An editorial in the New Hampshire Union Leader attacked the Justice Department’s lawsuit against North Carolina’s anti-LGBT law, claiming that U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch has generated a “false civil rights crisis” and that transgender equality is a “creepy obsession.”

On May 9, U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch announced a Department of Justice lawsuit against North Carolina due to the state’s anti-LGBT bathroom bill. The law, commonly known as HB2, targets the transgender community by banning people from using public restrooms that do not match the gender on their birth certificate. The lawsuit asks the court to declare HB 2 as discriminatory under the Civil Rights Act and a violation of Violence Against Women Act. As a former DOJ official explained, the Fourth Circuit, the EEOC, and the DOJ are all in agreement that transgender people are protected against discrimination.

The New Hampshire Union Leader assailed the Justice Department’s lawsuit as “ridiculous” in a May 11 editorial, echoing a larger right wing media attack on the DOJ for the suit. The editorial, titled “Obama's transagenda: Uncle Sam creeping into bathrooms,” labeled transgender equality as a “creepy obsession on the left,” and blasted Attorney General Lynch for “generating a false civil rights crisis:”