Porn site xHamster bans North Carolina users over anti-LGBT toilet law

Popular porn website xHamster has banned users accessing its content from North Carolina. The move is a political stance against the US state passing an anti-transgender law centring around the use of public toilets.

As of Monday, any user with a North Carolina IP address will be met with a blacked-out screen rather than a trove of adult videos. It comes in the wake of the state's recently passed law that insists transgender people must use the bathroom allocated for people of the gender of their birth.

The website will remain down for North Carolinians until the state repeals the House Bill 2, which overrides discrimination protection laws for the LGBT community.

xHamster CEO, Mike Kulich, spoke out for equality, telling Huffington Post: "We have spent the last 50 years fighting for equality for everyone and these laws are discriminatory, which XHamster.com does not tolerate. We will not stand by and pump revenue into a system that promotes this type of garbage. We respect all sexualities and embrace them."

Ironically, xHamster, which is the 91st-most popular website in the world according to Alexa, has revealed the popularity of gay and transsexual searches from North Carolina users with more than 400,000 for the latter in March. This should hopefully throw weight behind the porn site's campaign, which includes the plan to host a petition on its homepage demanding the law be overturned.

xHamster is one of many high-profile companies and celebrities showing support for the LGBT community by boycotting the state. PayPal cancelled plans for an expansion office in Charlotte, while Bruce Springsteen cancelled a concert in a backlash against the law. Bryan Adams also scrapped a show planned for Mississippi in protest at a law there allowing businesses to refuse to serve LGBT people.