The Loudoun County School Board on Wednesday has voted to approve "Policy 8040: Rights of Transgender and Gender-Expansive Students," which gives transgender students rights to access school facilities, groups, and sports teams that align with their gender identity.
Under the new policy, which approval won with the board's 7-2 vote, will also require school faculty and staff to address "gender-expansive or transgender" students with their chosen name and prounouns.
"School staff shall, at the request of a student or parent/legal guardian, when using a name or pronoun to address the student, use the name and pronoun that correspond to their consistently asserted gender identity," Loudoun County School's new Policy 8040 read, as reported by the Christian Post. The policy added that such use of "gender-neutral pronouns" is appropriate and those who "intentionally and persistently refuse to respect a student's gender identity by using the wrong name and gender pronoun" will be found in violation of school policies.
According to Breitbart, conservative school board member Jeff Morse expressed his disappointment over the Virginia school district board's decision to push transgender policies, which he called "divisive, anti-family, anti-privacy, and anti-teacher."
He argued that these new policies are "unneeded" because students of LCPS are already "protected from bullying, harassment and abuse." Morse also told Fox 5 that "The policy does not solve the issues that it's purported to solve. The policy has forced our focus out of education and I will not support it."
The Virginia school district's new policy forcing teachers to refer to students using transgender prounouns and enabling biological boys to play in girls' sports and access their bathrooms took effect immediately. Even before it was passed, the policies have caused friction between conservative parents and school staff and teachers.
In May, gym teacher Bryon "Tanner" Cross was suspended for refusing to acknowledge the school's transgender policies. This week, another teacher by the name of Laura Morris quit during a board meeting after she protested against the district's critical race theory program.
Further south of Virginia, however, a different story is occurring. According to WBHM, the Alabama State Board of Education has officially prohibited critical race theory in the state's 1,637 schools during a meeting on Thursday. The board wrote a resolution called "Preservation of Intellectual Freedom and Non-Discrimination in Alabama Public Schools," which "essentially limits how educators can talk about race."
According to the report, the resolution's vote was divided between party and racial lines as seven white Republicans on the board voted yes, while two Black Democrats voted no. Alabama does not teach critical race theory in classrooms and the new resolution serves as a preventive measure for any attempts in the future to do so.
Benson Miller of the political group Urban Conservatives of America expressed his support of the Alabama school board's resolution, saying that critical race theory has no place in schools. He argued, "Do you think that it's right to judge people by the color of their skin? That's what critical race theory does, and it's going to create-it already has-it creates resentment and division."
