Virginia Regulatory Town Hall
Agency
Department of Education
 
Board
State Board of Education
 
Guidance Document Change: Every day, throughout the Commonwealth of Virginia, educators and school leaders work to ensure that all students have an opportunity to receive a high-quality education. As a part of that work, educators strive to meet the individual needs of all students entrusted to their care, and teachers work to create educational environments where all students thrive. The Virginia Department of Education (the “Department”) recognizes that each child is a unique individual with distinctive abilities and characteristics that should be valued and respected. All students have the right to attend school in an environment free from discrimination, harassment, or bullying. The Department supports efforts to protect and encourage respect for all students. Thus, we have a collective responsibility to address topics such as the treatment of transgender students with necessary compassion and respect for all students. The Department also fully acknowledges the rights of parents to exercise their fundamental rights granted by the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution to direct the care, upbringing, and education of their children. The Code of Virginia reaffirms the rights of parents to determine how their children will be raised and educated. Empowering parents is not only a fundamental right, but it is essential to improving outcomes for all children in Virginia. The Department is mindful of constitutional protections that prohibit governmental entities from requiring individuals to adhere to or adopt a particular ideological belief. The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution guarantees religious freedom and prohibits the government from compelling speech that is contrary to an individual’s personal or religious beliefs. The Department embarked on a thorough review of the Model Policies Guidance adopted on March 4, 2021 (the “2021 Model Policies”). The 2021 Model Policies promoted a specific viewpoint aimed at achieving cultural and social transformation in schools. The 2021 Model Policies also disregarded the rights of parents and ignored other legal and constitutional principles that significantly impact how schools educate students, including transgender students. With the publication of these 2022 Model Policies (the “2022 Model Policies”), the Department hereby withdraws the 2021 Model Policies, which shall have no further force and effect. The Department issues the 2022 Model Policies to provide clear, accurate, and useful guidance to Virginia school boards that align with statutory provisions governing the Model Policies. See Code of Virginia, § 22.1-23.3 (the “Act”). Significantly, the 2022 Model Policies also consider over 9,000 comments submitted to the Department during the public comment period for the 2021 Model Policies.
Previous Comment     Next Comment     Back to List of Comments
9/27/22  10:17 am
Commenter: WSHS Student

I strongly, strongly oppose this transphobic policy.
 

This potential policy puts children at risk of abuse, being kicked out, and harassment, as well as depression and suicidal thoughts. Trans students, according to the TrevorProject.org, “…are not inherently prone to suicide risk because of their sexual orientation or gender identity but rather placed at higher risk because of how they’re mistreated and stigmatized in society” (Source: https://www.thetrevorproject.org/resources/article/facts-about-lgbtq-youth-suicide/).

If you are going to make these decisions, and call it “protection” for kids, I urge you to consider the consequences of this policy. Suicide rates will increase among trans youth. Protecting our kids? By causing suicide rates to skyrocket? Please rethink this. I have friends who will be greatly affected by this policy, and it hurts me to think that there are people who hate them for simply existing.

In addition- your concept of pronouns is greatly inaccurate. Banning pronouns from schools would include only using third person to speak to one another. For example: “Bob likes lunch because Bob’s favorite food is burgers, and Bob loves the burgers served during lunch.” Grammatically, this does not make sense. “I” is a pronoun. “You” is a pronoun. The argument against pronouns is subjective, as pronouns are anything not directly third person.

If religion is the source for this policy, HRC.org states, “Often times, transgender people know God through their transgender journeys. Trans experiences can be a rich source through which God speaks different words both to that person and to the people around them; a message that God loves diversity and variation; a message that God invites people into collaboration and co-creating how we will move in and shape the world around us; a message that sometimes knowledge about who we are and who God made us to be can come in different stages and evolve over time” (Source: https://www.hrc.org/resources/what-does-the-bible-say-about-transgender-people). 

In a scientific study, The National Library of Medicine found that “The possible psychogenic or biological aetiology of transsexuality has been the subject of debate for many years. Here we show that the volume of the central subdivision of the bed nucleus of the stria terminals (BSTc), a brain area that is essential for sexual behaviour, is larger in men than in women. A female-sized BSTc was found in male-to-female transsexuals. The size of the BSTc was not influenced by sex hormones in adulthood and was independent of sexual orientation. Our study is the first to show a female brain structure in genetically male transsexuals and supports the hypothesis that gender identity develops as a result of an interaction between the developing brain and sex hormones” (Source: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7477289/).

This policy you and your administration propose is severely harmful to trans youth, against scientific studies, and even against what God speaks for in the Bible. All of these reasons combined just show how awful your policy is.

I urge you to fix this before it is too late. Thank you for your time and consideration. 

CommentID: 145865