Virginia
Va. students stage mass walkout over anti-LGBTQ policies
Activists from more than 90 schools across state hold rallies
Thousands of students in schools across Virginia participated in walkouts and rallies on Tuesday to oppose the revised “model policies” on transgender students released by the Virginia Department of Education.
VDOE policy revisions were released on Sept. 16 and differ substantially from the policies passed into law in 2020.
The original policies on the treatment of trans students were intended to protect LGBTQ students; but the revised “model policies” have been criticized by activists, educators and legislators for mandating students use school facilities for the sex they were assigned at birth and bars students from changing their names and pronouns without parental permission. Further, the policies direct teachers and staff not to conceal a student’s gender identity from parents, even when a student asks to keep that information private.
The student-led Virginia-based Pride Liberation Project responded to these policy changes by organizing mass walkouts and rallies in more than 90 schools from Alexandria to Williamsburg.
“These proposed guidelines are essentially taking that cornerstone and using it to undermine our rights. If these guidelines are implemented, it will be the single biggest loss for queer rights in Virginia in years,” Natasha Sanghvi, a student organizer with the Pride Liberation Project, said in a statement.
Openly gay Virginia state Sen. Adam Ebbin (D-Alexandria) in a statement said “these new model policies, which are in flagrant violation of Virginia law, will do serious harm to transgender students. They are not based in science or compassion and will lead to students being outed before they are ready, increased bullying and harassment of marginalized youth, and will require students to jump through legal hoops just to be referred to with their proper name.”
Ebbin joined several hundred students at West Potomac High School in Alexandria in a rally opposing the model policies proposed by Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin.
“The new policy drafts are only going to do more harm to trans students who are already at risk for being outed, harassed and harmed,” Jules Lombardi, a Fairfax County high school senior, told the Washington Blade. “These drafts will take schools, which are supposed to be safe environments for students, and make them spaces where students have to hide themselves for fear of their parents finding out about their identities.”
“This isn’t a matter of ‘parental rights,’ it’s a matter of human rights and we deserve to be treated with the same respect as cis students,” Lombardi added.
Andrea-Grace Mukuna, a senior at John R. Lewis High School in Springfield, told the Blade that “gender affirmation matters. Something so easily given to cisgender people is a right that our trans and gender non conforming youth deserve. I am walking out because schools will no longer be a safe place for queer students to be in if these policies get passed.”
“Requirements for teachers to refer to students by their birth name and pronouns aligning with their sex, rather than trusting our students to know themselves and who they are best, reinforces the idea that we as students have no power, no control and no knowledge over anything in our lives. Gender queer youth exist, and no policy can change that,” Mukuna said.
Mukuna continued, “making an attempt at denying them their ability to be who they are is a malicious attack on vulnerable students that could cause deathly harm.”
“I walk out for my queer community — there is no erasing us,” Mukuna said.
Several hundred students walked out of McLean High School. The walkout was lead by members of the school’s GSA and organizers from the Pride Liberation Project including McLean High School senior Casey Calabia.
Calibia asked the crowd, “Do we want Gov. Youngkin to understand that this is not what Virginia looks like?”
The crowd roared, “yes!”
“Virginia stands for trans kids. Trans and queer people are a fact of humanity. We will be accepted one way or another and to see everybody here today is another step toward that change,” said Calibia through a bull horn.
Calibia told the Blade in a pre-walkout statement said “to call these policies in favor of respecting trans students’ rights and privacy is to call an apple an orange. The 2022 Transgender Model policies, even as a draft, have begun to actively hurt my community’s mental health.”
“Instead of focusing on academics and our future, we have to sit in class and wonder if we will be safe in school,” Calibia concluded. “To not only take away the 2021 policies, a cornerstone in LGBTQIA+ rights for Virginia, but to mock them with these replacements, is a devastating blow to myself, trans students, queer students, and the whole of Virginia’s public school student body. How can we be safe, if we can be taken out of school-provided counseling, maliciously misgendered, and denied opportunities given to other students simply because of our gender? Accepting queer students in class does not indoctrinate or brainwash kids. It tells queer students like me that it is okay and safe to be ourselves in school.”
The student protests in Virginia have made national news.
