Virginia reverses transgender school policy, returns right to affirm children’s gender to parents

09/20/2022 / By Belle Carter

Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin has reversed existing transgender student policies with new guidelines released on September 16.

The overhauled policy now says that public schools cannot force students and staff to use the children’s preferred pronouns. They also will not affirm a student’s gender without their parents’ written requests.

It also provides that bathroom and locker room use is to be based on students’ sex, which means the biological sex at birth. Likewise, sports participation should be sex-based unless federal laws require otherwise.

The new guidelines have overturned the previous policy that defined transgender as a student’s “self-identifying term.” According to the previous rules, which took effect in March 2021 under former Democratic Governor Ralph Northam, schools should “not disclose a student’s gender identity to the parents if a student is not ready or able to safely share it with their family.”

Meanwhile, the amended policies have common ground with the previous rules in terms of ensuring a safe learning environment without bullying, discrimination or harassment of students. It lists the First and 14th Amendments of the U.S. Constitution as primary evidence.

“The 2022 model policy posted delivers on the governor’s commitment to preserving parental rights and upholding the dignity and respect of all public school students,” Governor Youngkin’s spokesman Macaulay Porter said in an email to Epoch Times.

This year’s guideline will enter a 30-day public comment period starting September 26 and take effect after the state superintendent approves the final version. This move by the governor received positive feedback from the parental rights group Fight for Schools.

“Governor Youngkin promised to put parents back in charge of the care, upbringing, and education of their children. Today, he delivered big time,” said Ian Prior, the Executive Director of the Loudoun County-based group.

Youngkin’s new policy asserts parental rights and says, “Parents have the right to instill and nurture values and beliefs for their own children and make decisions concerning their children’s education and upbringing in accordance with their customs, faith, and family culture.”

End “woke” lunacy: School board says no to LGBTQ history month

People everywhere are beginning to counter the burgeoning public school culture on grooming and LGBT ideologies.

Recently, the Miami-Dade County Public Schools board opposed, by majority, a measure to recognize and observe October as LGBTQ History Month, with eight board members voting “no.” The only “yes” vote was from Lucia Baez-Geller, who sponsored the item. (Related: Florida school board votes against recognizing October as “LGBTQ History Month.”)

The measure was already approved last year, but needed to be approved again. NBC Miami reported that opposition and renewal came after the so-called “Don’t Say Gay” law, officially the Parental Rights in Education bill, which was signed by Governor Ron DeSantis in March. It prohibits classroom instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity for students in kindergarten through third grade.

“It was clear here today that we were going to follow the law, and the Parental Rights bill is very clear that this type of imposition should not be imposed on our children, especially in our elementary schools, and an endorsement district-wide was in direct violation of the Parental Rights bill,” board member Christi Fraga said.

The measure would have directed the superintendent to provide resources to 12th-grade social studies teachers about landmark Supreme Court cases, such as one that recognized same-sex marriage and the one that ruled employers couldn’t fire workers for being gay or transgender.

“I’m disappointed that the school board is letting the politics make their decisions for them,” a Miami-Dade teacher who wanted the measure to pass said. “I believe personal beliefs don’t have a place in the school system.”

Fraga said there shouldn’t be one set of singular ideologies imposed on anyone similar to faith and added, “We have to keep certain things outside of the schoolhouse. I don’t think this represents an opportunity to open up any more equal rights than we already have.”

Visit CultureWars.news for more news related to the conservatives’ fight with the woke and anti-life culture.

Watch this video that talks about how one school board covers up rape to pass the transgender bathroom policy.

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