RALEIGH-- North Carolina leading lawmakers are saying that the U-S Justice Department has set an unreasonable deadline, ordering North Carolina leaders to decide by the end of business Monday, what to do about North Carolina's new law, House Bill 2.

It requires transgender people to use public bathrooms designated for their gender at birth.  The Department of Justice says  the law violates federal civil rights, and is threatening to sue, and to withhold millions of dollars in federal funding from our state.

Republican state house speaker Tim Moore says the Justice Department is meddling in North Carolina's affairs.  Senate Leader, Phil Berger, also a Republican, says the Monday deadline is unreasonable.

Governor Pat McCrory accuses the White House of interfering in the state.

But N.C. Representative Chris Sgro, a Greensboro Democrat and head of the LGBT advocacy group Equality North Carolina, says the  state had no problem acting quickly when it came to enacting the law.

Sgro says the Department of Justice is confirming what he's known all along, that HB2 is discriminatory and needs to be repealed as soon as possible.

Charlotte mayor Jennifer Roberts met in Raleigh with state lawmakers Thursday about their differences over the state law blocking her city from enforcing anti-discrimination rules for LGBT people at restaurants, hotels and stores.

It was Charlotte's ordinance that prompted lawmakers to create House Bill 2, to block such local laws statewide.