Virginia
LGBTQ students join protests over new Fairfax County school superintendent
Critics say incoming official lacks experience leading large, diverse district
The Fairfax County, Va., School Board voted 9 to 3 on April 14 to approve the appointment of a new school superintendent for the county school system after more than 200 students, including members of an LGBTQ student group, held demonstrations against the appointment at several high schools earlier in the day.
After a months-long search process, the School Board selected Michelle Reid, the current superintendent of the Northshore School District in Bothell, Wash., a small city located within the Seattle metropolitan area, to replace current Fairfax School Superintendent Scott Brabrand, who is stepping down effective June 30.
The student protesters have joined other community and advocacy groups, including the Fairfax chapter of the NAACP, in expressing concern that Reid’s experience in leading a relatively small school district with about 22,000 students is insufficient to head the Fairfax school system, which enrolls about 180,000 students who come from more diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds.
School officials and members of the School Board who voted for Reid’s appointment said they were impressed with the knowledge, understanding, and staunch support Reid expressed for policies embracing and supporting a racially diverse school system such as Fairfax County Public Schools.
Reid, a former school principal who holds a doctorate degree in educational leadership, expressed strong support for the needs of LGBTQ and other minority students during her interview process, according to gay Fairfax School Board member Karl Frisch, who voted in favor of Reid’s appointment.
“Throughout all of our interviews with her, Dr. Reid routinely spoke – unprompted – of the ways she addressed the equity needs of her study body – LGBTQIA students, Muslim students, students of color, English language learners, students with special needs, and more,” Frisch said during the April 14 School Board meeting.
“Her commitment to equity and inclusion was a thread woven through her answers, her accomplishments as a superintendent, and her commitments to this Board,” Frisch said.
Information on the Northshore School District website shows that the district adopted a strongly worded nondiscrimination policy protecting transgender and gender nonconforming students in 2017 during Reid’s tenure as superintendent. Fairfax County Public Schools adopted a similar policy on gender identity nondiscrimination in 2021.
The school system in previous years adopted polices banning discrimination against students, teachers, and other employees based on sexual orientation, which Reid strongly upheld, according to her supporters.
Although the Northshore School District adopted a strongly worded policy banning bullying and harassment of all students, including LGBTQ students, in 2011, new guidelines for updating and enforcing the anti-bullying policies were updated in 2020 under Reid, who began her tenure as Northshore superintendent in 2016.
Aaryan Rawal, a spokesperson for Pride Liberation Project, the LGBTQ student group that helped organize the student protests over the Reid appointment, told the Washington Blade one day before the protests that the Pride group was not aware of any actions taken by Reid against the LGBTQ students, but the group was unaware at that time of any actions she may have taken in support of LGBTQ equality.
Rawal pointed to a letter signed by 375 students sent last week to School Board members and a consulting firm that Fairfax school officials retained to organize a search for the new superintendent explaining the students’ objections to the approval of Reid as superintendent.
“Unfortunately, the voices of the student body were not heard during this search process,” the letter says. It says that while school officials held a 15-day community outreach period that included an 11-member student “stakeholder group,” the group was not representative of the full student body.
In a separate statement, the NAACP said it favored the hiring of another finalist candidate for the Fairfax school superintendent’s job, a Black woman educator and Omaha, Neb., Public Schools Superintendent Cheryl Logan, who withdrew from contention for the job on April 9 without giving a reason, according to reports by the Washington Post.
“The issue we all agree on is that Fairfax County Public Schools needs a superintendent who has commensurate experience in leading organizations of this size, diversity, complexity, and that the Superintendent of Northshore School District isn’t the right fit,” a joint statement released by the NAACP and other groups opposing Reid’s appointment, including Pride Liberation Project, says.
School Board members who supported Reid said she stood out from the pool of 72 applicants, among other things, because of her approach to equity and inclusion, according to FFX Now, the online Fairfax local news site. “Among this large, strong group, Dr. Reid was consistently at the top,” FFX Now quoted School Board Vice Chair Rachna Sizemore-Heizer as saying.
“We asked all of our applicants about how they would heal a divided community,” Frisch told fellow board members. “It says a lot about her character that she told us she would listen and that she would not presume to speak for others whose lived experience is different from her own,” Frisch 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 Equality Virginia 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 executive 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.”
Virginia
Repealing marriage amendment among Va. House Democrats’ 2026 legislative priorities
Voters approved Marshall-Newman Amendment in 2006
Democrats in the Virginia House of Delegates on Monday announced passage of a resolution that seeks to repeal a state constitutional amendment that defines marriage as between a man and a woman is among their 2026 legislative priorities.
State Del. Mark Sickles (D-Fairfax County) has introduced the resolution in the chamber. State Sen. Adam Ebbin (D-Alexandria) is the sponsor of an identical proposal in the state Senate.
Both men are gay.
Voters approved the Marshall-Newman Amendment in 2006.
Same-sex couples have been able to legally marry in Virginia since 2014. Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin last year signed a bill that codified marriage equality in state law.
A resolution that seeks to repeal the Marshall-Newman Amendment passed in the General Assembly in 2021. The resolution passed again this year.
Two successive legislatures must approve the resolution before it can go to the ballot.
Democrats on Election Day increased their majority in the House of Delegates. Their three statewide candidates — Gov.-elect Abigail Spanberger, Lt. Gov.-elect Ghazala Hashmi, and Attorney General-elect Jay Jones — will take office in January.
“Virginians elected the largest House Democratic Majority in nearly four decades because they trust us to fight for them and deliver real results,” said House Speaker Don Scott (D-Portsmouth) on Monday in a press release that announced his party’s legislative priorities. “These first bills honor that trust. Our agenda is focused on lowering costs, lifting wages, expanding opportunity, protecting Virginians rights, and ensuring fair representation as Donald Trump pushes Republican legislatures across the country to manipulate congressional maps for partisan gain. House Democrats are ready to meet this moment and deliver the progress Virginians expect.”
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