One of the members of the Anonymous hacking collective has launched an offensive in support of North Carolina’s trangender population.

A series of cyberattacks is underway against government portals in the state to protest against the so-called “bathroom bill.” The bill has a staunch supporter in Governor Pat McCrory, and essentially seeks to ban transgender people from using a bathroom that does not match their birth gender.

It has been described as the most anti-LGBT legislation in the United States, and in May the United States Department of Justice sued Governor McCrory, the North Carolina Department of Public Safety, and the University of North Carolina system, stating that House Bill 2 violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 and the Violence Against Women Act.

The Anonymous attacks are focused on a number of domains, including the main government portal (nc.gov) and McCrory’s website.

The hacker responsible for the hacks told IBTimes UK: "It is not only an operation against the bathroom bill—this is an operation against all the laws against LGBT. [The] reason for launching the attacks was making North Carolina aware that we are here to fight and ready to fight to the end."

Some say this is just the tip of the iceberg for hacktivist activity ramping up, given the political climate in the States at the moment.

“Although hacktivist attacks are nothing new, it would not be surprising to see an uptick in the frequency of these for the rest of this year given the highly polarizing election going on in the US,” said Dave Meltzer, chief research officer and VP of corporate development at Tripwire. “While most major sites already have reasonable protections against basic DDoS attacks, the second tier of lesser known sites, which there are many thousands of across the government, may lack that protection and easily fall victim to these simple cyberattacks.”

Photo © Stephen Marques