Student-powered resistance to school model policies, a year later

It’s a year later, a new school year and the policies were officially passed in July -- but not without garnering over 70,000 comments on a state agency forum. Some Virginia school boards have voted not to accept the policies despite a recent statement from state Attorney General Jason Miyares.

Many students who walked out last year are committed to advocacy and lobbying on behalf of the LGBTQ community.

Pride Liberation Project is a student-led organization with chapters throughout Virginia, which helped organize the walkouts last year when a draft of the new policies was released. Approximately 100,000 students participated in the walkouts last year, according to Ranger Balleisen, an organizer with Pride Liberation.

The group continues to mobilize and has an afternoon rally planned for Sept. 22, around the anniversary of the walkouts last year. The rally is to oppose the model policies. The group has future actions planned but Balleisen said, “they are not public right now.”

Policy shift

Gov. Glenn Youngkin instructed the Virginia Department of Education to create new policies last September, a year after former Gov. Ralph Northam’s policies were introduced. Northam’s administration created the policies under a General Assembly directive to develop evidence-based best practice model policies on the treatment of transgender and nonbinary students in K-12 schools.

The document names show a difference in focus. The 2021 policies title included “treatment of transgender students,” while the updated title references the “privacy, dignity, and respect for all students and parents.”

Youngkin stated that the new policies are a way to empower parents while protecting the privacy and dignity of all students. The VDOE stated the 2021 policies “purposefully kept parents in the dark about their child’s health and wellbeing at school,” while the new policies “restore parental rights in decision making …”

Some students, advocacy and civil liberties groups feel that lost among the debate between “parental rights” and “transgender rights” is the fact that many students might not have parental support, and feel forced to maintain an identity that doesn’t fit them.

“It is going to cause a greater mental health crisis among transgender youth, which is a group of people who already are experiencing incredibly drastic mental health effects,” Balleisen said.

Students worry about health, support

Transgender students with families who rejected their identities have reported a 42.3% suicide attempt rate and 26.3% reported substance abuse to cope with discrimination based on their identity, according to a study published through LGBT Health.

“They’re going to force students to lose whatever safe spaces they had in their schools,” Balleisen said. “They can’t trust those schools won’t out them to their parents.”

Pride Liberation launched a social media campaign last month to pressure state and local leaders against policies that restrict transgender rights. The group has about 600 members, according to Balleisen, and encouraged more students to join through its social media channels.

Other groups are also focused on providing support to students.

Students whose identity could be outed to unsupportive families are a top concern, according to Ariana Hamidi, director of outreach and support programs at Side by Side VA. The organization has a youth-centered, LGBTQ focus. Side by Side offers counseling and support groups, and also has an education team that helps students create school clubs.

“It’s basically allowing for discrimination to happen in some areas and allowing for bullying to happen to young people,” Hamidi said.

The old guidelines encouraged school administrators to take steps to designate gender-inclusive or single-user restrooms and stated that students should use restrooms and locker rooms that aligned with gender identity. Students now must use bathrooms based on sex at birth instead of gender identity and must have parental permission to prove eligibility to access alternative facilities.

The usage of bathrooms based on sex at birth previously led to a lawsuit in 2021 when Hanover County refused to adopt the old model policies. The lawsuit was still pending last year. The American Civil Liberties Union, which filed the suit, provides help through legal action and asks those who oppose the policies to take their Pride Pledge for action opportunities and updates on the model policies.

Parents who oppose the new policies should reach out directly to local school board members to advocate against its adoption, according to Hamidi.

School boards in Amherst, Arlington, Fairfax, and Prince William counties voted to not adopt the new model policies. Richmond Public Schools Superintendent Jason Kamras urged the RPS school board to refrain from adopting the new policies. The Virginia Beach school board initially declined to adopt the policies but has now implemented a new requirement for parental consent to allow a student to use a different name or pronouns.

“We’re very concerned and many of our youth are very concerned,” Hamidi said. “It’s a very triggering situation for a lot of our youth, they don’t feel safe in schools as is.”