A recent House bill passed by North Carolina’s legislative body has left students and citizens frustrated with their government, so much so that UNC Wilmington students staged a silent protest the Monday following the passing of the controversial bill.

The bill, known as House Bill 2, is being labeled as one of the “most extreme anti-LGBT bill[s] in [the] nation” by the Human Rights Campaign and even inspired a trending hashtag that read #WeAreNotThis on Twitter and Facebook.

The bill defines gender by biological sex and prevents people whose gender is not reflected in their birth certificate from being able to use public restrooms. And, in NC, in order to change the gender on one’s birth certificate one must undergo sexual reassignment surgery and have a medical professional certify that this surgery took place.

What is not discussed about this surgery, though, is that it can be rather expensive from the hormone therapy done by patients up to a year before the surgery and can entail multiple other surgeries or medical procedures for other issues with changing the body.

Overall, a female-to-male procedure can cost up to 50,000 dollars and a male-to-female procedure can cost between 7,000 and 24,000 dollars, according to Ross Toro of livescience.com.

The bill pushes heavily for the legal discrimination against LGBT people, according to an editorial in the Charlotte Observer, and does so by voiding any ordinance, regulation, resolution or policy that protects people on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. However, the bill impacts more than just the LGBT community.

Another aim of HB2 impacts those protesting the current minimum wage. According to the bill, local governments or any political subdivisions cannot raise their minimum wage above the state minimum wage of $7.25.

This means that any local government who wanted to raise the minimum wage in their area and who had the support of their community to do so would not be able to under this law.

In order to pass such a bill, NC Republicans had to push the bill quickly through their session, so quickly that Democrats walked out before voting on the bill occurred in protest of these actions and what the bill stands for.

In solidarity with those government officials opposed to HB2, UNCW students organized a silent protest this past Monday in which students taped over their mouths or other body parts.

“The silent protest and tape is metaphorical,” said the UNCW community member who created the silent protest event on Facebook. “It symbolizes how our legislature has driven us back to a time when many minority groups had no voice or were silenced by the law; they had no rights or protections. Luckily, we do have support from many around the US and world this time around.”

This UNCW affiliate said they found out about this legislature as part of their research for a school paper, specifically looking at the Charlotte ordinance that was in favor of LGBT rights. However, they did not see a bill such as this passing.

But the bill did pass and some students are not pleased. Student and member of UNCW’s LGBTQIA community Monica Kessel remembered learning of the bill on Facebook.

“Part of me could not imagine that this was happening,” said Kessel. “That NC legislatures would do something so horrific. This bill was passed so quickly, and with so little press than many did not even know its existence until the day after.”

With further thought, though, Kessel admitted she was not surprised NC officials passed such a law.

NC leans to the political right in a lot of ways, according to Kessel, so this kind of extremism was not too surprising. However, she believes this bill is a leap in the wrong direction for North Carolinians.

The bill removes protection of LGBTQIA individuals in NC, and it is specifically trans exclusionary in the idea that trans individuals will be forced to use bathrooms to the gender assigned to them at birth, according to Kessel.

“This bill is a shame and a disgrace to human rights,” said Kessel.

Another member of the UNCW LGBTQIA community and student Nada Merghani discussed how this bill not only puts LGBTQIA students’ safety at risk, but also jeopardizes Title IX Federal Funding.

Title IX of the Educational Amendments of 1972 bans discrimination against transgender students in schools that receive public funding. If federal funding is pulled from NC schools, many schools will not have the funds to pay for teachers or textbooks, or run the school at all, according to Merghani.

And if someone challenges this law on the basis of Title IX violations, Governor Pat McCrory might ultimately have to choose between keeping this law or receiving federal funding for NC schools.

Either way, Merghani believes that someone will test the constitutionality of this bill.

“Without a doubt [someone will fight this bill],” said Merghani. “Romer vs. Evans in 1996 stopped Colorado from doing what North Carolina is trying to do now in 2016 by ruling that municipals cannot be created to ban gay nondiscrimination ordinances.”

Nevertheless, the bill has yet to be tested. So, the students who felt so strongly about the implications of this bill not only walked around campus this past Monday with slogans like NOH8 written on tape that hung from their faces or their backpacks, but they also plan to stage a bathroom sit-in protest this Friday, April 1.