Virginia’s Attack on Transgender Youth

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Human rights should never be a political debate. However, on September 16, 2022, Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin introduced a proposal for a new series of model policies related to the treatment of transgender students in Virginia school districts. Now, the fundamental human rights of transgender students have become the focal point of debates in school boards and legislatures all across Virginia. 

These policies would mandate teachers to call transgender and nonbinary students by the name and gender officially listed on their birth certificates unless the parents of the student give written approval stating otherwise. The policies also ban transgender students from using bathrooms and locker rooms that correspond with their gender identity. The model policies have been criticized by many citizens and LGBTQ+ rights activist groups called these policies harmful to transgender students in Virginia. After they were released, these policies ultimately ended up in a nearly year-long holding pattern, stuck with controversy. The policies faced mounds of press coverage and over 70,000 public comments, the majority of which were critical of these policies for the alleged harm they would cause to LGBTQ+ rights in Virginia public schools. Despite this, Governor Youngkin finalized the long-awaited model policies on July 18, 2023, in a nearly identical policy to the one before. The Virginia Department of Education finally set these model policies into action, officially named the “Model Policies on Ensuring Privacy, Dignity, and Respect for All Students and Parents in Virginia Public Schools.” These model policies implemented by the Virginia Department of Education and Governor Youngkin are a danger to transgender and LGBTQ+ rights in Virginia public schools due to their harmful nature towards both students and teachers. Therefore, every school district in Virginia should reject these model policies and refuse to enforce their hateful rhetoric within their school divisions. 

These model policies are a clear danger to the security of transgender students in the Commonwealth of Virginia. There are many issues within the policies that endanger the basic human rights of transgender students. However, the greatest threat of them all is the requirement of parental consent in order to allow students to be referred to by their preferred names and pronouns. Under the guise of “parents’ rights,” this policy endangers children who do not have supportive home lives and puts teachers in situations where they have to choose between the law and the comfort of their students. A 2023 Trevor Project Study found that only 38% of LGBTQ+ students found their homes to be supportive. This means that 62% of LGBTQ+ students will come out to their parents and potentially face verbal, emotional, or even physical abuse, or they would live the entirety of their school experiences going by an identity that they feel completely uncomfortable being referred to. Meanwhile, people may wonder how important names and pronouns are in the grand scheme of these policies. The same Trevor Project study found that when transgender and nonbinary youth have people around them who respect their preferred pronouns, they have lower rates of attempting suicide than their peers with unsupportive communities Furthermore, a University of Texas study found using transgender students’ preferred names in schools reduces depression and suicide rates by 71% and 34% respectively. If the lives of students are at risk, these policies should never even be considered by school districts anywhere.

Another issue within these policies is how they contribute to the greater dehumanization of transgender people in the American political sphere. These policies also target the stereotypical issues of locker rooms and bathrooms, stating that transgender students must use bathrooms and locker rooms that correspond with their birth sex, not their gender identity. This is dangerous messaging because it is about far more than the physical differences between transgender and cisgender members of the same sex. It is conservative fear-mongering stemming from an incident in Loudoun County where a transgender student assaulted another student in a bathroom in June of 2022. The weaponization of this single incident is part of a greater agenda of promoting transgender people as rapists and criminals rather than realizing that transgender people are people with moral compasses, the same as cisgender individuals. 

Finally, questions about the policies’ unenforceability arise. How do these policies become implemented within schools? Do school divisions hire administrators to walk into classrooms to ensure that teachers are calling transgender and nonbinary students by their birth sex and birth name? Do teachers fire teachers who abide by the wishes of their students and go against the model policies? During a teacher shortage caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, we can not afford to force teachers into becoming the primary enforcers of Governor Youngkin’s model policies. Teachers could be forced to risk their jobs to out their transgender students. These teachers will have to decide how they are going to enforce these policies within their schools. Ultimately, it is archaic to believe that teachers will have this undue burden placed upon them. There are no mechanisms listed within the model policies that answer any of these policies, leaving school districts to make these difficult decisions themselves. 

Various Virginia school divisions have already taken action on the model policies. Unfortunately, as soon as the policies were announced, Roanoke County, a rural, conservative county with almost 100,000 residents, announced that they would adopt the model policies written by the Virginia Department of Education. They were not alone, as Spotsylvania County, a county of approximately 120,000 residents, also announced they would adopt the model policies. However, plenty of counties have presented pushback against the model policies. Northern Virginia localities including Fairfax County, Prince William County, and Arlington have refused to enact the model policies within their schools through written statements saying they would not release any new policies related to the treatment of transgender students. 

Meanwhile, Virginia Beach tells a bit more complicated of a story that deserves its own mention. After May 10, school board member Jessica Owens proposed a resolution stating the board would not adopt any policies that discriminate against LGBTQ+ students in their schools, and this policy passed 6-5 after approximately 100 public comment speakers came to speak at the meeting, mostly in favor of the resolution. In the minds of many, this resolution effectively rejected the model policies. This was solidified even further on August 22, when school board member Victoria Manning proposed a resolution to adopt the model policies as they are, and the vote failed 5-6. However, on September 13, the Virginia Beach school board announced they adopted many policies similar to those from the model policies. The largest of these policies requires parental consent for a student to identify as transgender within the school division. Otherwise, the division would out transgender students to their parents. Furthermore, Virginia Beach ultimately ended up adopting many aspects of these policies. However, Governor Youngkin and his conservative allies began pressuring Virginia Beach into accepting these model policies. This included Youngkin rallying in Virginia Beach urging them to adopt the model policies and conservative parents suing the Virginia Beach School Board in order to rush them to adopt the model policies. Even while they may not have outright adopted the model policies in full, Virginia Beach succumbed to the political pressure and ultimately passed many aspects of these draconian policies. 

Every school board that remains unclear on its stance ought to consider the dangers of these model policies before they vote to implement them as they are. Endangering the lives of transgender students simply based on ideology, fears of legal battles, or a fear to stand up to the sitting Governor is leading to discrimination against LGBTQ+ individuals within school divisions all across Virginia. This will lead to many students feeling unsafe within their own schools, which currently have been some of the very few space places for students to attend. The idea of moderation, as Virginia Beach attempted to signal, has no place when discussing basic human rights. School districts all across Virginia ought to fully reject these model policies and the harmful ideology that follows them. There is no moderation when the lives of Virginia students are in danger. Until every school district rejects these model policies, citizens must take a stand. This means citizens must speak out at school board meetings, students must protest, teachers must strike, and every citizen who wants students in their school district to be safe must make their voice heard. 

Overall, these model policies attempt to do something no policy will ever succeed at doing, they attempt to erase transgender students from existing. However, just like LGBTQ+ students as a whole, transgender students will always exist within schools. Now, school divisions have a choice to make: Do they want to make the lives of these students easier, or do they want to put a target on their backs? Every school district ought to reject these model policies, and every student, teacher, and citizen should ensure that school districts do exactly that.