Gov. Roy Cooper of North Carolina and transgender rights advocates announced on Wednesday that they had hammered out a settlement of a federal lawsuit that would allow transgender people to use public restrooms that match their gender identity. The announcement was the latest development in an explosive cultural debate that consumed the state’s political narrative for months.

While the proposed consent decree earned praise from gay-rights activists, the conservative-dominated State Legislature now has the ability to argue against the proposal before it is certified by a judge.

But it was unclear Wednesday whether legislative leaders would do so. “We wouldn’t feel comfortable weighing in before our general counsel has had a chance to review these filings,” Shelly Carver, a spokeswoman for Phil Berger, the president pro tempore of the State Senate, said Wednesday in an email.

The development comes more than six months after the North Carolina Legislature, pressured by boycotts from high-profile performers and companies, voted to repeal a controversial law, known as House Bill 2, which restricted the ability of municipalities to enact antidiscrimination policies and required transgender people in government and public buildings to use the bathroom that corresponds with the gender on their birth certificate.

Along with the repeal came a new law that, among other things, gave the General Assembly the power to regulate access to “multiple-occupancy restrooms, showers or changing facilities” in the state. Read more via New York Times