We are writing to express our strong support for the proposed 2022 Model Policies on the Privacy, Dignity, and Respect for All Students and Parents in Virginia’s Public Schools, which were released by the Virginia Department of Education on Sept. 26 and address requirements for schools in relation to students who identify as transgender. We commend the Department for taking a thoughtful, common-sense approach in the revised policy that protects and supports all students in Virginia public schools, including students who suffer from gender dysphoria or identify as transgender. In addition, the revised policies correct serious flaws in the Department’s prior (2021) policy. We urge you to finalize these 2022 model policies as soon as possible, and ensure they are adhered to by public school systems across Virginia.
As described in more detail below, we support Virginia’s new model policies because they:
We address each of these points in more detail below.
We support the Department for stating in the new model policies that “all students have the right to attend school in an environment free from discrimination, harassment, or bullying,” and for affirming the “collective responsibility to address topics such as the treatment of transgender students with necessary compassion and respect for all students.”
We also support provisions of the new policy requiring that “every effort should be made to ensure that a transgender student wanting to change his or her means of address is treated with respect, compassion, and dignity in the classroom and school environment.”
The new policy takes a balanced, common-sense approach that supports transgender students, while also recognizing the need to support students in school facilities who may feel unsafe if they are required to share locker rooms, bathrooms, or overnight accommodations with individuals of the opposite biological sex. The Department should maintain provisions of the 2022 model policies stating that “students shall use bathrooms that correspond to his or her sex,” and that “single-user bathrooms and facilities should be made available in accessible areas and provided with appropriate signage, indicating accessibility for all students.” We also support language stating that “overnight travel accommodations, locker rooms, and other intimate spaces used for school-related activities and events shall be based on sex.”
Evidence indicates that use of mixed-sex changing rooms or locker rooms creates an increased risk of sexual harassment. Many students who do not identify as transgender may desire accommodations to protect themselves from these risks and maintain their personal sense of security at school. The 2022 model policies make an important and much-needed change from the 2021 policy, which failed to adequately protect many students and created learning environments in which they felt unsafe or unwelcomed.
We strongly support the model policies’ affirmation of parents’ primary role in the upbringing of their children, particularly regarding the parents’ values and beliefs. The states’ recognition and support for the role of parents is vital to the health of children, families and society at large. As stated in the model policy, it is also consistent with existing statute and jurisprudence. We deeply appreciate the Department’s support for parents’ role in their children’s education and upbringing, stating “parents have the right to make decisions with respect to their children,” and “schools shall respect parents’ values and beliefs.”
The 2021 model policies were fatally flawed in this regard. Schools cannot partner with parents while at the same time establishing policies that adopt a specific ideology on transgenderism and discourage parents from expressing or raising children based on different values or beliefs. In one particularly concerning example, the prior policy would have withheld information from parents who were deemed “unsupportive,” and accorded these parents a lesser status with reduced rights. The revised policy corrects this serious flaw, recognizing that schools have a responsibility to partner with all parents, regardless of values and beliefs, and must not penalize parents or children who have different beliefs or come to different conclusions based on available evidence.
Further, the revised policy corrects flaws in the prior policy to ensure that school systems will comply with the Family Education Rights and Privacy Act, which gives parents the right to view their child’s school records. We strongly support language in the new policy stating that “schools may not abrogate parental rights granted by FERPA.”
We support language in the revised policy that recognizes existing laws that protect the rights of individuals to express and exercise a wide range of different views and beliefs. This stands in stark contrast to the prior policy, which required adherence to a specific ideological viewpoint and prevented the expression or exercise of views or beliefs that did not comply with those espoused in the policy.
We strongly support the new policy’s statement that government actors may not “require individuals to adhere to or adopt any particular ideological beliefs. Practices such as compelling others to use preferred pronouns is premised on the ideological belief that gender is a matter of personal choice or subjective experience.” The revised policy rightly notes that “many Virginians reject this belief,” and further acknowledges that the “First Amendment guarantees religious freedom and prohibits compelling others to affirm ideas that may be contrary to their personal religious beliefs.”
Unfortunately, the Department’s prior model policies promoted and enforced a rigid ideology of transgenderism, and as a result encouraged discrimination, harassment, and bullying against those who do not agree with this ideology. This concern is not hypothetical. Many of us have experienced -- or personally know students, parents and staff who have experienced -- discrimination and harassment in a school setting because of views that do not align with those in the 2021 policy. The 2022 model policy marks a welcome and desperately needed departure from the restrictive requirements of the prior policy.
Further, many of us live is counties in which school officials have asserted that they will not abide by the new policies and instead maintain policies guided by the 2021 guidelines. These prior guidelines conflicted with the U.S. Constitution, federal law, Virginia state law, and common sense; undermined the primary role of parents in raising their children; and imposed on parents, students and school staff a set of narrow, unscientific ideological beliefs. We are very concerned that some localities may cling to prior guidelines, rejecting the even-handed, well-grounded revisions made in the Department’s revised policy. We ask that you help us ensure that policies based on the prior state model policies are withdrawn from school systems, and that these new policies are applied throughout the Commonwealth, as required by the Code of Virginia.
