Youngkin Says Schools Have No Choice on Trans Student Rule as Walkouts Loom

Glenn Youngkin, Virginia's Republican governor, says public schools must comply with a new policy concerning the rights of transgender students, despite pushback including a planned walkout in protest.

Students across Virginia intend to walk out of classrooms Tuesday in response to a proposed state policy that would restrict which bathrooms transgender students can access and which sports team they can join. The walkout comes nearly a year after Youngkin, who says the policies protect parental rights, rode a wave of culture war discontent over schools to be elected Virginia's first Republican governor in a decade.

"The student voice is clear: we don't want @GlennYoungkin to politicize our education and use our community as a political pawn," the Pride Liberation Project said in a tweet, a student-led LGBTQ advocacy group based in Virginia that's expecting walkouts in nearly 100 schools. "Students know we can build affirming schools that let all thrive."

Youngkin spokeswoman Macaulay Porter told Newsweek in a statement that the draft policies "make it clear that when parents are part of the process, schools will accommodate the requests of children and their families."

"While students exercise their free speech today, we'd note that these policies state that students should be treated with compassion and schools should be free from bullying and harassment," she added.

The target of the walkout are draft policies released this month by the state Department of Education regarding the treatment of transgender students. The policies state they seek to update an earlier version that "promoted a specific viewpoint aimed at achieving cultural and social transformation in schools" and also purportedly disregarded the rights of parents.

The proposed updates restrict the ability of transgender students to use the bathroom that corresponds with their gender identity and allows schools to separate sports teams on the basis of "biological sex." Additionally, the updated policies say schools can't compel the use of a student's preferred pronouns, while deferring to parents on children's transition to a gender that differs from their sex.

But the Pride Liberation Project has criticized the policies, saying they direct schools to forcibly "out" students while allowing parents to deny them access to counseling services. The group also says the policies ban gender neutral pronouns while allowing students to be misgendered or deadnamed (calling a transgender person by their birth name after they've changed their name).

"If these policies had been enforced, I would have been forcibly outed to my parents," Ranger Balleisen, a senior at McLean High School, told CBS affiliate WUSA. Balleisen added, "This is an intentional means of harming trans students. I want to go to my calculus class. I do not want to be fighting for my rights."

Youngkin pushed back on the criticism in an interview with Washington, D.C.'s ABC affiliate WJLA-TV, saying the policies include parents and are designed to address harassment and bullying.

"Parents should be absolutely at the center of this discussion with their children, who they have known since before they were born," he told the station. "And I think this is for the child's best interest for the family's best interest. And I think folks once they read the policy, will better understand that."

The draft policies will be implemented next month after the 30-day public comment period wraps up. At the moment, a handful of districts, including Arlington and Alexandria in the northern part of the state, are pushing back on the policies.

But Youngkin told WJLA that after the state policies are approved, each school district will be required to align with them.

"So this wasn't something that school districts are given a choice," he said.

Update 9/27/22, 5:10 p.m. ET: This story has been updated with additional comment from Youngkin's office.