Baseless Anti-Trans Claims Fuel Adoption of Harmful Laws – Two Criminologists Explain

It has been seven years since North Carolina made headlines for enacting a “bathroom bill” – legislation intended to prevent transgender people from using restrooms that align with their gender identity.

After boycotts threatened to cost the state more than US$3.7 billion, legislators repealed the law in 2017. Since then, however, religious and political conservatives have successfully spread an anti-trans moral panic, or irrational fear, across the United States.