We support the 2022 model policies as reflecting biological reality – that our sex is not “assigned at birth” but is determined at the point of conception, and that individuals with male chromosomes (one X and one Y) will be biologically male at the physical, sexual, and cellular level, and those with female chromosomes (two X chromosomes) will be biologically female.
We further support the policy as recognizing that children who have gender dysphoria or who identify as transgender must be appropriately and compassionately cared for by a team of individuals led by the child’s parents, and that current clinical research is unsettled at best regarding the proper care for such individuals. The new policy corrects a serious flaw in the prior policy, which would enforce a rigid care pathway, regardless of the parents’ views and in the absence of compelling clinical evidence.
For example, research on the best course of care for gender dysphoria and transgenderism in pre-pubescent children is incomplete and mixed. Government and health officials around the world are increasingly recognizing that evidence on the best care for children with gender dysphoria is mixed and evolving, and that enforcing a single, aggressive pathway for so-called gender-affirming care can cause significant harm to many children. For example, the U.K. National Health Service earlier this year announced plans to close its Tavistock Gender Identity Clinic after serious concerns were raised regarding it’s care protocols for adolescents, and the U.K attorney general clarified that schools must maintain single-sex restrooms. In addition, earlier this year Sweden’s National Board of Health and Welfare pulled back its policy on care for children with gender dysphoria, recommending that puberty blockers and hormone therapy be used only in “exceptional” cases.
The importance of restraint in caring for children with gender dysphoria was underscored in an April 19, 2022 commentary in The Washington Post by Corinna Cohn, who underwent gender transition surgery at the age of 19 and then regretted the decision to do so. “From the day of my surgery, I became a medical patient and will remain one for the rest of my life,” Cohn said in the article.
By refraining from imposing policies grounded in rigid definitions of “gender-affirming care” that are far more aggressive than those in many other localities, the Virginia Department of Education policy appropriately reflects the variation and uncertainty in best care for minors with gender dysphoria. We support the 2022 policy because it allows students, parents and educators to consider the full range of evidence on biological sex and gender, gender dysphoria and potential risks and benefits of gender-affirming care and come to individual decisions about the best course of care for themselves and their children.
We support the new model policies’ requirement that “for any athletic program or activity that is separated by sex, the appropriate participation of students shall be determined by sex.” The new policy reflects the biological reality that boys and girls are physically different in ways that can put girls at a disadvantage in many sports. As a result, the new policy is supportive of girls and young women in a way that the prior policy was not, ensuring that girls and young women who work and train hard to excel in a sport will not have that hard work erased because they must compete against a biological male who identifies as female.
Virginia’s prior 2021 policy was harmful to female athletes by permitting biological males who identify as female to participate in women’s sports. The harm done by such policies has been illustrated in many specific cases, such as the lawsuit filed by four female high school athletes in Connecticut. As stated by one of the young women, policy that permitted biological males who are transgender to compete in women’s sports meant that “I knew I had no chance of winning despite the hours of training and knowing my personal bests in each event. I was defeated before stepping onto the track.”
The 2022 model policies restore fairness for female athletes and support the intent of Title IX federal statute. We support the Department’s new policy because it gives female athletes the chance they deserve to compete and win on a fair playing field.
Further, this position is not an outlier. In fact, policies that do not permit biological males to compete against female athletes are supported by a majority of Americans, according to recent polls released by the Washington Post and National Public Radio/Ipsos. Similarly, a Gallup poll released in 2021 found that 62 percent of respondents said “they felt transgender people should have to compete on teams with athletes of their ‘birth gender.’”
Finally, we support the 2022 model policies because they support civic virtue and respect for the rule of law in ways that were profoundly lacking in the prior policy. Unlike the prior policy, the new guidelines promote a safe, supportive educational environment based on common civic virtues (recognition of the inherent worth and dignity of all people, the unique and primary role of parents in raising their children, the importance of providing all children a safe and supportive learning environment, and the need to protect freedom of speech, conscience and religion) that permit and encourage a wide range of individual ideological and religious beliefs.
The new policy supports good citizenship by ensuring schools will recognize and protect students, parents and educators who have different views on a complex, evolving topic like transgender identity. Educating children to articulate different views in ways that are well-reasoned and respectful, and to consider different viewpoints, is a foundation of good citizenship that the new model policies promote. In contrast, the prior policy discouraged this, foreclosing opportunity for dialogue and instead forcing all students and parents to agree to a single, rigid viewpoint.
Further, we appreciate that the 2022 model policies affirm a respect for the rule of law in ways that the prior policy did not. In particular, we support the new policies’ clear and accurate references to the Family Education Rights and Privacy Act, the Virginia Constitution, the Code of Virginia, and the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution.
In conclusion, we strongly support the 2022 model policy and urge the Department to ensure they are fully, consistently implemented throughout the state. The new policy represents a common sense, science-based approach that protects all students, affirms the role and authority of parents, and ensures fairness in girls’ sports.
Sincerely,
Randy and Jennifer Burkholder
Wendell Brown
Burton and Kathleen Burkholder
Tatiana D’Emidio
Geoff and Sherri Fosdick
Mary Hazzard
Mary Keffler
Anne Quinn
Beth Sedmak
L. Leonard Wolner
Norma Zarrate