Transgenderism contends that males and females, including children, should be treated as a member of the opposite sex if they declare themselves to “identify” as such. Many districts and individual schools around the country in recent years have pushed aggressively to make this ideology a normalized part of both curricula and school policies, up to and including hiding a student’s self-declared transgender identity from his or her parents.
The rules place heavy emphasis on the rights of parents concerning their children. School personnel in Virginia are now required to keep parents informed on “matters related to their child’s health, and social and psychological development,” the rules state.
Moreover, parents will be permitted to exercise broad discretion over whether or not a child is permitted to present as a member of the opposite sex, including whether or not the child adopts new pronouns at school, whether or not he or she undergoes “social transition” to a different “gender,” and whether or not the child “expresses a [different] gender” while in school.
“Parents,” the rules state, “are a child’s primary and most important educator.”
The rules further address what have been some of the most contentious topics regarding transgenderism in public education, including allowing boys to participate in girls’ sports and allowing boys and girls to use bathrooms of the opposite sex.
Provided in the documentation is a “sample policy” that schools can use as a guide for implementing the new state rules. Among them is the expectation that a student “shall use bathrooms that correspond to his or her sex, except to the extent that federal law otherwise requires.”