The Handwriting Was On The Wall

We all knew this was going to happen when the state legislature ignored a Supreme Court ruling in the Grimm v. Gloucester County School Board case. The Virginia Department of Education don’t even care that the policy will be thrown out in court and that the state will spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to defend an illegal law.

Two Parents Sue Virginia School Board for Not Following New Transgender Policies
The National Review
By David Zimmermann
September 25, 2023

Two parents are suing their local Virginia school board for failing to implement new transgender policies that were enacted by Republican governor Glenn Youngkin this summer.

The statewide guidelines, otherwise known as model policies, require teachers to address students by their birth names and pronouns as seen on their records, although parents can instruct teachers to call students by their “preferred pronouns” if a written statement is provided. Additionally, school personnel cannot conceal private information about a student’s gender from their parents.

The policies also require transgender students to use sex-assigned bathrooms and locker rooms and to participate in sports based on sex as opposed to “gender identity.”

However, the Virginia Beach School Board has not been enforcing these rules, according to two mothers in the school district.

[…]

The plaintiffs alleged that the school board broke Virginia law by not implementing the state-approved, transgender policies and “ignored the rights of Virginia parents to make basic decisions about the education and well-being of their children.”

Fast forward to this week...

Virginia sued over guidance on transgender public school students
Reuters
By Brendan Pierson
February 15, 2024

Two transgender Virginia public school students on Thursday sued the state over recent guidance that prevents transgender students from competing on sports teams consistent with their gender identities and allows teachers to refuse to use their preferred names and pronouns.

One of the cases was filed in state court by a transgender high school girl in York County, who said she was "singled out" by one teacher who refused to use her name and pronouns and instead used only her last name.

The other case was brought in state court by a transgender middle school girl who said she has been barred from participating in a girls' sports team.

Both lawsuits allege that the guidance, which was issued last year by Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin's administration, runs afoul of a 2020 law requiring the state's Department of Education to develop policies that protect transgender students' rights. They are asking the courts to set aside the policies.

If you don’t remember the Grimms case here is a refresher the ACLU of Virginia writes…

Right of Transgender Student to Use Appropriate Bathroom, G. G. v. Gloucester County Public Schools.

Before he began his sophomore year in high school, G.G. and his mother notified officials at Gloucester High School that he is transgender, that he had legally changed his name to Gavin, and that he should be referred to with male pronouns. Later that fall, the principal allowed Gavin to use the boys’ bathroom, which he did without incident for about seven weeks. For a transgender teenage boy, living as a boy in all respects – including bathroom use – is a critical part of treatment for Gender Dysphoria. Even though Gavin’s use of the boys’ bathroom had not caused any problems at school, parents and others pressured the school board to enact a new policy limiting the use of boys’ and girls’ bathrooms to students of the “corresponding biological gender,” and segregating trans students like Gavin into separate unisex bathrooms. We filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Justice, claiming that the policy violates Gavin’s rights under federal laws that prohibit sex discrimination in public schools that receive federal funds.  A suit was filed on June 11, 2015 against the Gloucester County School Board for revoking Gavin’s access to boys’ facilities.

Ballard Sphar writes about the case,

Summary

The U.S. Supreme Court denied a petition for certiorari in the case of Grimm v. Gloucester County School Board on June 28, 2021. Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito said that they would have granted the petition.  The denial leaves standing a Fourth Circuit ruling that interpreted Title IX and the Equal Protection Clause to prohibit discrimination against transgender students―a position that aligns with guidance from the Department of Education under the Biden Administration.
The Upshot

•     Schools in the Fourth Circuit—as well as the Seventh and 11th Circuits, which have issued similar rulings—must allow transgender students to use the bathrooms that align with their gender identities.
•     Schools should continue to follow the new guidance by the Department of Education advising that Title IX prohibits LGBTQ+ discrimination.

The Virginia Mercury reports that,

Wyatt Rolla, a senior transgender rights attorney with the ACLU of Virginia, said the model policies “harm the very students they’re supposed to protect” and “contradict both their legal mandate and the evidence-based best practices they’re supposed to reflect,” resulting in what Rolla described as discrimination that violates state and federal law.

“It’s a shame VDOE has put school districts between such a rock and a hard place by telling them to implement policies that could open them up to serious legal trouble,” said Rolla.

[…]

“When you look at the ways that VDOE’s model policies are hurting transgender and nonbinary students like our clients, it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that their authors were purposefully trying to erase gender-nonconforming students from the classroom,” Freshfields co-counsel and partner Andrew Ewaltin said in a statement. “That flouts both existing nondiscrimination law and the Virginia law that directed VDOE to develop model policies in the first place.”

So why did the the VDOE pass such a policy?

The answer is very simply to score brownie points with their evangelical Christian base and then if it is thrown out by the courts they can blame it on the “Those Liberal Courts” ignoring the fact that it was Trump’s Supreme Court who let stand the lower court rulings.