If VDOE approves the draft policies, they would undercut parents’ involvement in the life of their children at school, and endanger the bodily privacy and safety of all students.

• The proposed policies articulate views – such as the view that “Gender identity is considered an innate characteristic that most children declare by age five to six” – that are far different from those of many parents. Through its blanket endorsement of views like these, the VDOE has gone far beyond the path the General Assembly prescribed.
• Schools have a duty to protect the bodily privacy and dignity of all students.
• No child should be forced to share showers, locker rooms, hotel rooms or other intimate settings with a member of the opposite biological sex.
• Many children would feel uncomfortable when they encounter a member of the opposite sex – particularly adults – in gendered facilities or when entering a shared hotel room as part of an overnight school activity.
• Children, particularly adolescents, can experience hypersensitive and traumatic reactions to these situations.
• Schools should not be accommodating the especially harmful view that youth is an appropriate time to be encouraging, in some cases, irreversible “gender transitions”.
• The model regulations infringe the First Amendment rights of parents to raise and care for their children.
• The Department’s proposed policies would pit children against their parents when it comes to important questions about sex and gender identity.