Weeks after an extremely tight gubernatorial election in which North Carolina’s “bathroom wars” loomed large, the city of Charlotte has repealed the bathroom ordinance that got the whole thing rolling. In turn, the state legislature is repealing HB2, which had been its response to that ordinance, and which had precipitated a massive national debate as well as corporate boycotts. HB2 had taken such matters out of Charlotte’s hands and further required people to use public facilities in accordance with the sex listed on their birth certificate.

The modern fight over forcing recognition of subjective gender self-identification was quite silly enough at that point, but it got sillier still when the Obama administration responded to HB2 with yet another provocation — a presidential decree on transgender bathroom use. I am almost certain that the framers had a reason when they failed to include this topic in Congress’s enumerated powers.