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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10/21/22 9:13 am

Commenter: Esme O., Student

Supporting this bill is supporting suicide

This policy is incredibly harmful. There is no evidence that calling students by their preferred names and pronouns hurts them or brainwashes them. However, there are mountains of evidence that misgendering and misnaming them directly leads to self-harm and suicide, and calling them by their preferred name and pronouns decreases that risk. (https://www.jahonline.org/article/S1054-139X(18)30085-5/fulltext#intraref0010a, https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2012-21760-001, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5178031/#ref11)

Schools shouldn't have to tell parents things that will make life worse for the children. This will lead to abuse, harm, and attempts at conversion therapy. Schools exist to help children, not hurt them.

Also, this policy will hurt non-trans students too. After all, we have to call kids by their birth names. Sorry, Max, everyone has to call you Maximillian now. And gendered dress codes? No more wearing pants Alexa! And James, take that skirt off right now! That piece of cloth around your legs is brainwashing you!!!!

I'm lucky to be a child born to supportive parents. But I wonder sometimes, what if I'd been born to parents who didn't support me? Parents who only loved me when I fit their mold of how a child should act, and who a child should be. I can't imagine how terrified I'd be every minute. Knowing that if I acted like myself, if I tried to be happy, I would lose my family, and I would be endangered. School should be a place children feel safe at. If this policy goes into effect, that safe space will be gone.

It costs nothing to be kind. That's something they teach us on the first day of kindergarten. It costs nothing to respect a child's identity or wishes. It costs nothing to try to ensure children don't kill themselves. It costs nothing to love. I'm saddened that this lesson seems to have been forgotten by so many. I get that trans people are confusing, and confusing things can be scary. But fear is not an excuse to hurt people. And this bill does hurt people.

CommentID: 191757