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