Virginia students stage walkout over Gov. Yougkin's proposed changes to school transgender policies

Students from as many as 90 Commonwealth schools are participating in the walkout.

Published: September 27, 2022 7:49am

Updated: September 27, 2022 8:26am

Virginia public school students staged a walkout Tuesday morning in protest of GOP Gov. Glenn Youngkin's proposed changes to state eduction department policies on transgender matters.

Students at more than 90 schools are expected to participate, according to nbcwashington.com.

Organizers say thousands of students will participate. Early Tuesday morning, only a few hundred had so far taken part, according to local news reports.

The Youngkin administration announced the proposed policy changes Sept 19. 

The draft policies – titled "Model Policies on the Privacy, Dignity, and Respect for all Students and Parents in Virginia’s Public Schools" – state school personnel have to refer to students with pronouns "appropriate to the sex" appearing on their official record and changes to those records can be made only with a legal documentation.

Supporters says the schools liberal polices including those on gender ideology have gone too far.

Another policy would require parents to be "fully informed" on school matters they consider important and says school staffers can use pronouns that conform to a student’s preferred gender identity only under certain conditions.

In addition, student can use only the restrooms that correspond to their biological sex at birth, if the policies are adopted without change. 

The policy won't go in effect until after a 30-day public comment period, that reportedly opened with 4,000 comments in about the first 15 hours, nbcwashington.com also reports.

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