Thank you Governor Youngkin.......for again demonstrating that campaign nonsense about "freedoms" is nothing more than rhetorical claptrap about control and denial of what should be basic human rights. This model is targeted at a small, vulnerable segment of children who need support, and waves the Fourteenth Amendment around as justification? Read the text: "nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." Reversing the existing policy is to treat these children in a decidedly UNEQUAL fashion, by denying them the caring and nurturing environment that would be afforded other students in difficult circumstances, simply because those difficulties are to their orientation. Nor can you seriously pretend a denial of the rights of these children (to make their own choices, to express themselves as the people they want to be without fear of retribution or harassment) is "restoring" some kind of freedom denied exclusively to their parents. Not unless you believe that they are mere appendages of their parents, unworthy of the same constitutional protections until they get to the age of emancipation.
Once again, a political platform predicated on "getting government out of our lives" has seen fit to firmly insert itself into the lives of families, a place where it has no business being, because of an ideological, executive-driven mandate. And once again, a small and vulnerable subset of our population is being used as a political prop for another electoral wedge issue to be rammed down the throats of ordinary Virginians, who just want to raise their kids in healthy and nurturing environments. Enough! People are sick of it.
I take solace in the fact that, based on the reaction among students to these proposed changes, these kids have each other's backs and recognize a cheap ploy like this for what it is. Even as their Governor pursues policies to scrutinize, exploit and (let's be honest) backhandedly demonize them to rile up "the base" for his own cynical political gain. If you have an ounce of shame, leave LGBTQ+ children out of your crosshairs, and let them be who they are without the big hand of government trying to push them a certain way. Get back to administering the Commonwealth, and please END the business of trying to micromanage how people live their lives in order to win votes through division, exploitation, and fear.