Parents and school board members in Russell County, Virginia rejected the Virginia Department of Education’s radical transgender policies in a unanimous vote last Friday. The policies were enacted by the VDOE after the Virginia legislature passed a bill mandating the change. However, as the Family Foundation of Virginia has pointed out, the policies required by the legislature present an unconstitutional attack on freedom of religion, free speech, parental rights, and the privacy and safety of students. The Family Foundation is also part of a lawsuit challenging the VDOE’s unconstitutional policies.

VDOE’s model policy would allow students to access restrooms and locker rooms on the basis of their “gender identity” rather than their biological sex, require students, teachers, and staff to refer to students using their “preferred pronouns,” disregarding any religious objections they may have, and event encourages schools to conceal information from the parents of students who are struggling with gender dysphoria and help students “transition” behind their parents’ backs. At a Russell County Board of Education meeting last month, parents pointed out that these policies are not rooted in science but are “a mandatory promotion of a sexualized agenda.”

The VDOE’s model policy violates the First Amendment by requiring students, teachers, and staff to use “preferred pronouns” of students who identify as members of the opposite sex. Under the policy, failure to do so would be considered harassment, meaning that anyone in the school who holds to a biblical view of sexuality and chooses not to violate their conscience by using pronouns that are not consistent with the truth of a person’s biological sex would be viewed as violating Virginia’s anti-bullying policies.

The Family Foundation also notes that

the policy makes clear there are no reasonable guidelines for allowing biological male students, for instance, to use female bathrooms. Schools cannot require any documentation whatsoever or any “minimum duration” of gender identity expression in order for a student to access opposite-sex bathrooms. Students can even change gender identity expression from moment to moment, making it impossible to establish a clear, safe standard.

Staff are not allowed to challenge a male student entering the girls’ restroom or locker room and on overnight trips, schools must allow biological males who identify as transgender to share sleeping quarters with female students and vice-versa without even notifying parents.

Not only that, but schools are encouraged to conceal information from parents of children who are struggling with gender dysphoria and even to treat parents as if they were abusers if they do not “affirm” their child’s newly adopted “gender identity.” The VDOE model policy insists that “Gender identity is an innate characteristic that most children declare by the age of five or six.” To say that parents and adults cannot so much as disagree with a five-year-old who is experiencing confusion and is asking questions about whether or not he was born in the “wrong body” is outright madness and extremely harmful to the child.

Furthermore, the VDOE’s assertion is inconsistent with the evidence. In his book When Harry Became Sally, Ryan T. Anderson points out that the “affirmative approach” to treating children who are struggling with gender dysphoria “encourages and promotes a child’s false assumptions.” Research from the American College of Pediatrics found that 88% of girls and 98% of boys who struggle with gender dysphoria will grow comfortable with their biological sex by late adolescence if they are not encouraged to transition. In an amicus brief to the Supreme Court, Dr. Paul McHugh pointed out that the American Phycological Association, a source that the VDOE used to back their claim that children know their “gender identity” at the age of five, concurred with the ACP’s findings.

We must respond compassionately to young people who are struggling with gender dysphoria, but we must keep in mind that true compassion never comes at the expense of truth. It is cruel to tell a child that he was born in the wrong body and that the only solution is for him to live a lie and undergo a lifetime of painful and irreversible “treatments.” When schools mandate policies that insist on promoting the transgender agenda, they pressure young people into adopting an identity that is at odds with reality. Not only that, but they also force parents out of their children’s, attack the First Amendment rights of teachers and other students, and compromise student safety and privacy.

Roughly 500 concerned citizens attended the Russell County schoolboard meeting, the overwhelming majority of whom expressed their opposition to the VDOE’s policies. Their voices were heard, and because they refused to silently accept the VDOE’s radical policies, the safety, well-being, and privacy of Russell County students will be protected.

(Image via WCYB News)