Thousands of Virginia school students walk out en masse over state’s pronoun rule change

Thousands of students in Virginia staged walkouts in protest of Governor Glen Youngkin’s proposed anti-transgender policy changes.

Roughly 100 walkouts were scheduled in middle schools and high schools across the state on Tuesday, NBC News reported. The rallies, organised by the Virginia chapter of the Pride Liberation Project, were planned as protests against the Youngkin administration’s revisions to the state’s model policies for the treatment of transgender students.

The changes proposed by the Republican governor’s office would reverse efforts by the past administration to protect transgender students in secondary schools. Gov Youngkin’s proposal would force trans students to use restrooms according to the sex they were assigned at birth.

If the legislation is approved, students will only be allowed to change their pronouns with the permission of their parents, while transgender teens who wish to participate in athletic activities at school will only be welcomed in programmes determined by the sex assigned at birth.

“I’ve heard literally hundreds of stories telling me ‘I’m terrified for my own life,’” Rivka Vizacardo-Lichter, a trans high school student and co-founder of the Pride Liberation Project, told NBC. “How are we supposed to focus on our classes, like calculus or biology, if we’re worried that our teachers are going to out us to our unsupportive parents?”

Public comment on the draft model policies opened on Monday and will finish on 26 October. Whether the changes are made will depend on the feedback received on the Virginia Regulatory Townhall forum.

The measure proposed by the Youngkin administration is largely seen as a setback for advocates of transgender and queer rights.

"The governor's unilateral efforts to reverse protections, privacy rights and acknowledgement of transgender students and their identities goes against current federal and state policies,” State Senator Ghazala Hashm said in a statement on Tuesday. “His endeavour to install in their place a program of discrimination is simply [foolish.]"

Nat Sanghvi, a 17-year-old organiser for Pride Liberation, said in an interview with Teen Vogue that the drafted legislation would deeply affect students.

“As a minority student — I’m a person of colour — I’ve found that schools can be some of the most safe places for people like me, and my initial reaction was just sheer shock,” she told the magazine.

“It’s harming students. It’s a clear attack at LGBTQI+ students across the state of Virginia. And if this does get [approved], it will impact every single student in Virginia.”