7 minute read
Students protest for LGBTQ+ rights
STUDENTS WALK OUT AGAINST POLICY
New transgender model policy protested by community
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Philip rotondo Managing editor
Several hundred McLean High School students walked out of their classes on Sept. 27 to protest the Virginia Department of Education’s (VDOE) approval of a new model policy concerning transgender students. Across the state, over 90 schools held similar walkouts. McLean’s walkout was spearheaded by the school’s Gender Sexuality Alliance (GSA), while the wider movement was organized by the Virginiabased Pride Liberation Project (PLP), a student-led LGBTQ+ advocacy group.
“These [walkouts] are part of a larger campaign to try to persuade Governor Youngkin...to stop these model transgender policies [from being implemented] as well as to stop specific school boards from implementing them,” senior GSA officer Ranger Balleisen said.
FCPS and the Virginia state government are currently at odds with each other over policies regarding transgender students. Over the summer, the FCPS Student Rights and Responsibilities (SR&R) was expanded to allow students to use their preferred pronouns or name in school without parental approval. The SR&R was updated to align its policies with the guidelines in the previous VDOE transgender model policy created in 2020. That policy was replaced by the current model policy on Sept. 16.
The new model policy limits trans students’ abilities to act on their identities. The policy states that only “a public school student whose parent has requested in writing, due to their child’s persistent and sincere belief that his or her gender differs with his or her sex, [can] be so identified while at school.”
“This is treating trans kids like they’re property of their parents,” said senior Casey Calabia, the president of McLean’s GSA. “It’s setting a really negative precedent.”
The new model policy has been met with criticism from Virginia’s queer and ally populations.
“[We held the] walkout so that we could unify ourselves against this policy,” sophomore GSA officer Gavin Grant said. “As students we don’t approve, as trans people we don’t approve and as FCPS [community members] we don’t approve.”
Members of the GSA hope the walkout will help spread awareness about the new policies and humanize the issue, which can be hard to digest on paper.
“We have to get the word around, because no one wants to read all the legal policies,” Grant said. “We have to get people to understand [the issue], because if they don’t…[the policy] is just going to go into effect.”
On Sept. 26, the VDOE website opened a comment section where residents could respond to the policy, which has not yet been implemented. The comment section will be accessible until Oct. 26. As of Sept. 27, over 51,000 comments had been left on the page.
The new policy contains guidelines that some consider discriminatory.
“[The new policy] makes you legally obligated to out your student, so if you tell your counselor they are legally required to tell your family that you’re trans,” Grant said.
Many worry about students whose parents do not support their identity.
“[These policies are] going to out students to homophobic and transphobic parents, and that’s going to have incredibly negative effects,” Balleisen said.
Gov. Glenn Youngkin has been critical of the lack of parental involvement in the 2020 model policy, citing parents’ rights as a key concern.
“The [2020 model policies] are first going to exclude parents, and then second of all are going to rely on folks that may not share the family’s values in those decisions, I just think this is just fundamentally wrong,” Youngkin said in an interview with 7News.
Some, including Calabia, argue that Youngkin’s motivation for opposing the 2020 model policy is to appeal to voters. Whatever the reasoning, community members are concerned about the ways its consequences could negatively affect transgender students.
“I think [the VDOE] wrote this policy because they feel they’re protecting parents
THEY FEEL THEY’RE PROTECTING PARENTS AND STUDENTS, BUT WHAT IT ULTIMATELY IS DOING IS FURTHER DEHUMANIZING PEOPLE.”
- SETH LEBLANC GSA SPONSOR
Loud and Proud — Students chant and hold up pro-trans rights signs at the walkout on Sept. 27. A diverse group of about 400 students, including members of the LGBTQ+ community and allies, attended.
and students, but what it ultimately is doing is further dehumanizing people,” GSA sponsor Seth LeBlanc said. “If you look at rates of suicide with trans kids and gender non-conforming kids, just allowing them to feel affirmed at school by their teachers and their peers is the very smallest thing we can do to prevent suicide and to make people feel accepted.”
According to LeBlanc, the fear of allowing children to make decisions about their identity is unfounded.
“There is a growing misconception that there is a risk in affirming students’ gender identities,” LeBlanc said. “A person generally knows, especially by middle or high school age…what they naturally gravitate toward and how they naturally identify. It’s like knowing what your favorite color is, or knowing what subjects you like in school, and those things are not even as [fundamental] as knowing what your gender identity is.”
LeBlanc sees the model policy as part of a troubling nationwide trend.
“Virginia is a unique purple state—we have this right and left swing every political regime change. The scary part is that [the new model policy is part of] a larger issue in the nation overall, this fear around parents’ rights, this fear around indoctrinating children,” LeBlanc said. “If we stop and actually look at it for what it is, it’s really just an issue of supporting students and making them feel comfortable so that they can learn.”
The 2020 model policy passed by the Virginia legislature under former governor Ralph Northam allowed individual school districts to resolve issues relating to disagreements between parent and students regarding pronoun use. This year, Fairfax County decided that a student acting on their gender identity was their own choice, not their parents’.
“The former model transgender policies were actually trans-positive,” Balleisen said. “A lot of what it did was ensuring gender neutral bathrooms in school and allowing certain protections for transgender students in school.”
The 2020 model policy was important to the transgender student community.
“[Much] of the policies in the 2020 transgender model policy were life saving,” Calabia said. “People have come and told me, ‘I would be dead, I would have committed suicide if these policies hadn’t been enacted,’ so the fact that they’re getting taken away is going to hurt people.”
When FCPS made changes to the SR&R regarding transgender students, they too were emphasizing student mental health.
“Data obtained from the Trevor Project National Survey on LGBTQ Youth Mental Health in 2020 indicates that there is a decrease in attempted suicide by transgender and non-binary youth when people in their lives use their chosen name and pronouns,” said FCPS School Board member Elaine Tholen, who represents the Dranesville District. “[A Trevor Project brief also] shows that using one’s chosen name resulted in a 29% decrease in suicidal ideation and a 56% decrease in suicidal behavior.”
For the PLP and FCPS’s queer community, there is more work to be done to protest and prevent the implementation of the new model policy.
“[The PLP] is working to go to school board meetings,” Balleisen said. “We’re going to rally at those and make sure that our voices are heard and that these policies do not go into place in any county in Virginia.”
FCPS appears to remain supportive of the SR&R policies they rolled out during Summer 2022. In a recent email to the community, Superintendent Michelle Reid stated her and the county’s commitment to making FCPS schools a protective environment for trans youth. Some felt the statement was not firm enough.
“FCPS has been responding better than other school systems have, but if you read between the lines of the email, it seems like they’re just avoiding saying directly that they are against the [new] model policy,” Grant said.
Calabia also felt the county did not adequately address the gravity of the situation.
“Kids are in danger,” Calabia said. “How do they expect us to trust them if all they can do is just play a political game?”
Ultimately, the county could and still might do more to resist the implementation of the new model policy. As tension regarding the changes builds, opponents emphasize the importance of action.
“I hope that [the county] will...stop these policies from going into effect and possibly even sue the Virginia Department of Education to stop this from happening,” Balleisen said. “We need direct action. We can’t just have the platitudes that we’ve been getting from Dr. Reid and the rest of Fairfax County.”
taking a stand — GSA officer Ranger Balleisen delivers a speech to the crowd at the Sept. 27 walkout. Multiple GSA officers and other students spoke out against the VDOE’s new model policy.
- RANGER BALLEISEN SENIOR GSA OFFICER
