Virginia Gov. Youngkin unveils new transgender policies to protect students and parents
Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin on updating model policies regarding the treatment of transgender students.
In 2021, Glenn Youngkin ran on a platform of restoring parental rights in Virginia. It sounds almost unbelievable that he would have to do this but the previous administration, along with several school districts in the commonwealth, were determined to sacrifice those rights at the altar of far-left ideologies that are harmful to the mental, emotional, and physical well-being of children.
Youngkin’s embrace of the parents’ movement in Virginia delivered him victory and from day one, he has been fulfilling his campaign promises. He immediately issued an executive order allowing parents to decide if their children needed to wear a mask at school; this was followed up with bipartisan legislation mandating the same. Several recalcitrant school districts resisted, but on the same day as he signed the bill making masks optional, Youngkin was vindicated in court when a Loudoun County Circuit Court judge held that the policies of that infamous school board had done "irreparable harm to children" and enjoined the school district from continuing to defy Youngkin’s order.
But Youngkin wasn’t done. His next step was to rewrite a Virginia Department of Education Model Policy, issued last year, that forced young schoolchildren to share bathrooms, locker rooms, overnight facilities, and athletic competitions with members of the opposite sex. That model policy was drafted by 34 people, comprised almost entirely of far-left special interest groups, school administrators and school board members, bureaucrats and legislators. There was exactly ONE "parent representative."
That policy was in response to a 2020 law, entitled "Treatment of transgender students; policies," which mandated that public schools develop policies consistent with "evidence-based best practices" which would include compliance with applicable non-discrimination laws, maintenance of student records, prevention of bullying and harassment, identification of students, protection of student privacy, enforcement of dress codes, and participation in sex-specific school activities/events and use of school facilities.
Gov. Glenn Youngkin speaks to the media at the Executive Mansion, in Richmond, Virginia, on Jan. 15, 2022. (Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Importantly, while the law did not specify how a school district should comply with this law, it did, however, require that the Virginia Department of Education issue model policies and that each school district "adopt policies that are consistent with but may be more comprehensive" than such model policies.
After the model policy was issued in April 2021, several school districts were more than happy to comply, despite public outcry. In Loudoun County, parents showed up in droves to protest implementation of the model policy on the grounds of student safety. In what became national news, during one of the meetings where the policy was being debated before passage, the superintendent of Loudoun County Public School misrepresented to the public that there were no records of assaults in bathrooms, despite his and the school board’s knowledge that there had been one just weeks earlier.
Making matters worse in Loudoun and Fairfax counties, their policies included implementing regulations that prevented school staff from discussing with parents whether their child was claiming to be a different sex while at school.
Youngkin’s new model policy, issued in accordance with Virginia law, rectifies those issues in a way that not only complies with the 2020 Virginia law, but also the fundamental right of parents to make decisions as to the care, custody, and control of their children, as protected by the United States and Virginia constitutions.
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Specifically, the model policy does the following:
- Prohibits discrimination and harassment of all students;
- Requires that parents must consent to counseling services pertaining to gender;
- Mandates that overnight travel accommodations, locker rooms, and other intimate spaces used for school-related activities be based on sex, with reasonable modifications only to the extent required by federal law;
- Provides that students use bathrooms that correspond with their sex, except to the extent federal law requires otherwise; and
- Allows students to change their names and pronouns in their official records with parental consent, while not compelling teachers and other students to do so in violation of their constitutional rights.
Lawmakers listen as parents speak about the prospect of their children competing against transgender girls in school sports at the Utah state Capitol on March 25, 2022, in Salt Lake City. (AP Photo/Samuel Metz, File)
With this new model policy, Youngkin has delivered another win for parents and children in the commonwealth by ensuring that all are treated with dignity and respect, while at the same time ensuring that families are able to work through sensitive issues with the assistance of school staff when appropriate.
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Virginia’s activist school administrators and school board members would be wise to recognize that the vast majority of Virginians support these commonsense policies and that failure to adopt them will result in more court losses, more electoral losses, and more parents pulling their children from public schools.
They should also recognize that the parents’ revolution didn’t end with Youngkin’s win; instead, it’s only getting started.