The History of the Religious Right & Bathrooms

The long war over sex ed could provide a template for the current fight over trans people and public bathrooms, which is playing out both on the state level—most notably in North Carolina—and in local school districts. Both are volatile because they involve kids, schools, and sex. In both, recalcitrant conservatives feel that a strange new consensus is being foisted upon them by distant elites. Each features an alliance between national right-wing organizations and local parents. If the battle over sex heralded the beginning of the religious right, the battle over trans people in bathrooms will show us whether the religious right has any power left.