Virginia Regulatory Town Hall View Comments

Department of Education

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.

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10/26/22 4:49 pm

Commenter: Anonymous

Reject the proposed 2022 Model Policies

I am writing as a parent of a transgender child who lives in Arlington. Our daughter was assigned male at birth and let us know beginning at age 2 that she was not a boy. We spent the next three years watching her growth and development while conferring with medical and mental health professionals. When she was five, we all agreed that we should let her socially transition to living full time as a girl. She was so excited and happy when her kindergarten classmates knew her as a girl, when her teachers called her by her chosen feminine name, and when she was allowed to join her girl scout troop and her girls recreational soccer team. We kept meeting with medical and mental health professionals and eventually changed her legal name and gender and corrected all her legal documents to reflect her chosen name. She is generally happy at school and in our community and has a great group of friends. She is busy with school, Girl Scouts, soccer, and other activities typical of girls her age.

She would be harmed if the proposed 2022 Model Policies went into effect. Any teacher or employee in our otherwise trans-affirming school district in Arlington could, according to these proposed policies, find her dead name from old school records and decide to call her that name, even though she has not answered to that name in several years. She would likely be subjected to harassment when classmates learned that she is transgender. Students would feel free to challenge her every time she uses the girls bathroom. Frankly, I can’t even imagine how awful she would feel because no one has treated her as a boy for her entire school career. I believe that her anxiety over being misgendered by teachers would make it impossible for her to feel safe enough in school to learn. We would likely have to remove her from school and either homeschool her or find the money for an affirming private school - money that we don’t have.

These proposed 2022 model policies purport to provide “privacy, dignity, and respect for all students and parents” do not do what they say. The proposed policies expressly reject my parental right to raise my daughter in a state that provides protections for her. They reject my parental right to raise my daughter in a state that encourages schools to affirm her gender identity.

These proposed model policies violate my First Amendment rights by imposing the religious beliefs of a minority - who believe that gender identity is an ideology that they can reject - on my personal religious belief system that incorporates gender identity as part of accepting a person as they are and as who they profess themselves to be. The proposed model policies violate my daughter’s First Amendment right not to have another group’s religious beliefs imposed on her life.

Furthermore, I am opposed to these proposed model policies on behalf of other transgender and nonbinary students in Virginia. Many transgender students do not have the support of their parents and fear abuse if their parents learn that they are transgender. The proposed model policies would actively harm these students and leave many with no safe space and no safe adults.

Please don’t take this step backward in Virginia. Follow the Virginia Human Rights Act that provides protection against discrimination based on gender identity. Reject these proposed 2022 model policies that would make school a frightening and unsafe place for my daughter and for other transgender and nonbinary students.

CommentID: 200072