Virginia Regulatory Town Hall
Agency
Department of Education
 
Board
State Board of Education
 
Guidance Document Change: The Model Policies for the Treatment of Transgender Students in Virginia’s Public Schools guidance document was developed in response to House Bill 145 and Senate Bill 161, enacted by the 2020 Virginia General Assembly, which directed the Virginia Department of Education to develop and make available to each school board model policies concerning the treatment of transgender students in public elementary and secondary schools. These guidelines address common issues regarding transgender students in accordance with evidence-based best practices and include information, guidance, procedures, and standards relating to: compliance with applicable nondiscrimination laws; maintenance of a safe and supportive learning environment free from discrimination and harassment for all students; prevention of and response to bullying and harassment; maintenance of student records; identification of students; protection of student privacy and the confidentiality of sensitive information; enforcement of sex-based dress codes; and student participation in sex-specific school activities, events, and use of school facilities.
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2/3/21  9:14 am
Commenter: Anonymous

Couple concerns
 

While I support the people in the LGBTQ community, there are a couple issues which need to be addressed. One is restrooms and locker facilities. Sharing facilities with transgender people invites potential risk (woman in a male body) on the other girls - and especially vise versa. For a boy who was a girl, picturing the reaction of the boys towards that person changing in the locker room would expose students to a woman’s body a lot sooner, and there are boys who would find a way to act on those feelings. So shared facilities leads to increased sexual exposure to students, uncomfortably for (I hesitate to say, but) normal students, and the potential for rape and increased bullying.

Next is gender the gender specific activities. Men and woman are biologically different, and even with hormonal therapy and surgical changes, a trans person will still be different. There are already examples of trans women competing with woman-at-birth and blowing them out of the water. Even the Olympics has a current one year mandatory therapy period before trans people can compete, but they are considering extending that because women who were men at birth are still out performing women. Allowing transgender students to compete in the gender they identify as would either make it more difficult for the students or overly easy for the students. 

Those are the two biggest issues that I believe would need to be addressed so that activities are fair for all the involved students, and general education, like gym, doesn’t provide more opportunities for discomfort, bullying, and rape.

CommentID: 94921