Obama’s last great battle is in the bathroom

Who’d have thought that one of Obama’s last great battles would be over toilets? Last week he issued a strict warning to schools saying that transgender pupils must be allowed to use whichever loo they choose. Girls or boys who feel they’re trapped in the wrong body have, in some states, been required to widdle according to their biological sex. No more, said the President. No child left behind in the wrong restroom.

This was an arrow aimed straight at the heart of the conservative South. Back in March, North Carolina passed a law requiring people in schools and government buildings to use the loo matching the sex recorded on their birth certificate. ‘Bigotry!’ cried central government, ‘A violation of the Civil Rights Act!’, and threatened to withhold more than $4 billion in education funding.

North Carolina accused Washington of overreach and filed a lawsuit; Washington filed one right back, and so began America’s great transsexual toilet war, a tug of war over the Mason-Dixon line.