The 2022 policy says it clearly:  “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 [emphasis it is “all] students.”  The 2021 policy said similar words “The Virginia Department of Education continues to be committed to working with school divisions to ensure a positive, safe, and nurturing learning environment for all students.” But then it seemed to disregard religion (however isn't religion part of equality) and instead wrote itself as a document on “Guiding Principle to Support Transgender Students.”

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. By our Virginia Constitution, all men [(male and female)] are equally entitled to the free exercise of religion, according to the dictates of conscience.  The Lord tells us to love our neighbor, so we ought to be showing love to everyone, including those with gender challenges.  But we know sin entered the world, and as a result, we find prejudice and pride, and people who hurt others.  Can we truly eliminate sin? So, we must work to protect everyone.

An over 50-year-old William & Mary Law Review article published in October 1967 titled “Discrimination: A Constitutional Dilemma” by Frank S. and Mary C. Sengstock described the conflict that results from two distinct rights running on a path of collision and said “The challenge is a dilemma.”  We cannot allow one right (transgender expression) to take away another or others (religious beliefs, parental rights).

They also discuss how as “early as 1834, Alexis de Tocqueville analyzed the factors which enabled a nation to live under a democratic government, free from oppression by a minority, and, on the other hand, from the oppression of the minorities of the nation by an all-powerful majority.”

We seem to be in an era of conflicting rights, where now a seeming minority are trying to compel the majority to accept a set of transgender beliefs and values on the majority and accepted by a minority of people’s religious rights who believe the Bible or the Torah when parts of our religion are diminished or erased by certain aspects of transgender beliefs.

The Bible tells us that “God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.”  We can choose to disbelieve God, to reject God, but is it wise to reject the author of life, the one who breathed into the nostrils of man the breath of life, and the man became a living creature? Will this bode well for Virginia?

The Old Testament’s Ten Commandments include the command to honor one’s parents.  U. S. Supreme Court in Stone v. Graham (1980) pointed out the Ten Commandments contain arguably secular matters, such as honoring one's parents.  If God tells someone to “Train up a child in the way he should go” should our public schools be teaching our children to not obey their parents and dishonor their parents?

The 2021 Model Policies does not seem to even show equality and equity in its “acknowledgements.”  They show “she/her” 23, “he/him” 8, “he/they” 1, “they/them” 2, and no preferred pronouns 0 (no one is listed without a pronoun). That’s 68% women and 24% men when for example demographics of Fairfax County Public Schools for 2021 2022 is shown as 52% male and 48% female. And zero (0)% who didn’t state a preferred pronoun, indicating that either they were forced upon everyone to state or the policy development didn’t include a reasonable proportion of Virginians whose preference is to not use them in their names / titles.

Science has shown that most children with gender dysphoria will not remain gender dysphoric after puberty. (Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry Volume 47, Issue 12, December 2008, Pages 1413-1423)  The science on the effects of certain gender medical treatments on children are very uncertain.  Aren't schools supposed to teach sound science?