A group of supporters crowded inside of the new Equality Loudoun Community Center in Leesburg, Va. on Saturday for an open house and ribbon-cutting ceremony. Air quality issues stemming from the wildfires in Canada required the ceremony to be held indoors. Local elected officials were joined by LGBTQ community organizers and supporters to mark the occasion.

The Virginia LGBTQ organization Equality Loudoun was founded in 2003 and organized the first Loudoun Pride Festival in 2022. The Equality Loudoun Community Center, located in the Village at Leesburg shopping area (1507 Dodona Terrace SE, Suite 105, Leesburg, Va.), will now house the organization’s community and youth programming.

“This is a day that we have anticipated for some time,” said Sean Murphy, Equality Loudoun vice president. “Equality Loudoun was founded in 2003 and has been migrating from place to place to wherever will have us to host our meetings, to host our gatherings. We are so grateful to our many, many allies that have provided space for us.”

Murphy continued, “We really have believed for a long time that it’s important for us to have a home, a place to anchor the community, a place for people to feel belonging, and a place for people to find one another, and find people who are like them and have something in common.”

Attendees of the ceremony included Leesburg Mayor Kelly Burk, Leesburg Vice Mayor Todd Cimino-Johnson, Leesburg District Supervisor Kristen C. Umstattd of the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors, and U.S. Rep. Suhas Subramanyam (D-Va.).

“I wish that there was a place like this when I was teaching,” Mayor Burk, a retired Loudoun County Public Schools special education teacher, told the crowd. “So often, I’d have a student, and there was nowhere to send them. They were looking around, trying to see: ‘who’s like me, where can I go, where can I relate, what is happening?’ Middle school is terrible for everybody. But it’s especially terrible if you’re different. And so, I congratulate you on the fact that you had the initiative to do this, the guts to continue it, and the tenacity to make it happen.”

Programming at the LGBTQ community center will include youth programming, game nights and support groups, according to Equality Loudoun Executive Director Katie Cash.

Cash told the Blade, “That’s actually a new thing that we’re branching into that we received a grant this year for: to focus on youth activities. So we’ll have youth support groups that we’re going to work with the Ryan Bartell organization on. Additionally, we’ll have other peer support groups that are run by organizations that are in the space. We’ll have craft nights, we’ll have activity nights, so it’ll be open for drop-in hours on different days as well. On top of normal programming that we’ve been doing as an organization, which can be a series of different craft [activities], social activities, game nights, movie nights, that we’ve been doing for years. Instead of hunting for locations.”

Equality Loudoun is primarily funded through donations, according to Cash. Those interested in supporting the work of the organization and community center can visit eqloco.org for more information.

When asked about future programming at the center, Cash told the Blade that they are seeking feedback from the community.

“We have all the dreams that we have for the space,” Cash said. “But everything’s built off of what kind of resources, what kind of events does the community want hosted? What will they come out for? What do they care about coming out for, and making sure that happens for them.”

Rep. Subramanyam told the Blade, “I’m just so excited about this community center. Equality Loudoun has been so instrumental to so many people in our community. And for them to finally have this center — and it’s been part of their vision for a long time — just is an incredible experience. So I’m so proud to be a supporter of them and I look forward to the center being a sanctuary and a place for people to turn to for many years to come.”

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On June 30, the U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way for states to enforce laws barring transgender students from participating on school sports teams consistent with their gender identity, a decision LGBTQ advocates say could encourage additional restrictions across the country.

While neither Maryland nor Virginia currently has a statewide ban on trans student athletes, advocates say the decision could reshape future legislative battles and school policies throughout the region.

Directly following the case, attorneys for trans student athletes spoke out about the case and how detrimental it could be to students.

“This ruling is deeply harmful for transgender women and girls who only asked for the ability to participate in sports with their peers,” said Sasha Buchert, senior attorney and director of the Nonbinary and Transgender Rights Project for Lambda Legal, in a press release from the American Civil Liberties Union.

The next step is figuring out how states will move forward, specifically in Maryland and Virginia.

As of right now, neither state has bans on trans athletes in schools. The new Supreme Court decision also does not require states to enact bans, only that bans are allowed if states or school districts choose to enforce them.

According to the ACLU, 27 states have banned trans youth from participating in school sports since 2020. Most of these states also require sex testing, which the organization says is invasive for all female athletes.

