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Students at McLean High School in McLean walk out of classes on Sept. 27, 2022. Student activists held school walkouts across Virginia to protest Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s proposed changes to the state’s guidance on district policies for transgender students that would roll back some accommodations. (AP Photo/Matthew Barakat)
Both sides of the debate over the Youngkin administration’s model policies for transgender children in public schools should welcome the recent filing of a lawsuit in Virginia Beach that should settle the matter in court.
This was inevitable, of course, and avoidable. But even before he won office, Glenn Youngkin chose to use transgender kids as a political piñata, demonizing them — as well as educators — as a corrosive, malevolent force that must be stopped.
It worked. The governor knows his audience. But ginning up panic about transgender kids won’t have the staying power he thinks it does, and Virginians should look forward to having the courts resolve the issue on its legal merits.
As a candidate for office in 2021, Youngkin rode a wave of outrage about culture war issues — from mask policies and school closures to “critical race theory” and edgy library books — to victory. There’s little question that his strength on the issue of “parent’s rights” coupled with his opponent’s bumbling comments on that subject paved his way to victory.
Still, his determination to ostracize the small number of transgender students who attend Virginia public schools has been calculating and cruel. Research suggests there are perhaps 4,000 such students among the commonwealth’s 1.2 million schoolchildren, or 0.003% of Virginia’s total student population.
In 2014, the treatment of those kids received greater attention when Gavin Grimm, then a high school sophomore in Gloucester County, was denied access to use the boy’s restroom, which aligned with his gender identity. Grimm sued the district for violating the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause and Title IX of the U.S. Education Amendments of 1972, winning the case and $1.3 million from the county school division.
That was a landmark victory for transgender rights and underscored the legal requirement for transgender people to have equal treatment under the law. There was hope it might also help shift attitudes toward acceptance and inclusion.
For a time, it did. In 2021, Gov. Ralph Northam’s administration issued model policies — a guidance document for school divisions — on the treatment of transgender youth. These advised schools to “allow transgender students to use restrooms, locker rooms and changing facilities that match their gender identity … [and] recommended that teachers accept students’ gender identities and use their pronouns,” per The Washington Post.
Only 14 of Virginia’s 132 school boards adopted the policies as written, though many others used an alternate version written by the Virginia School Board Association emphasizing nondiscrimination and adherence to the constitutional right to equal protection.
Neither the Northam administration nor then-Attorney General Mark Herring forced school boards to adopt those guidelines. And the only lawsuit challenging the policies, filed by conservative groups, was dismissed for lack of standing, with Circuit Court Judge J. Frederick Watson concluding that only members of school boards, not parents or taxpayers, could be “aggrieved” by the policies.
Last year, the Youngkin administration offered its version of those model policies, directing schools to allow students to only use facilities corresponding with their biological sex and prohibiting faculty from using nicknames or pronouns without parental permission — no matter that it could put some kids at risk at home or further alienate those children at school.
That was followed by student-led walkouts in many locations, including in Hampton Roads. In August, Attorney General Jason Miyares issued an advisory opinion that the new policies adhere to federal and state law. Youngkin and Miyares also warned school divisions declining to adopt the new guidelines could face an undetermined punishment.
That’s quite a contrast from their predecessors, which didn’t browbeat schools into being more inclusive. So determined they are to target these kids that the two Republicans have publicly discussed joining lawsuits, such as the one in Virginia Beach.
Maybe they should. After all, it’s clear they feel like demonizing vulnerable children is a ticket to electoral success, so why not go all in? Whether the courts agree, Virginia may soon find out — and we should welcome that resolution.
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