ALLOWING THE USE OF RESTROOMS BY EITHER BIOLOGICAL SEX REGARDLESS OF THE DESIGNATION OF THE RESTROOM,” even specifying the required dimensions, color and format. Curb Records’ lawsuit, filed June 30 against Tennessee Gov. William Lee and other government officials, claims that the law not only conflicts with Curb’s values and puts transgender individuals in danger, but also violates the constitutional First Amendment right to free speech; Fourteenth Amendment right to equal protection under federal law; and Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act prohibiting employment discrimination based on sex.
“The required notice serves no legitimate or rational purpose and solves no actual problem,” the suit reads. “It instead seeks to conscript Tennessee businesses and other institutions to spread the State’s preferred message of fear and intolerance towards transgender people and to falsely portray them as a threat to the safety or privacy of other members of the public.”
Curb Records — founded by former California lieutenant governor Mike Curb, a longtime and fervent supporter of trans rights — is asking the court to deem the law unenforceable. A representative for Lee did not respond to Billboard’s request for comment at press time.
“It’s outrageous to have the government come in and force me to send such a derogatory message to my employees and customers,” Curb said in a statement. “My grandmother Eloisa Salazar faced incredible discrimination as she grew up on the Mexico-U.S. border, and her experience shaped my family’s and my company’s values. Our foundation has been dedicated to inclusion and nondiscrimination, including for LGBT people, from day one.
“It is hard to believe that our LGBT community in Tennessee is being assaulted with so much harmful legislation,” he continued, “much of it being signed by Governor Lee, at a time when our country needs to come together more than ever before.”
The first-of-its-kind law is one of five bills Lee recently signed into law singling out transgender individuals — including ones banning gender-affirming healthcare for transgender youth and prohibiting them from competing in school sports based on their gender identity — the most such bills any state has enacted in a single legislative session, according to the lawsuit. The Curb suit follows the American Civil Liberties Union’s (ACLU) own federal lawsuit challenging House Bill 1182, filed last week on similar grounds.
Curb, who is also a Grammy-winning songwriter and producer, founded Curb Records in 1963 in Nashville. The label has since launched the careers of artists like Dylan Scott, Lee Brice and For King & Country, while the Mike Curb Foundation, founded in 1998, has provided grants and gift totaling more than $100 million to support state education, historic preservation, homeless individuals and more.