“This is a president who supports the LGBTQI+ community and has been supporting that community for some time now as a vice president, as senator, and certainly as president now,” said White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre in response to a question about the protests during her daily press briefing. “And he . . . always is proud to speak out against the mistreatment of that community … We believe and he believes transgender youth should be allowed to be able to go to school freely, to be able to express themselves freely, to be able to have the protections that they need to be who they are.”
“When it comes to this community, he is a partner, and he is a strong ally, as well as the vice president,” Jean-Pierre stated.
Walkouts and rallies were held at middle and high schools in Arlington, Bedford, Buchanan, Chesterfield, Culpeper, Fairfax, Fauquier, Frederick, Henrico, James City, Loudoun, Louisa, Montgomery, Powhatan, Prince George’s, Prince William, Spotsylvania, Stafford, Warren and York Counties as well as in the cities of Alexandria, Chesapeake, Newport News, Portsmouth, Richmond, Williamsburg and Winchester.
“Every parent wants Virginia’s laws to ensure children’s safety, freedom, and to encourage a vibrant and engaging learning experience. But the Virginia Department of Education is rejecting those shared values by advancing policies that will target LGBTQ kids for harassment and mistreatment simply because of who they are,” said Ebbin.
Virginia
Va. officials investigate Loudoun County schools over trans student in locker room
Boys’ complaints prompted LCPS to investigate them for Title IX violations
Governor Glenn Youngkin and Attorney General Jason Miyares on Tuesday announced they have launched an investigation into how Loudoun County Public Schools has handled the case of three male high school students who complained about a transgender student in a boys’ locker room.
One of the boys’ fathers told WJLA that Loudoun County public schools launched an investigation into whether his son and the two other boys sexually harassed the student after they said they felt uncomfortable with their classmate in the locker room at Stone Bridge High School in Ashburn.
“He was questioning why there was a female in the males’ locker room,” the father told WJLA. “And other boys were uncomfortable [with a female in the boys’ locker room].”
“There were other boys asking the same question,” he added. “They [LCPS] created a very uncomfortable situation. They’re young, they’re 15 years old. They’re expressing their opinions, and now they’re being targeted for expressing those opinions.”
WJLA notes Loudoun County public schools allows students to use bathrooms and locker rooms based on their gender identity. The father who spoke with WJLA said Loudoun County public schools should reverse the policy and dismiss the Title IX complaint it has brought against his son and the two other boys.
The Richmond-based Founding Freedoms Law Center is representing the boys and their families.
“It’s deeply concerning to read reports of yet another incident in Loudoun County schools where members of the opposite sex are violating the privacy of students in locker rooms,” said Youngkin in a statement that announced the investigation. “Even more alarming, the victims of this violation are the ones being investigated — this is beyond belief. I’ve asked Attorney General Miyares to investigate this situation immediately so that every student’s privacy, dignity, and safety are upheld.”
“Students who express legitimate concerns about sharing locker rooms with individuals of the opposite biological sex should not be subjected to harassment or discrimination claims,” added the Republican.
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
Va. LG opposed marriage equality affirmation bill in handwritten note
Winsome Earle-Sears constitutionally required to sign HB 174 as Senate president
Virginia Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears last year in a handwritten note indicated her opposition to marriage rights for same-sex couples when she signed a bill that affirmed marriage equality in the state.
Brandon Jarvis of Virginia Scope on May 1 published Earle-Sears’s note on House Bill 174, which state Del. Rozia Henson, a Prince William County Democrat who is gay, introduced.
The Virginia Senate passed HB 174 by a 22-17 vote margin, and the state constitution required Earle-Sears to sign it as the chamber’s president. Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin signed the measure into law after it received bipartisan support.
“As the lieutenant governor, I recognize and respect my constitutional obligation to adhere to procedures set out in the constitution of Virginia,” wrote Earle-Sears in her note. “However, I remain morally opposed to the content of HB 174 as passed by the General Assembly.”
Earle-Sears, a former U.S. Marine who served in the Virginia House of Delegates from 2002-2004, in 2021 became the first woman elected Virginia’s lieutenant governor. Activists have criticized her for her opposition to LGBTQ rights in Virginia.
