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U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch condemned a North Carolina law restricting transgender people’s use of bathrooms in strong language Monday, comparing it to segregation.

In brief remarks before announcing the federal government would sue the state over the law known as HB2, Lynch, a Greensboro native and the first African-American woman to serve as attorney general, compared the bill to Jim Crow, resistance to school desegregation and opposition to same-sex marriage.

“This action is about a great deal more than just bathrooms,” she said. “This is about the dignity and respect we accord our fellow citizens and the laws that we, as a people and as a country, have enacted to protect them – indeed, to protect all of us.”

Here is a transcript of her full remarks.

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