Equality Virginia Executive Director Narissa Rahaman said that while she has heard a lot of frustration following the decision, people are ready to take action.

“Families, parents and youth have lived through disappointing changes to the Virginia Department of Education’s model policies for the treatment of transgender students, and the Virginia High School League’s decades-old policy that allowed transgender students an opportunity to play sports with their friends,” Rahaman said in a statement to the Washington Blade.

She believes they are not ready to give up this fight quite yet.

As of now, trans and nonbinary students are protected under Virginia law, and Rahaman wants that to continue.

“This ruling will likely embolden right-wing members of the General Assembly to pursue trans athlete bans, and we will continue to defeat every bill like we have the past five legislative sessions. Now is our time to be proactive,” Rahaman said.

She also calls upon Democratic Gov. Abigail Spanberger to defend trans youth in Virginia from what she describes as bullies and to continue to stand up to federal attacks on the trans community in general.

For trans students, Rahaman wants to ensure that they continue to know that they belong and have a place in school sports. 

“To the transgender young people watching this decision unfold: you belong on your team, in your school, in your community, and here in Virginia. This ruling does not change that. A single Supreme Court decision cannot define your worth or your future,” Rahaman said.

For people who may be outside the community but want to help, she encourages them to speak with trans and nonbinary people in their community, befriend the families of youth to show their support, and continue to speak up on these issues when needed.

According to ACLU of Virginia, high schooler Eliza Munshi was told she could not compete on the girls’ track team because she was trans. To prove a point, she decided to compete with the boys.

She had previously competed on the girls’s track team before her Virginia school decided to enforce the ban demanded by President Donald Trump. With pink hair and pink makeup, she decided to continue her love for the sport alongside boys. According to Munshi, her entire community rallied for her.

“I did it to prove a point. I knew I could do it. I knew it wouldn’t phase me. My gender itself and that label has been the least important part of my transition: I want to look how I want to look. I want to dress how I want to dress. If you don’t like that, then that’s not my business,” Munshi said.

DOE has launched Title IX probe against Md. school districts

In the weeks leading up to the ruling, multiple Maryland school districts were included in a Title IX probe stating that not enforcing sex-based protections guaranteed by federal law. Currently, there have been no updates on the lawsuit or the district’s decisions.

According to the U.S. Department of Education, the federal probe is based on parent complaints that the school districts were violating a specific Trump-Vance administration addition to Title IX, stating it aligned the sex-based protections “with biological reality, not ideological fantasy.”

According to FreeState Justice, an LGBTQ advocacy group in Maryland, while this is a disappointing ruling to see, they will continue to fight for trans student-athletes in Maryland and want trans youth to know that they belong.

“Every young person deserves the opportunity to participate in school and community life without being singled out because of who they are. These decisions send a harmful message to transgender youth that they are somehow less deserving of that opportunity,” said Phillip Westry, the group’s executive director.

Westry wants to make sure the community knows that their commitment to the organization has not changed and will continue to provide the same legal services they have prior and to advance policy solutions, to ensure “every LGBTQ+ Marylander can live with dignity, safety, and equal opportunity.”

Another issue brought up by trans advocates is the issue of testing women to determine whether they are biologically female or not.

According to Human Rights Watch, as of 2023, World Athletics required cis women with increased testosterone levels to undergo medical procedures to have it reduced to avoid advantages. Other forms of “sex verification” may include genetic testing, screenings of an athlete’s anatomy or chromosomes. 

However, this can become detrimental because not all women have ovaries, a uterus, or XX chromosomes, meaning cisgender women could potentially be included in these bans, depending on how the specific state plans to enforce them.

Juries in two separate civil trials in Fairfax County, Va., last month awarded a gay teacher and an LGBTQ-supportive parent a combined total of just over $1 million in damages from a conservative group and its leader accused in their lawsuits of falsely and maliciously linking the two to a “child abduction ring” and other illegal actions involving children.

The teacher, Robert Rigby Jr., and the parent, Vanessa Hall, have been active members for many years of Fairfax County Public Schools Pride, an organization of teachers, school administrators and parents that advocates for LGBTQ-supportive school policies.

