As a clinical mental health provider for youth and families and a college educator, I fully support this guidance which affirms the health, safety and well-being of transgender, non-binary and gender nonconforming youth. It is a widely established fact in the fields of medicine, psychology and education that best practice for the health, safety and well-being of youth is affirming gender identity. In light of the wealth of research on the impact of hostile and discriminatory school environments on the mental health of transgender and non-binary youth(thetrevorproject.org; hrc.org), adopting this guidance to ensure all schools in Virginia develop and implement specific, explicitly affirming policies and protections for transgender and non-binary youth is not only best practice, it is life saving action.