It wasn’t just another Tuesday in Loudoun County, VA. Some 100 schools throughout the state, with over 50% in Northern Virginia, had planned student walkouts in protest of Gov. Youngkin’s model policy released last week. This policy is pitched as a tool for restoring parents’ rights but is really a rollback of Policy 8040—a policy highly supportive of transgender people, passed by a bipartisan legislature, and signed into law by Gov. Northam’s administration.
Nearly 1400 students protested in Loudoun County alone and encouraged the electorate to use the public commenting period on the model policy to voice their concerns.
Loudoun4All, a PAC focusing on equity, hosted a public rally outside the Administration Building in Ashburn, Virginia, during the regular Tuesday School Board meetings. Jennifer Boudrye, Education Director of Equality Loudoun; Rebecca Kiessling, executive director, NAMI Northern Virginia; Sofia Saiyed of New Virginia Majority; Sandy Sullivan from Loudoun Education Association; Austin Ferraro, a librarian; and Alex Bennett, a Loudoun County Public School teacher, were among the line up to speak to a solid crowd of supporters numbering upward of 120.
The peaceful assembly was momentarily interrupted by a solitary counter-protester and known instigator, who brought a sign saying “Groomers love LCPS” and attempted to intimidate and provoke a response. He was largely ignored by the crowd who simply drew closer to hear Austin Ferraro speak about the harm book bans do to education and the importance of access to books as access to knowledge.
Support for public education, which the Youngkin administration and supporters have vilified as indoctrinators of “woke” ideas, and disdain for book banning, which the right wing has favored in dealing with issues of diversity, was a common theme for many of the speakers, some other speakers chose to expose the empty rhetoric of the model policy as focused on “parent’s rights.” Parents who are supportive of their child’s differences under Youngkin’s policy might find that acceptance thwarted by obstacles singling out their children to be objects of intolerance. In empowering some parents and their cis-gender values to be dictated to all, such school environments would no longer be places that modeled acceptance and safety. Likewise, students who are at risk of being outed before their parents have come to terms with their children, or do not have additional documentation required by the model policy would not be able to do something as simple as using a bathroom without fear of harm, or seek necessary counseling, or experience home or school as a safe haven, increasing the likelihood of harm.
Read more coverage from Staff Writer Marissa Higgins here and here.
Jennifer Litton Tidd, a disability advocate on neuro-divergence and the rights of the disabled community, likened the intolerance towards special needs students as an example of modern-day segregation, an indictment of how long it took Virginia public schools to desegregate as it clung to what the white majority was able to keep while pushing others to the side. Similarly, the right-wing ruse to denigrate public schools in order to suggest vouchers and private schools as an alternative isn’t a true solution since such schools do not have to abide by the same standards of equity and inclusivity. [Full video here.]
Finally, Syre Han Min Morris, a student at John Champe High School, gave a powerful speech in which she spoke about the fear experienced every day, wondering if they might end up dead at school.
“I am very frankly terrified right now. But I think the saddest part isn’t that I am speaking in front of all of you despite my social anxiety or that I’m speaking on this issue in such a public manner. It’s because I’m afraid of (losing) my rights as a human being, which is a fear that no person my age, regardless of race, sex, gender, or orientation should fear.”
There were many other voices at this event, both speakers and from the crowd. If you live in Virginia, public commenting on this model policy opened on September 26 and extends until October 26.
You can make a public comment during this period of time here.
The current document and proposed document are available here.