Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin's administration on the weekend, sharply restricted the rights of transgender students in the states, sending schools into turmoil and drawing widespread criticism from Democratic legislators and some educators.
The Republican, however, received applause from GOP members and parents' rights advocates. The guidelines that were released on Friday place Virginia at the heart of a national battle over how transgender children should be treated at school, as well as how much parents should be told about gender transitions that begin there.
Virginia Law on Transgender Students
The new "model policies," which a version of it must be adopted by all of the state's 133 school districts next month, will require transgender students to access school facilities and programs matching the gender they were assigned at birth. Furthermore, the policies also make it onerous for students to change their name and gender at school.
Youngkin's new guidelines are the latest example of the Virginia governor's top-down approach to governance. They are also likely to draw swift challenges in court, said experts. At least one Democratic official is already challenging the guidelines, alleging that they violate the state's Virginia Human Rights Act, which protects individuals in public settings, including schools, from discrimination on the basis of gender identity, as per the Washington Post.
Furthermore, Youngkin's new guidelines fortify his commitment to "preserving parental rights and upholding the dignity and respect of all public school students," said the governor's spokeswoman Macaulay Porter. She added that it was not under a school's or the government's purview to impose a set of particular ideological beliefs on all students.
The Virginia Department of Education, under the policy, is mandating that families submit legal documentation to earn their children the right to change their name and gender on official school records. The policies add that teachers and other school personnel can refer to a student by a different name or pronoun only if parents request the switch in writing.
According to the New York Times, a Democratic member of the state House of Delegates, Mike Mullin, said in a Twitter post on Friday that kids deserve to learn and thrive in an environment free of bullying, intimidation, and fear.
Reversal of Predecessor's Policies
The official argued that that meant being addressed as who they are and supported for who they will become in the future, especially by their teachers and their administrators. The move comes as a wave of legislation in several states over the last two years limiting the rights and protections of transgender children at school.
However, Youngkin's Friday policies stood out in part because they overturned policies instituted just last year by the governor's predecessor Democrat Ralph Northam. The latter instructed Virginia schools to allow transgender students to use the facilities, pronouns, and names that match their gender identity instead of the sex they were assigned at birth.
Now, the rewritten rules will go into effect after a 30-day public comment period. Critics immediately slammed Youngkin's new guidelines with Mullin saying that the new rule "calls for the misgendering and outing of children in schools where they're supposed to be safe. Absolutely shameful," the New York Post reported.
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