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With Students Set To Return, Some Northern Virginia School Systems Defy Youngkin On Transgender Policies

Margaret Barthel



Students at Annandale High School in Fairfax participate in a statewide student walkout in protest of the original model policies from the Youngkin administration.

Tyrone Turner / DCist/WAMU

Some school systems in Northern Virginia say they will maintain their existing policies acknowledging transgender and nonbinary students’ gender identities, instead of bringing their practices in-line with those laid out by Gov. Glenn Youngkin.

Youngkin’s policies, developed last year and finalized in July, require transgender and nonbinary students to use school facilities according to their legal sex, and they require parental consent to use their chosen name and pronouns at school.

The Youngkin administration argues the policy is meant to show respect for parents’ role as the ultimate decision makers in how they raise their own children. But LGBTQ+ advocates say the policies amount to official bullying of a particularly vulnerable group of students, and that requiring schools to notify potentially unsupportive parents could create an unsafe home life for some trans and nonbinary students.

Fairfax County Public Schools, Virginia’s largest school system, announced on Tuesday that they would not make any changes to comply with the administration’s recommendations. The announcement came less than a week before students are set to return to classrooms.

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