600 S. Pine St., Richmond
On Tuesday, September 27, 2022, thousands of students at over one hundred high schools across Virginia staged walkouts to protest Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s move to undo Virginia Department of Education policies put into place just one year earlier by a previous administration to better protect and support trans students in K-12 public schools.
Students across metro Richmond participated, including dozens of students at Open High School.
There, seniors Skylar and Felix Hedberg led fellow students in an hour-long walkout. According to the Richmond Times-Dispatch, Skylar, who identifies as trans, told participants: “It is so, so important that trans kids’ names and pronouns are used. It is so important for teachers to use trans kids’ names and pronouns, and it’s so important for trans kids to have support from other students, because it really makes such a difference.”
Youngkin’s “2022 Model Policies On The Privacy, Dignity And Respect For All Students And Parents In Virginia’s Public Schools” require students to use school bathrooms that match the sex they were assigned at birth, prevent trans students from participating in athletics, and require parental approval of any changes related to students’ usage of names and pronouns.
While the governor and his administration control the state’s Department of Education policy, it is unclear whether these policies are legal. In Grimm v. Gloucester Co. School Board, the Federal 4th Circuit Court ruled in 2020 that a Virginia school’s decision to require a transgender student to use a restroom based on the student’s assigned sex was unconstitutional. As well, state bills inspired by these new policies failed to pass during Virginia’s 2023 legislative session. The state Senate killed two bills aimed at restricting trans students’ rights. One sought to restrict trans students’ participation in athletics and a second sought to require school officials to notify parents if their child began to identify as trans, such as noting a change in name or pronoun usage.
Image: Black Trans Lives Matter March, Richmond, VA, 2020. Courtesy of Melissa Ooten.