Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin has implemented a new plan for transgender issues in education that emphasizes the role and rights of parents.
This makes perfect sense and is in line with what millions of parents across the country have been demanding for months, but naturally, the left is outraged.
The Richmond Times-Dispatch has details:
Youngkin implements K-12 transgender policy that emphasizes parents’ rights The Youngkin administration on Tuesday implemented a finalized K-12 transgender policy that emphasizes parents’ rights and rolls back some of the protections afforded to transgender students under the previous administration’s model policies.The new model policies, which the Virginia Department of Education put into effect Tuesday afternoon, aim to require students to use school bathrooms that match the sex they were assigned at birth “except to the extent that federal law otherwise requires.”The model policies themselves will not have any immediate effect on school divisions’ practices. They are meant to be a model for local school boards, which, by law, must implement their own policies that are consistent with the state’s model policies.The new policies also require school division personnel to refer to each student using only the pronouns “appropriate to the sex appearing in the student’s official record — that is, male pronouns for students whose sex is male, and female pronouns for a student whose sex is female.”
Youngkin’s office released this statement:
Governor Glenn Youngkin issued the following statement on the Virginia Department of Education’s release of the updated Model Policies Ensuring Privacy, Dignity, and Respect for All Students and Parents in Virginia’s Public Schools:“All children in Virginia deserve to have a parent engaged in their life and to be treated with dignity and respect. The VDOE updated model policies reaffirm my administration’s continued commitment to ensure that every parent is involved in conversations regarding their child’s education, upbringing, and care. Public comment, input, and concerns were carefully evaluated and assessed to formulate the updated model policies. The Department of Education has delivered policies that empower parents, prohibit discrimination, create a safe and vibrant learning environment by addressing bullying incidents immediately, and protect the privacy and dignity of all students through bathroom policies, athletic procedures, and student identification measures,” said Governor Glenn Youngkin.
LGBT advocates are not pleased.
From the New York Daily News:
The Republican governor said the new guidance “is about doing what’s best for the child,” though LGBTQ rights advocates say the new rules are “strongly opposed by parents, teachers, mental health professionals and the students who will be impacted by it.”“The governor is playing politics with our lives by moving forward with a policy that does nothing to improve our schools,” Narissa Rahaman, executive director of Equality Virginia, said in a statement.Youngkin ignored the “thousands of Virginians” who submitted comments opposing the policies, Rahaman said, slamming the move as a “politically motivated decision.”According to the new policies — which are not in effect and will still need to be approved by school boards to be implemented locally — students can only be referred to by a different name or pronoun if their parents approve it, in stark opposition to the guidelines issued by Youngkin’s predecessor in 2021.
Glenn Youngkin is responding to the concerns of parents rather than progressive activists, which is precisely what he was elected to do.
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