Prince William Co. community split on schools’ transgender student policy
Prince William community members clashed at Wednesday night’s school board meeting over questions surrounding the school division’s policy on the treatment of transgender and gender nonconforming students.
The discussion was sparked by the announcement of a Department of Education Office of Civil Rights investigation into Prince William County Public Schools — and four other Northern Virginia school divisions — regarding the division’s policy on transgender students and a potential Title IX violation.
A conservative legal group, America First Legal, filed a complaint with the education department’s Office of Civil Rights in early February, requesting an investigation regarding violations of Title IX of the Higher Education Act of 1972 by the public school systems in Alexandria, Arlington, Fairfax, Loudoun and Prince William County.
The civil rights office did not respond to a request for comment on the investigation.
The federal inquiry also comes on the heels of a decision from the Virginia High School League that it would be making policy changes to comply with a presidential executive order that bans transgender athletes from participating in women’s sports. The decision is a reversal of its policy that allows transgender students to petition to play on the team aligned with their gender identity.
Community members turned out in droves to the Wednesday night Prince William County School Board meeting, with some advocating for the division to uphold its policy on the treatment of transgender and gender nonconforming students and others in favor of reverting to Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s model policies on this issue that were established in 2023.
The Virginia model policies direct students to use school facilities that match their biological sex and make it harder for students to change their name or pronouns at school. The policies are not law or requirements, but instead act as the state’s official guidance on how transgender students should be treated in schools.
The Prince William County schools policy, however, says that schools must, at the request of either a student or parent or guardian, allow the student to use a name and gender pronoun that reflects their gender identity. Students are not required to present any form of evidence as a prerequisite to being addressed by their preferred names and pronouns.
The school division’s policy also allows all students to have access to facilities — such as restrooms and locker rooms — that correspond to their gender identity. Upon request, single-user, gender-inclusive facilities or other alternatives will be made available to any student who seeks additional privacy.
A number of parents and community members arrived at the School Board meeting wearing pro-LGBTQ clothing, carrying flags with the transgender colors — light blue, light pink and white — on them.
Other parents and community members wore shirts with phrases such as “Protect Women’s Spaces” and “Save Women’s Sports.” Several members of the Prince William County chapter of Moms for Liberty attended, too.
Moms for Liberty is a conservative nonprofit organization that advocates against school curricula that mention LGBTQ rights, race and ethnicity, critical race theory and discrimination. Several chapters have also campaigned to ban books that address gender and sexuality from school libraries.
Merianne Jensen, the membership director of Prince William County’s Moms for Liberty chapter and vice chair of the Prince William County Republican Committee, said this was about the issue of safety for girls in the school division.
“This board has made it a policy of disregarding the safety of our female students by allowing biological males into girls restrooms,” Jensen said. “You have chosen to ignore the commonsense executive order issued by President Trump two weeks ago today … I find this particularly ironic, considering that just a few years ago when Gov. Northam issued his mandate to suffocate children with masks, this board had no issue enforcing it.”
Jensen cautioned the School Board to reverse its policy to avoid having federal funding pulled, a threat laid out in President Donald Trump’s Executive Order “Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schooling.”
“Keeping boys out of girls sports, locker rooms and private areas is about the safety and dignity of our daughters,” Jensen said. “Girls shouldn’t have to feel unsafe or uncomfortable in a space meant for them. It is not bigotry to protect their right to privacy, no matter how much you pretend to hide behind that word.”
Chris Funderburg, vice chair of the local Moms for Liberty group, also spoke at the meeting, asking the School Board why it was willing to risk losing federal funding “to allow boys to use the girls’ restrooms, locker rooms and sports.”
“Sex-segregated bathrooms do not violate Title IX or cause discrimination based on gender identity,” Funderburg said. “Gender identity should be simply ignored in the case of bathrooms, just like race and nationality.”
On the other side of the proverbial aisle, Glorya Jordan said she once agreed with many of the sentiments shared by Jensen.
“There was a time when I believed bathroom access should be based on sex assigned at birth. I actually stood here and said just that. I operated out of fear, not of trans girls, but of cis[gender] boys,” Jordan, a mom of four, said. “Women don’t fear women. They fear men. The real issue is raising boys to respect women.”
Everything changed for Jordan when one of her own children came out as trans.
“Fear clouded my judgment, but when my own child came out as trans, I saw the harm and exclusion it caused. Students refusing to eat and drink all day to avoid the anguish of using unsafe restrooms. I saw the pain in students’ eyes when forced into spaces that didn’t align with their identity. I learned the data; no increase in harm with inclusion, but undeniable harm in exclusion,” she said.
“There is zero evidence of trans women harming cis women, yet overwhelming evidence of cis men committing violence against all women,” Jordan said.
On the topic of transgender students in sports, Jordan said that, too, is not an issue.