She sparked controversy last year when she misgendered state Sen. Danica Roem (D-Manassas), who is transgender, on the Senate floor. Earle-Sears has also spoken at the Conservative Political Action Conference.
Earle-Sears is running to succeed Youngkin as governor once his term ends in January 2026. She will likely face former U.S. Rep. Abigail Spanberger, a Democrat who previously represented Virginia’s 7th Congressional District.
John Reid, a conservative talk show host who is openly gay, last month secured the Republican nomination to succeed Earle-Sears as lieutenant governor. Youngkin has called for Reid to end his campaign amid reports that he posted “pornographic content” on social media.
Reid has strongly denied the reports.
Virginia
Youngkin calls on gay Va. GOP LG candidate to exit race over alleged ‘porn’ scandal
John Reid denounces ‘fabricated internet lie’ as anti-gay smear campaign
Less than a week after John Reid, the conservative gay radio talk show host from Richmond secured the Republican nomination for the office of lieutenant governor in Virginia, sensational allegations have surfaced, which he strongly denies, that he allegedly posted pornographic photos on social media.
According to the Virginia Mercury newspaper, the allegations surfaced when Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s office released a statement saying Youngkin contacted Reid on Friday, April 25, and asked him to withdraw his candidacy over reports that a social media account with Reid’s username included “pornographic content” that was “shared” with others.
“The governor was made aware late Thursday of the disturbing online content,” the Virginia Mercury quotes a Youngkin spokesperson as saying. “Friday morning, in a call with Mr. Reid, the governor asked him to step down as the lt. governor nominee,” the spokesperson is quoted as saying.
Reid responded to the allegations in an early Friday evening video he posted on his campaign’s Facebook page, calling the allegations “a totally fabricated internet lie” motivated by anti-gay bias.
“I can tell you that’s not my account and anyone on the internet can open accounts with the same or similar names as other people,” he stated in his video. “It’s predictable,” he added.
“But what I didn’t expect was the governor I have always supported to call and demand my resignation without even showing me the supposed evidence or offering me a chance to respond,” Reid states in his video.
He said he will not drop out of the lieutenant governor’s race and called the allegations against him just the latest in what he said was an ongoing effort by some in the Republican Party, especially conservative Christians, to force him out of politics.
“Let’s be honest,” he said. “it’s because I’m openly gay. And I have never backed down to the establishment, and will not,” he continued in his video message. “What happened today is another coordinated assassination attempt against me to force the first openly gay candidate off of a Virginia statewide ticket.”
Reid added, “It’s shameful, and I won’t back down, even though I know the plan is for the attacks to continue in this overt effort to make me toxic.”
Reid secured the GOP nomination for lieutenant governor last week after his only rival in the Republican primary, Fairfax County Supervisor Pat Herrity, dropped out of the race for health reasons.
By securing the nomination Reid became the first known openly gay candidate, Republican or Democrat, to be nominated for a statewide office in Virginia.
In an interview with the Washington Blade earlier this week Reid pointed out that he came out as gay in 1996 or 1997 on National Coming Out Day in his role as TV news anchor in Richmond, where he worked for 10 years.
Following that, Reid worked as a radio talk show host for the next eight years, promoting his ideas as a gay conservative Republican, up until shortly before he announced his candidacy for lieutenant governor, he told the Blade.
Reid’s video responding to the accusations against him can be accessed here.
Reid’s campaign website and statements he has released to the media acknowledge his status as a gay candidate but point out he has a long record of support for conservative Republican positions on a wide range of issues that are against the positions of most mainline LGBTQ rights organizations.
“I’m not a diversity hire,” he stated in a press release issued at the time he announced his candidacy in January. “I’m the most conservative and proven candidate running, and I’ve boldly stood up for our beliefs in a way that should make my personal life a total nonissue,” he stated.
A statement on his campaign website states “John is uniquely positioned to take the fight to the radical progressives head on as he continues his fight against boys in girls’ sports and the extreme trans agenda being forced upon our children.”
His campaign website statement on transgender issues concludes by saying, “And we must be blatant in saying that it is factually impossible for biological men or women to personally decide to change their gender. John believes in the right for grown adults to live their lives as they see fit, but not if they impose restrictions and obligations on others and not if any of their behavior sexualizes or grooms children.
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