https://www.virginiamercury.com/2022/09 ... -policies/
Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s administration quietly released a document Friday overhauling Virginia’s policy on the treatment of transgender students, citing “parental rights.”
The “Model Policies on the Privacy, Dignity, and Respect for all Students and Parents in Virginia’s Public Schools” published by the Virginia Department of Education will direct local school boards to adopt a slate of new policies for the treatment of transgender students that represent a sharp reversal from the stance the state took under former Gov. Ralph Northam and a Democrat-dominated legislature.
While Friday’s guidance notes that “schools should attempt to accommodate students with distinctive needs, including any student with a persistent and sincere belief that his or her gender differs from his or her sex,” it also emphasizes what it describes as parents’ “fundamental rights.”
The new policies require parental approval for any changes to students’ “names, nicknames, and/or pronouns,” direct schools to keep parents “informed about their children’s well-being,” specify that student participation in activities and athletics shall be based on sex and state that “students shall use bathrooms that correspond to his or her sex, except to the extent that federal law otherwise requires.”
“The First Amendment forbids government actors to require individuals to adhere to or adopt any particular ideological beliefs,” the new guidance reads. “Practices such as compelling others to use preferred pronouns is premised on the ideological belief that gender is a matter of personal choice or subjective experience, not sex. Many Virginians reject this belief.”
Furthermore, the policy continues, “the First Amendment guarantees religious freedom and prohibits compelling others to affirm ideas that may be contrary to their personal religious beliefs.”
[snip]
Del. Marcus Simon, D-Fairfax, one of the sponsors of the 2020 law, on Friday called the new policies “another cruel attempt on the part of the Youngkin administration to use these kids in their culture wars and to bully them to score political points.”
[snip][end]
Hmmm. So let's go through this.
While certainly one can acknowledge parental rights ... (K-12) students have rights, too (including to free expression on campus) and while it is true they don't acquire their full rights until 18 (or in some cases 21) .. it's not like they have none. So in effect, Youngkin said to students, you may want to play on a sports team, or use a bathroom, have pronouns respected, or you might want to conceal certain things from your parents because you are afraid of abuse, but, F U, you don't have those rights now.
Now, may I recommend checking out Reynolds vs. U.S. (1879)? What the gov't said in that case to the Mormon church while we can't compel beliefs, we can regulate practices. No the government cannot force Mormons to reject polygamy as part of their religious doctrine. Nor should it. BUT, it can enforce laws against bigamy, and not allow Mormons to PRACTICE it. Just like the government can't force you to believe the races are equal, but it can enforce civil rights law. "Religious freedom" cannot protect your right to discriminate or violate laws protecting minorities and others.
It's absolutely true if it's a religious belief of yours, the gov't can't force you not to hold it. But they CAN restrict your ability to ACT on that belief. (Again, without even getting into, is this REALLY a belief taught by your scripture or religion, or just a misinterpretation on your part? Some people believe their religion "tells" them the "races" should not intermarry.)
BTW, from a phenomenological point of view, all we have is subjective experience.
But the thing is, I have a bunch of textbooks on gender, and none of them say it is (purely) a "personal choice." But it IS something shaped by socialization, cultural norms, and lived experience and of course how both you and people around you react to your biological sex. Again, what really irritates me is all Youngkin has to do is read a dictionary, not even a sociology textbook, to get the difference between gender and sex. One is socio-cultural, the other is (based on) biology. And no one denies that one is affected by the other. Thing is, what Youngkin seems to imply is that trans children are just engaging in some make-believe game, like all the (bogus) stories of children who supposedly now claim they are animals (and when you investigate these urban legends, they often evaporate). And that's him being unscientific.
