Virginia
Mother says teen boy charged with assault in girl’s bathroom at Va. school is straight
Earlier reports that Loudoun County student was gender fluid triggered backlash
In a little-noticed interview last November with the British online newspaper, DailyMail.com, the mother of a 15-year-old boy charged with sexually assaulting a girl last May in the girl’s bathroom at a Loudoun County, Va., high school that the two students attended said her son identifies as heterosexual.
The May 28, 2021, sexual assault first surfaced in the news media in October at the same time law enforcement authorities disclosed that the boy allegedly sexually assaulted a girl on Oct. 6 in a vacant classroom at another high school to which he was transferred.
The disclosure of the two assaults triggered a furious backlash by some parents and conservative political activists against a Virginia school policy allowing transgender and gender fluid students to use the bathroom that conforms to their gender identity.
“First of all, he is not transgender,” the boy’s mother told DailyMail.com in a Nov. 2 interview. “And I think this is all doing an extreme disservice to those students who actually identify as transgender,” the newspaper quoted her as saying.
The mother, who agreed to the interview on grounds that she was not identified to protect the identity of her son, said her son identifies as heterosexual and absolutely does not identify as female.
LGBTQ activists have said the backlash against both the Virginia state and Loudoun County transgender non-discrimination policies — which spread to school districts across the country that have similar policies — was fueled by what they have said all along was unsubstantiated claims that the boy was transgender or gender fluid.
Conservative activists who strongly oppose the school systems’ trans supportive bathroom policies have said it was those policies that enabled the 15-year-old boy, who police say was wearing a skirt at the time of the May 28 sexual assault incident, to enter the girl’s bathroom to target the girl.
Since that time, testimony in a Loudoun County Juvenile Court where the boy was being prosecuted revealed that the 14-year-old girl who brought the charges against him said she and the boy had two consenting sexual encounters in a girl’s bathroom at Stone Bridge High School in Ashburn, Va., prior to the incident in which the boy allegedly assaulted her.
According to the Washington Post, whose reporter attended one of the juvenile court hearings, the girl testified that she agreed to meet the boy in the girl’s bathroom after he requested a third sexual encounter there, but she told him she did not want to have sex at that time.
“The girl previously testified in court that the defendant threw her to the ground in the bathroom and forced her to perform two sexual acts on him after she told him that she was not interested in sex on that occasion,” the Post reported in a story last week about the final outcome of the case.
At a Jan. 12 sentencing hearing, Loudoun County Juvenile Court Chief Judge Pamela Brooks placed the boy on the Virginia sex offender registry for life, the Post reported. After ruling in an earlier hearing in November that the evidence confirmed that the boy was responsible for sexually assaulting the two girls, Brooks sentenced the boy to a residential treatment facility rather than a juvenile detention facility and required that he remain on probation until he turns 18, the Post reported.
“He’s a 15-year-old boy that wanted to have sex in the bathroom, with somebody that was willing,” the boy’s mother told DailyMaiI.com. “And they’re twisting this just enough to make it a political hot button issue,” she said.
In her interview with the newspaper, the mother said her son wasn’t gender fluid despite the reports, which she confirms, that he wore a skirt at the time of the first of the two sexual assaults.
“He would wear a skirt one day and then the next day, he would wear jeans and a T-shirt, a Polo or hoodie,” she told the newspaper. “He was trying to find himself and that involved all kinds of styles. I believe he was doing it because it gave him attention he desperately needed and sought,” she said.
The mother acknowledged in the interview that her son was deeply troubled, saying he had a long history of misbehavior, including sending nude photos of himself to a girl when he was in the fifth grade.
On Jan. 12, the same day as the boy’s sentencing hearing, Virginia House of Delegates member John Avoli (R-Stanton) introduced a bill calling for restricting the ability of transgender students from using bathrooms and other facilities in public schools that are consistent with their gender identity.
A separate bill introduced last month by Virginia State Sen. Travis Hackworth (R-Tazewell County) calls for eliminating the requirement that Virginia school districts adopt the state Department of Education’s nondiscrimination policies for trans and non-binary students.
Although Virginia’s newly inaugurated Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin and the GOP-controlled House of Delegates could move to advance the two bills, LGBTQ activists note that the state Senate remains in Democratic control and would block the two bills from being approved by the General Assembly.
Cris Candice Tuck, president of the LGBTQ group Equality Loudoun, told the Blade she expects opponents of LGBTQ nondiscrimination policies in the Loudoun County Public Schools and other school systems in Virginia to continue to use the sexual assault case of the Loudoun boy as a pretext to repeal LGBTQ and trans supportive policies.
“We firmly believe it should have absolutely no bearing as the perpetrator was not transgender, non-binary, or gender fluid, and so that doesn’t apply to this policy at all,” Tuck said. “A single conviction of an individual who is not even part of the group in question is no reason to invalidate the rights and expose to potential violence the hundreds of students who identify as transgender or non-binary,” Tuck said in an email message.
“Currently, the Catholic Church, the Boy Scouts of America, and hundreds of cisgender teachers, clergy, and coaches are embroiled in legal battles nationwide involving sexual molestation, rape, and abuse of children across the country that has been ongoing for decades,” Tuck said. “Yet no one is proposing restroom restrictions for any of those groups. A double standard cannot exist for the LGBTQ+ based on fear mongering, misinformation, and discrimination.”
Virginia
Gay Va. State Sen. Ebbin resigns for role in Spanberger administration
Veteran lawmaker will step down in February
Alexandria Democrat Adam Ebbin, who has served as an openly gay member of the Virginia Legislature since 2004, announced on Jan. 7 that he is resigning from his seat in the State Senate to take a job in the administration of Gov.-Elect Abigail Spanberger.
