Originally Written: September 19, 2022 By Anna Kim
Over the past two years, the education department has been active in cutting the rights of transgender and other LGTBQ youth in schools. Recently, the “Don’t Say Gay” bill was put into action in Florida schools. Now, other states are updating their regulations.
Focusing on another South-eastern state, Virginia has now passed policies regarding LGTBQ students. These rules are called “Model Policies” and the updates were made public this past Friday. The policies put in place will reverse the guidelines decided on last year for the state. Previous Virginia governor Ralph Northam had allowed transgender youth to participate as their gender identity, including pronouns. His goal was to uphold a “safe and supportive learning environment free from discrimination and harassment for all students.” These new policies include keeping parents fully informed about all matters related to their development, ban concealing information about a student from their parent, and not acknowledge a student in a matter going against an employee’s beliefs. Transgender students must go through a process filing out legal documents if they wish to be called different pronouns, limiting the safety and rights of these students across schools. This new policy is part of Governor Glenn Youngkin’s campaign promise to preserve parental right and uphold respect for public school students. Various people claim that the guidelines are harmful to transgender youth.
Mike Mullin, a member of the state House of Delegates, tweets, “Trans kids deserve to learn and thrive in an environment free of bullying, intimidation, and fear. That means being addressed as who they are and supported for who they will be. Especially from their teacher and their administrators.” (New York Times). The Model Policies add on to the growing controversy over how to address both parent concerns and student identity in schools.
Some believe it is up to the parents and not the school to decide on these crucial decisions in a students’ life. For example, the ACLU of Virginia claims the guidelines will worsen rates of self-harm and suicide. Others believe this is disregarding parents’ rights by not getting to influence their child’s education. Overall, it is up to the students affected to decide what is right. School should be a safe place for kids and this decision might change their life.
Citations:
Sasani, Ava. “Virginia Reverses School Protections for Transgender Student.” The New York Times. September 18, 2022. Accessed on September 18, 2022.
Sheridan, Kerry. “Student who want to change their name or pronouns in Sarasota schools must now get parental permission.” WUSF Public Media. Published August 16, 2022. Accessed on September 18, 2022.
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