Are Candidates’ Views on Transgender Policies Unduly Influencing the Virginia Election?

State Campaigns Focus on Local Policies in the 2025 Election

An important part of voting is determining who is the best candidate. This has become even more difficult in recent years as news reports have become increasingly one-sided and often distorted for political advantage. This year’s election in Virginia seems particularly focused on cultural issues, most notably the rights and protections of transgender students. 

With just weeks until the election, Lieutenant Governor Earle-Sears, who is the GOP candidate for Governor, John Reid who is candidate for Lieutenant Governor, and Attorney General Miyares, who is running for reelection, speak passionately about their objection to policies that protect and provide rights to transgender students. They use two recent alleged incidents between students as justification for rolling back the rights and protections currently provided to trans students in some Virginia school districts. 

It is disturbing that those candidates don’t provide a balanced accounting of the incidents but instead present only the parts of the stories that support their political agenda and vilify the transgender students allegedly involved. For example, in a recent Fairfax case, Lieutenant Governor Winsome Earl-Sears claimed a “boy” was watching girls undress in the girls locker room; however, she implied that this student was transgender without evidence.

In the Loudoun case, Attorney General Jason Miyares claimed that a “girl” recorded boys in the boys’ locker room but Miyares did not reveal that it was a transgender boy who recorded the students sexually harassing him to provide to school administrators as evidence of the harassment. Nor did he reveal that all three boys were suspended, because the recording documented sexual harassment by the two boys and the transgender boy had violated the rules by recording in the locker room. Instead, Miyares focused on the trans student who was violating school policy, and ignored the sexual harassment by the other two boys. Alarmingly, he referred to the harassers as the “victims.”

In both the recent Fairfax and Loudoun incidents, the cisgender students accused of sexual harassment and favored by Sears and Miyares, already have free lawyers from extremist groups:

• Founding Freedoms Law Center is representing the Loudoun County boys, who are trying to overturn their suspension, in the Loudoun incident. Founding Freedoms is the legal arm of the Richmond-based Family Foundation of Virginia, a known anti-LGBTQIA extremist group.

• Defense of Freedom Institute (DFI) is the far right group representing the Fairfax girls, and is trying to use the incident to overturn the civil rights of transgender students, as supported by FCPS. DFI, a tax-exempt organization, was founded by two former Trump US Department of Education (US ED) officials in 2021. Incidentally, DFI contributed to Project 2025 on education issues.

Over the last decade there have been many debates over the rights and protections that should be provided to transgender students. Some politicians are so desperate to be elected that they provide biased information to gain a political edge. In addition, changes in administrations can result in changes in transgender youth rights and protections as with Miyares' and Youngkin's focus on transgender youth and public education access. Below is a description of how transgender rights and protections have evolved in Virginia over the last decade. 

Ebb and flow of transgender student rights in Virginia 

Gavin Grimm came out as a transgender boy in 2016 during his sophomore year at Gloucester High School in Virginia. Because that school’s policies restricted him from using the facilities used by other boys, he sued his school board. Grimm’s case was dismissed by the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia even though the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) had backed Grimm in his lawsuit. Subsequently the DOJ stated that the district judge's reasoning was “faulty and should not be followed.”

 Grimm appealed his case to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, which ruled that the Gloucester County School Board violated both Title IX and the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution’s 14th Amendment.” In 2017, after President Donald Trump took office and his administration rolled back protections for transgender students under Title IX, the school board appealed the case to the Supreme Court. That court sent the case back to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals to be reconsidered in light of the Trump revised Title IX guidance that “clarified” protections for transgender students under the first Trump administration. 

In 2020 Grimm won that appeal and the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals again determined that the school board violated the law. That same year then Governor Northam developed Model Policies for the Treatment of Transgender Students which enabled transgender students in Virginia to use names, pronouns, and facilities that aligned with their gender identity. Also, the model policy provided new guidance for creating safe and supportive environments for transgender students, just as were already available for cisgender students. This policy was consistent with the federal law because it prohibited bullying, harassment or discrimination. Transgender students were to be treated in accordance with their gender identity under Title IX.

In 2022, Governor Glenn Youngkin's administration revised Virginia’s model policies for transgender students in Virginia, and to a large degree ended their rights and protections. The new model policy stated that students should use bathrooms and locker rooms based on the gender they were assigned at birth. In addition, it offered an “opt out” option for parents to request a sex-separated facility where the federal law requires schools to permit transgender students to share otherwise sex-segregated facilities with students of the opposite gender. Five school districts in Virginia refused to comply with the revised policies, and were legally able to do so as model policies are more suggestions than a law. 

In June 2024, AG Miyares filed an Amicus Brief in support of a case against FCPS which contended that FCPS policies regarding harassment of transgender students and their access to bathrooms violated the religious liberty rights of a high school student, Jane Doe. 

