Separate Bathrooms by Religion? Oklahoma Opens New Front in Transgender Debate

Oklahoma lawmakers have introduced a bill that would allow students to request on religious grounds that their public schools provide a bathroom or other facility that bars transgender people. 

The bill appears to be one of the first state-level legislative actions to challenge the Obama administration’s directives, issued last week, that said students must be allowed to use the facilities that match the gender they identify as, even if that is different from their anatomical sex.

The Senate bill introduced on Thursday in Oklahoma defined “sex” as the “physical condition of being male or female, as identified at birth” by an individual’s anatomy. It says any student can request a “religious accommodation” from a school for restrooms, athletic changing facilities or showers that are exclusively used by people with the anatomical sex at birth that is similar to their own...
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/21/us/separate-bathrooms-by-religion-oklahoma-opens-new-front-in-transgender-debate.html?_r=1