President Obama said Friday that North Carolina’s and Mississippi’s laws limiting protections for transgender, lesbian, gay and bisexual people are “wrong” and “should be overturned.”

Speaking with British Prime Minister David Cameron at a news conference in London, Obama praised Americans living in states that have recently taken steps to single out individuals based on their gender identity or sexual orientation, even as he criticized the laws’ approach to the issue. The North Carolina measure requires individuals to use the bathroom that matches the gender listed on their birth certificate and restricts local governments from providing specific protections based on sexual orientation and gender identity. Mississippi’s law allows people to withhold services from lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals on religious grounds.

The British Foreign Office recently issued an advisory warning British citizens they could face discrimination in parts of the United States based on their sexual orientation or gender identity.

“The U.S. is an extremely diverse society and attitudes towards LGBT people differ hugely across the country,” the advisory on the Foreign Office website says.

Obama assured Britons they should feel free to travel throughout the United States, even though he criticized laws targeting members of the LGBT community.

“I want everybody here in the United Kingdom to know that the people of North Carolina and Mississippi are wonderful people,” he said. “I also think that the laws that have been passed there are wrong and should be overturned.”

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