Grapevine
Listen to Grapevine, a six-part NBC News podcast about faith and power — and what it means to protect children — in an American suburb.
Grapevine: Episode 1
The Girl and the English Teacher
A mother in Grapevine, Texas, accuses an English teacher of persuading her child to change genders. The teacher and her student tell a different story.Grapevine: Episode 2
The Seven Mountains
Conservatives aim to embed fringe Christian values in schools. A cellphone company tries to win school board seats to that end, emulating Southlake.Grapevine: Episode 3
A Harvest Is Coming
A student in Grapevine, Texas, plans to escape her mother as she’s caught in an anti-trans battle involving her family, her English teacher and her school.Grapevine: Episode 4
A Raging Fire
A man goes public about growing up gay in a fundamentalist Christian home in Texas. A teacher is at a loss after removing LGBTQ symbols from her classroom.Grapevine: Episode 5
Open The Floodgates
Amid a battle at the Texas statehouse over religion and LGBTQ rights, three nonbinary students reflect on their Grapevine High experiences.Grapevine: Episode 6
A Final Lesson
Grapevine votes in a school board election driven by religion and LGBTQ inclusion. The student and teacher at the center of it all decide how to move forward.
Transcripts
Grapevine
In August 2022, at a packed school board meeting in Grapevine, Texas, a mom approaches the microphone and describes the exact nightmare that Republican politicians have been warning about. She accuses a teacher of convincing her child to change genders. As a result, she says, “I lost my son.” But when NBC News reporters Mike Hixenbaugh and Antonia Hylton look into this mother’s allegations, they find a different story: of a transgender child desperately wanting to be heard, a mother determined to put God first — and an English teacher caught in the middle. And they discover this isn’t just a story about one broken family. It’s also a story about a fringe religious movement wielding newfound power and the revival of a long-simmering quest by evangelicals to remake American education based on their version of biblical values. From NBC News Studios and the team behind the Peabody Award-winning series Southlake, Grapevine is a podcast about faith and power — and what it means to protect children — in an American suburb.