On Friday, Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin released a new Transgender policy. The new policy completely reverses the previous policy, which allowed schools to hide information from parents.
Under the new policy, schools cannot affirm a student’s gender without written requests from the parents. Bathroom and locker room use shall be based on biological sex.
#Virginia on Friday took a sharp turn on transgender student policies.
Under the new policy, schools cannot affirm a student’s gender without #Parents’ written requests, and bathroom and locker room use shall be based on students’ biological sex. https://t.co/mk2wAPshoV
— The Epoch Times (@EpochTimes) September 17, 2022
A parental rights group, Fight for Schools applauded Governor Youngkin’s new policy in a letter sent to Epoch Times,
“Governor Youngkin promised to put parents back in charge of the care, upbringing, and education of their children. Today, he delivered—big time,” said Ian Prior, the Executive Director for Fight For Schools.
Ian Prior also had a message for Virginia school boards, letting them know they had better get to work revising their policies based on the new law,
“To the school boards in Virginia, such as the one in Loudoun County, you spent last year telling parents that they had to pass radical anti-parent, transgender policies to match the VDOE’s [Virginia Department of Education] model policy—now you will have to revise those policies based on the law and your own words. So get to work.”
Youngkin’s new policy asserts parental rights and says,
“Parents have the right to instill in and nurture values and beliefs for their own children and make decisions concerning their children’s education and upbringing in accordance with their customs, faith, and family culture.”
The policy also asserts freedom of speech. Staff and students cannot be forced to use preferred pronouns, and parents decide whether a child may refer to themselves as a gender different from their birth certificate.
Virginia governor Glenn Youngkin changes public school policy, now says “staff and students cannot be forced to use preferred pronouns.”
— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) September 17, 2022