Trump, Cruz turn transgender bathroom law into campaign issue

On Thursday, Republican presidential candidates Donald Trump and Ted Cruz shared their opposing views on the North Carolina law that requires transgender individuals to use bathrooms in schools and government buildings that correspond to the sex on their birth certificate.

On the Today show, Trump criticized the law, calling it "unnecessary," and said the state is now "paying a big price" due to boycotts. Cruz is supportive of the law, and tweeted that Trump "isn't going to defeat political correctness," and instead "bowed to it." He later added, "We shouldn't be facilitating putting little girls alone in a bathroom with grown men. That's just a bad, bad, bad idea."

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.