Virginia
Fairfax school board approves family planning benefits for LGBTQ employees, staff
Superintendent has six months to implement plan
The Fairfax County School Board on Tuesday voted in favor of a new proposal that would start the process of achieving family planning benefit parity for LGBTQ employees and staff.
The decision, which board members unanimously approved, mandates Supt. Michelle Reid to develop a legal plan as to how the school system can achieve parity in the realm of family planning benefits for qualified LGBTQ employees.
Family planning coverage — which includes health screenings, infertility and preconception services and methods to both prevent pregnancy and help achieve it — is designed to offset the financial costs for those who are seeking to form their own families.
Co-sponsoring the proposal with fellow board member Megan McLaughlin, Karl Frisch released a statement following the decision. The policy, Frisch said, would help to maintain and grow their workforce and lead the school system toward a more equitable environment for employees.
“To attract and retain a premier workforce, especially in this extremely competitive hiring environment, qualified FCPS employees must have equitable access to the school division’s robust family planning medical benefits,” Frisch said. “Our LGBTQIA+ employees and their families deserve the same respect and support as anyone else. Fairness is fundamental.”
Frisch in his statement also makes note of the broader disparities in family planning benefits when detailing the rationale behind the board’s decision.
“Almost universally, medical insurance providers define family planning benefits that assist with conception in heterosexual terms, leaving qualified LGBTQIA+ employees with limited access to the same benefits enjoyed by their non-LGBTQIA+ colleagues and forcing them to pay for needed treatments out of pocket,” Frisch wrote.
Given the additional services typically required for LGBTQ individuals and couples to become parents, the disproportionate costs are often exacerbated when medical insurance declines to cover such costs because of their sexual orientation or gender identity.
Data collected by Family Equality, a nonprofit organization that seeks to promote equality for LGBTQ families and those attempting to start them, suggests that in vitro fertilization (IVF) treatment alone —which same-sex couples wishing to have biological connection to their children widely use — can cost anywhere from $13,500 to more than $21,000.
This is on top of data that, as Family Equality notes, suggests LGBTQ households in America make less on average that non-LGBTQ households.
Although Frisch acknowledged that parity is being achieved to a greater extent on local levels and in the private sector, he said the statewide landscape made the school board’s decision necessary.
“Some local governments and corporations have established grant programs to bridge this gap and provide family planning benefit parity for qualified LGBTQIA+ employees,” Frisch wrote. “In addition, a few states now require insurances companies to provide family planning benefit parity for LGBTQIA+ people — Virginia does not.”
Following the approval of the proposal, the board has given Reid six months to create the plan that will “analyze current [Fairfax County Public Schools] family planning benefits” in order to identify appropriate benefits and achieve such parity within the district.
Virginia
Gay 1920s-era Hollywood star to be honored in Staunton, Va.
Billy Haines became acclaimed designer after anti-gay policies ended his acting career
A project is underway in Staunton, Va., to honor William ‘Billy’ Haines, who was born and raised in Staunton before becoming an out gay 1920s and early 1930s-era Hollywood movie star whose acting career ended around 1934 when he refused demands that he conceal his sexual orientation and end his relationship with his male partner.
Haines left the movie business around that time to start what became a highly successful interior design and furniture business in Los Angeles that he led until his death in 1972 at age 72, and which remains in business today, according to the Arcadia Project, a Staunton-based nonprofit initiative.
In a statement released last month, Arcadia Project announced it is working to revitalize a long-vacant movie theater in downtown Staunton that it plans to rename after Haines. It says a fundraising campaign is under way to support efforts to reopen the theater and the larger building in which it is housed as a “dynamic mixed-use cultural center.”
The statement notes that Haines left Staunton at age 14 and resided in Hopewell, Va., and Greenwich Village in New York City until 1922, when he was “discovered” by a talent scout and sent to Hollywood.
“Between 1922 and 1934, Haines appeared in 54 movies during his meteoric and highly successful career,” the Arcadia Project statement continues, noting he transitioned from silent movies to talkies and was fully open about being gay. “But when Hollywood’s moral crackdown of the 1930s demanded that he end his relationship with his longtime partner Jimmie Shields, Haines refused,” it says.
“For LGBTQ people – then and now – Haines’s choice resonates deeply. Rather than deny who he was, he reinvented himself as an interior designer to the stars,” according to the statement.
It says he helped invent the so-called Hollywood Regency style home and designed homes for Hollywood legends such as Joan Crawford, Gloria Swanson, Carole Lombard, George Cukor, and Jack Warner as well as for political figures like Ronald Reagan when he was governor of California.
“As there is no monument, marker or public recognition for Haines in his hometown of Staunton, Va., Arcadia Project, in collaboration with the LGBTQ+ community in Staunton seeks to commemorate him inside a new cultural center,” the statement says.
It quotes Arcadia Project Executive Director Pamela Mason Wagner as saying, “Naming the movie theater in Haines’ honor is more than an act of historical recognition – it is a powerful statement about visibility, belonging, and whose stories are valued in our community.”
The statement says project leaders hope to open the cultural center in early 2027, with a fundraising campaign seeking to raise $250,000 to renovate the theater.
“If the full goal is not reached, a smaller space within the building will be named for Haines, scaled to the amount of funds raised,” it says. “We truly hope friends and admirers of Billy Haines everywhere will want to participate.”
Donations for the project can be made through this site: www.thearcadiaproject.org
Virginians for Marriage Equality on Monday launched a campaign in support of repealing Virginia’s constitutional amendment that defines marriage as between a man and a woman.
Equality Virginia Executive Director Narissa Rahaman, former state Sen. Adam Ebbin, former state Del. Mark Sickles, and American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia Executive Director Mary Bauer are among those who spoke at the launch that took place in Richmond. State Del. Kirk McPike (D-Alexandria), who co-chairs the campaign, also participated.
“This amendment is about making clear that the government has no business deciding which marriages or which families are worthy of recognition,” said Bauer. “The ACLU of Virginia has been fighting for Virginians’ right to marry who they love since the landmark case, Loving v. Virginia, which struck down the ban on interracial marriage. Now we are proud to carry that legacy forward by standing with our coalition partners in the fight to pass this amendment and finally enshrine the right to marriage equality in the commonwealth’s constitution.”
Voters in 2006 approved the Marshall-Newman Amendment.
Same-sex couples have been able to legally marry in Virginia since 2014. Former Gov. Glenn Youngkin, who is a Republican, in 2024 signed a bill that codified marriage equality in state law.
Two successive legislatures must approve a proposed constitutional amendment before it can go to the ballot.
Democratic Gov. Abigail Spanberger in February signed a bill that finalized the referendum’s language.
The referendum will take place on Nov. 3.
Virginia
Va. Supreme Court invalidates Democrat-backed redistricting plan
Voters narrowly approved new congressional districts last month
The Virginia Supreme Court on Friday struck down a Democrat-backed redistricting plan that voters approved last month.
Ten of 11 of Virginia’s congressional districts favor Democrats in the plan that passed by a 51-48 vote margin in last month’s referendum.
The Human Rights Campaign PAC is among the groups that support it. The court by a 4-3 majority invalidated the referendum results.
Democrats on May 11 asked the U.S. Supreme Court to stay the ruling.
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