Their respective lawsuits were filed last year against what they describe as a Republican-supportive political action committee or PAC called the Virginia Project and its founder and chairperson, David Gordon. The lawsuits say Gordon “is responsible for curating and managing TVP’s social media content, including its posts and comments on Twitter,” which has renamed itself as X.

“Beginning in early 2025, defendants amplified an ongoing harassment and intimidation campaign they previously launched against Mr. Rigby by and through TVP’s Twitter handle, @ProjectVirginia,” Rigby’s lawsuit states.

It adds that on Jan. 3, 2025, “defendants retweeted a post by Bill Ackman stating that ‘hundreds of thousands of young British girls have been gang raped by members of principally one ethnic group.’” According to the lawsuit, “preceding” that post, the defendants tweeted, “in NoVA they call it Rigbyhalling.”

In response to a question that someone else posted asking what was “Rigbyhalling,” the defendants responded that it corresponded to “a pair of notorious child sex perverts with free run of FCPS (Fairfax County Public Schools) that for some reason aren’t yet in prison,” Rigby’s lawsuit states. The lawsuit states that the defendants, referring to the Virginia Project PAC and Gordon, used the word “pair” to refer to Rigby and Hall.”

It says the defendants tweeted that the FCPS Pride group, which Rigby co-founded, is a “grooming gang” and included a photo of Rigby in that post. In a Feb. 6, 2025, tweet, according to the lawsuit, the defendants stated, “[w]e need to talk about this child abduction scheme that we caught running out of Fairfax County Public Schools.”

Hall’s lawsuit also mentions the “Rigbyhalling” allegation. In addition, it states that Hall was subjected to “numerous false and defamatory statements,” among other things claiming she is an “unemployed crazy person” who has been given access to children “to ask them about sex.” Her lawsuit quotes one of the Virginia Project PAC’s postings as saying her actions were an “obscene scandal that for some reason is allowed to continue.”

It adds, “defendants’ false and defamatory statements were published with actual malice, as defendants knew the statements were false and acted with reckless disregard for the truth.”

Hall’s lawsuit describes her as a longtime community, school and church volunteer who has provided public input at Fairfax County School Board meetings “to support the safety, education, and civil rights of public school students, staff, and their families, primarily focusing on LGBTQIA+ and disability rights.”

The jury trials for both cases were held in the Fairfax County Circuit Court.

Jason Zellman, the Virginia attorney who represented both Rigby and Hall, said the trial for Rigby’s case took place June 8 through June 10. He said the trial for Hall’s case was held June 15 through June 17.

D. Hayden Fisher, the attorney listed in court records as representing the Virginia Project and Gordon, did not respond to a request from the Washington Blade for comment on the jury verdicts against his client.

In his initial “answer” to the Rigby lawsuit filed in court on July 23, 2025, Fisher’s court filing says his client denies the allegations that “it engages in intimidation, publishes disinformation, or engages in any of the other tactics and untoward conduct alleged herein.” It says that any statements made by the defendants that express opinions are protected under the First Amendment as free speech.

NBC Washington reported that the attorney for Gordon and the Virginia Project PAC sent it a statement saying his client will appeal the two jury verdicts, which he said were “improper as a matter of law.”  Without identifying the lawyer by name, NBC Washington said the lawyer’s statement added, “The verdicts will be tossed, and a new trial ordered.”

Zellman, the attorney representing Rigby and Hall, told the Blade he believes both cases are strong and would prevail if the defendants appeal. He said any appeal would likely argue that the Twitter posts about Rigby and Hall were opinions protected by free speech.

“I don’t think that’s going to be a very good legal argument for them,” he said. “Maybe there could have been some qualifying language like in my opinion or ‘I think.’” Zelman said. “There was no language like that with these statements. It was all very declarative, actual assertions,” he added. “So, I think we’re in good shape.”

The juries awarded Rigby $350,000 in compensation for damages from the Virginia Project and Gordon and awarded $750,000 for Hall. It couldn’t immediately be determined if Gordon and his PAC have the financial resources to pay that money.

Rigby said he retired as a teacher after more than 20 years of teaching in 2022 but has since returned to continue teaching part time.

“I can tell you if I don’t see any money out of this, that’s ok,” he told the Blade. “Because I stood up for myself. I stood up for teachers who get accused of things all the time,” he said. “I stood up for people in the LGBTQ community and for parents who have terrible things said about them – I stood up for them.”