LGBTQ+ advocates and students say they are worried about students returning to campuses that may no longer be considered safe and accepting environments when they head back to school starting next month.
Virginia’s Education Department moved forward this week with a set of controversial model policies for the treatment of transgender students in schools that experts say will likely result in a patchwork of responses around the state as some school boards embrace the guidelines and others fight the changes.
Northam’s policies allowed transgender students to use restrooms, locker rooms and changing facilities that match their gender identity. They also stipulated that schools let transgender students participate in school programs matching their gender identity and require that school districts and teachers accept and use students’ gender pronouns and identities.
Diaz said there is no clear enforcement mechanism to force school divisions to adopt the policies, nor was there one for the 2021 policies. “A lot of kids are still closeted and not out to their parents as trans, and really the only safe space that a lot of these students have is high schools where they’re allowed to just tell their teachers like ‘Hey, change my name, these are my pronouns,’ and teachers are mostly accepting,” Rawat said.
Other families praised the new model policies for giving control to parents, who they argue are best fit to make decisions about children’s lives, and see the model policies as a clear follow-through on a campaign promise from Youngkin, who based a lot of his 2021 campaign on “parental rights.
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