Also in 2024, President Joe Biden’s administration formalized the long-standing view that under Title IX sex discrimination includes discrimination based on gender identity as well as sexual orientation. Immediately following inauguration in 2025, President Trump initiated a series of Executive Orders intended to roll back the protections and rights of transgender students, but even then not all school districts complied. To date the districts that have refused to comply with both Governor Youngkin’s and President Trump’s transgender policies include Fairfax, Loudoun, and Prince William Counties; and the cities of Arlington and Alexandria. These districts maintain that their trans policies are protected by the Fourth Circuit decision on Gavin v. Gloucester County School Board. 

After the U.S. Department of Education (US ED) announced they were withholding federal funds for lack of compliance, the FCPS board sued the US ED, but the suit was dismissed. The school board appealed the decision to a higher court and asked for an emergency injunction. In response, Attorney General (and candidate) Jason Miyares filed an amicus brief to deny the emergency request for an injunction by FCPS and APS. On October 1, 2025, Miyares filed another amicus brief in support of the students whose alleged sexual harassment of a transgender student in a LCPS locker room resulted in their suspension, thereby supporting the accused over supporting the civil rights of all students. To date the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals has not announced if they will hear the appeal. 

Virginia 2025 Candidates’ stances on transgender rights in schools

On the campaign trail, democratic candidates are focusing on the economy, federal overreach, and civil rights of Virginians. On the other hand, republican candidates seem to be hyperfocused on transgender students and their access to bathrooms and locker rooms. 

Gubernatorial candidate and Lieutenant Governor Winsome Earle-Sears supports policies that separate facilities by “biological sex,” a term that, outside of policymaking, is considered to be inaccurate by the medical profession and anti-LGBTQIA hate speech by others. She appears happy to discount some of the most vulnerable students in Virginia in order to prevent a minority of students from feeling uncomfortable. Recently, at a rally at a Fairfax County middle school she stated “How about let’s just have fairness. Let’s have girls have their private spaces and boys have their private spaces. It has worked for how many millennia, and certainly it can work now.”

The democratic candidate for Governor in Virginia, Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger stated that she believes “...we need to get politics out of our schools and trust parents and local communities,” and that her “priority is making sure Virginia’s kids are safe and supported.” A statement made in 2022 provides more specifics on her opinion of the Youngkin administration’s revised policy: “Gov. Youngkin’s [transgender] mandate targets vulnerable children, and it’s downright shameful to think that an elected leader would punch down at kids to score political points. This mandate rolls back the rights of kids to be themselves in schools.”

The Republican candidate for Lieutenant Governor, John Reid said that transgender students were “delusional,” “trans ideology is not normal,” and “... for us to engage and indulge sexual delusion, and that’s what this is. ... No one is changing their sex by declaring themselves to be something other than they are.” 

The Democratic candidate for Lieutenant Governor Senator Ghazala Hashmi criticized her Republican colleagues for discriminating against transgender students and said “Far too often, society’s message to transgender children and youth is that they don’t belong and that they should not be seen for who they are… We need to focus on funding our schools, providing mental health services, supporting our teachers and ensuring safe learning environments. It’s time to stop these culture wars that target trans kids.”“

Jason Miyares, who is running for reelection as Attorney General, stated in an amicus brief against the five Northern Virginia school districts this summer, "The policies in Fairfax and Arlington allowing students to use restrooms and locker rooms based on subjective gender identity instead of biological sex are unlawful, unsafe, and indefensible.” Vanessa Hall noted that Miyares consistently supports federal overreach by the US ED and violations of student civil rights.

The democratic challenger for Attorney General, Jay Jones, replied when asked about his opinion on trans policies in public schools “ I believe these are decisions that should be decided locally, and that neither politicians in Richmond nor Washington should be telling local communities and parents what to do.”

Impacts on transgender students 

The Fairfax County Public School System and other school systems that refuse to adopt the transgender policies of Youngkin and Trump, believe their policies are protected by the Fourth Circuit decision on Gavin v. Gloucester County School Board. Until the courts rule differently, these schools intend to provide the rights and protections for transgender students as outlined in that decision. 

Nevertheless Trump’s Executive Order Imposing Restrictions on Transgender Students in K-12 Schools has led to his withholding federal funds from schools that are in what he calls “non-compliance”. His mandated policy and withholding of funds can have major impacts on the approximately 300,000 trans students in our schools. These impacts include: a general impact on the health and well-being of transgender students and negative physical and mental outcomes of the students associated with schools that do not recognize student’s gender identity. These outcomes are specifically associated with restrictions on access to bathrooms and other gender segregated facilities. In addition any forced outing of trans students to their families can result in abuse, rejection, homelessness drug addiction, declining mental health and suicide.