Since 2012, Ebbin has been a member of the Virginia Senate for the 39th District representing parts of Alexandria, Arlington, and Fairfax counties. He served in the Virginia House of Delegates representing Alexandria from 2004 to 2012, becoming the state’s first out gay lawmaker.
His announcement says he submitted his resignation from his Senate position effective Feb. 18 to join the Spanberger administration as a senior adviser at the Virginia Cannabis Control Authority.
“I’m grateful to have the benefit of Senator Ebbin’s policy expertise continuing to serve the people of Virginia, and I look forward to working with him to prioritize public safety and public health,” Spanberger said in Ebbin’s announcement statement.
She was referring to the lead role Ebbin has played in the Virginia Legislature’s approval in 2020 of legislation decriminalizing marijuana and the subsequent approval in 2021of a bill legalizing recreational use and possession of marijuana for adults 21 years of age and older. But the Virginia Legislature has yet to pass legislation facilitating the retail sale of marijuana for recreational use and limits sales to purchases at licensed medical marijuana dispensaries.
“I share Governor-elect Spanberger’s goal that adults 21 and over who choose to use cannabis, and those who use it for medical treatment, have access to a well-tested, accurately labeled product, free from contamination,” Ebbin said in his statement. “2026 is the year we will move cannabis sales off the street corner and behind the age-verified counter,” he said.
Virginia
LGBTQ groups to join Spanberger inaugural parade
Virginia Pride among more than 25 orgs to march in Jan.17 event
Virginia Gov.-Elect Abigail Spanberger’s inaugural committee announced on Jan. 2 that at least two LGBTQ organizations will be among more than 25 state-based organizations, including marching bands, that will participate in her inaugural parade on Jan. 17.
A statement released by the inaugural committee says the parade will take place immediately after Spanberger is sworn in as Virginia’s 75th governor and delivers her inaugural address in Richmond.
The statement lists the LGBTQ groups Virginia Pride and Diversity Richmond as two groups participating in the parade, although the two groups merged in 2021, with Virginia Pride becoming a project of Diversity Richmond. Among other things, Virginia Pride organizes Richmond’s annual LGBTQ Pride events.
“A display of the impressive talent and beauty of every corner of Virginia, our inaugural parade will be a celebration of all that makes our Commonwealth strong,” Spanberger said in the Jan. 2 statement. “I’m excited for attendees in the stands on Capitol Square and families watching together at home to see this incredible showing of Virginia pride,” she said.
James Millner, who serves as director of Virginia Pride, told the Washington Blade about 75 people are expected to join the Virginia Pride-Diversity Richmond contingent in the parade. He said among them will be members of other Virginia LGBTQ organizations.
“We’re going to invite our staff, our board, our volunteers, and our community partners to join us,” Millner said.
“We are thrilled and honored to have been invited to participate in Abigail Spanberger’s inauguration festivities,” he added. “I think this represents a marked change from the previous administration and demonstrates what she campaigned on – which is she sees the diversity of the Commonwealth as a strength that needs to be celebrated,” he said. “And we are very happy that she has invited us to represent the diversity of the commonwealth.”
Millner appeared to reflect on the sentiment of the large majority of Virginia’s LGBTQ community in its support for Democrat Spanberger over Republican Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears in the November 2025 Virginia election and the end of incumbent GOP Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s term in office on Jan. 17.
“After what we’ve been through with the Younkin administration, especially in its treatment of LGBTQ folks, especially transgender and nonconforming folks, I think we are all breathing easy and excited about what opportunities will exist in working with Abigail Spanberger,” he told the Blade.
Virginia
DOJ seeks to join lawsuit against Loudoun County over trans student in locker room
Three male high school students suspended after complaining about classmate
The Justice Department has asked to join a federal lawsuit against Loudoun County Public Schools over the way it handled the case of three male high school students who complained about a transgender student in a boys’ locker room.
The Washington Blade earlier this year reported Loudoun County public schools suspended the three boys and launched a Title IX investigation into whether they sexually harassed the student after they said they felt uncomfortable with their classmate in the locker room at Stone Bridge High School in Ashburn.
The parents of two of the boys filed a lawsuit against Loudoun County public schools in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia in Alexandria. The Richmond-based Founding Freedoms Law Center and America First Legal, which White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller co-founded, represent them.
The Justice Department in a Dec. 8 press release announced that “it filed legal action against the Loudoun County (Va.) School Board (Loudoun County) for its denial of equal protection based on religion.”
“The suit alleges that Loudoun County applied Policy 8040, which requires students and faculty to accept and promote gender ideology, to two Christian, male students in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution,” reads the press release.
Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division in the press release said “students do not shed their First Amendment rights at the schoolhouse gate.”
“Loudoun County’s decision to advance and promote gender ideology tramples on the rights of religious students who cannot embrace ideas that deny biological reality,” said Dhillon.
Outgoing Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin and outgoing Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares in May announced an investigation into the case.
The Virginia Department of Education in 2023 announced the new guidelines for trans and nonbinary students for which Youngkin asked. Equality Virginia and other advocacy groups claim they, among other things, forcibly out trans and nonbinary students.
The U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights in February launched an investigation into whether Loudoun County and four other Northern Virginia school districts’ policies in support of trans and nonbinary students violate Title IX and President Donald Trump’s executive order that prohibits federally funded educational institutions from promoting “gender ideology.”
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