Why 4 Public Education Stands with the Districts who Protect Transgender and Non-binary Students

The Situation

August 19, 2025 the US Department of Education announced they would withhold $50 million in Title IX funding from five of the largest school districts in Virginia if the districts did not change their Title IX regulations to conform to recent presidential executive orders. The Department of Education labeled the five districts as “high risk”, and is  demanding that the localities pre-pay for all Title IX expenses and apply for reimbursement item by item. The penalty will harm women's sports teams throughout the region.

The only way to avoid the funding restrictions and loss is for the districts to alter their Title IX and gender policies to strictly define all students as male or female with no exceptions, and not provide gender neutral bathrooms or locker rooms. At this time, all five districts have refused to alter their policies, which they maintain conform to the actual laws, not un-legislated executive orders. 

Rather than supporting their districts, the Virginia Governor, Lieutenant Governor, and Attorney General are turning the issue into a battle in the political culture wars and the impending November state elections. In the recent week they have made speeches and statements attacking the school boards of their own five largest and most successful school systems, and in response internet social media platforms have erupted in a raging culture war outbreak.

4 Public Education’s Position

When 4 Public Education formed, it was because we believed in the critical importance of high quality public schools that are inclusive of all students. We saw that public schools were under attack from radical ideologues who sought to destroy the idea of schools for all, and destroy the chances to be and become for all sorts of kids in the process. 

Across the last five years, we have seen many attacks against our democratically elected school boards and the locally run schools they administer. The attacks have been rooted in the idea of exceptionalism: the idea that some kids are better than others, that some are more worthy, while others are of less human value. 

The attacks have been against truthful history that reflects many voices, against programs and materials that reflect multiple perspectives, against teachers who dare to teach ideas like All Are Welcome Here, indeed, against anyone who challenged their beliefs of special status and rightful privilege.

The attacks have intensified and taken many forms from name calling to physical threats, to legal actions and threats against people’s livelihoods. People in 4 Public Education have been recipients of these kinds of attacks. 

Though they come from multiple levels of government and widespread media outlets, the source actually is a relatively small enclave of well financed extremists who see an opportunity to normalize and capitalize on an assumed superiority. Though their number is not large, their reach is far due to powerful connections, even to the highest levels of government.

The transgender debate, like all biases, is filled with simplistic lies that sound plausible but are not true. It is based on false dichotomies of either/or which are not the whole reality. It practices a circular reasoning that relies on reasoning from a falsehood to validate that falsehood. “You are not like me, therefore you are less.” 

It may seem evident when the Lieutenant Governor declares, “there are only two genders,” but scientifically we know that gender is much more complex than that. There are many elements that go into making gender, many genes, many individual traits, both physiological and psychological. Even beyond physiology, what “makes” gender differences changes across time. What was considered “feminine” in one generation is considered gender neutral in another. What is “manly” can be very different depending on the time period, class, and culture. 

Whether it be based on ethnic heritage, neurological conformity, or gender characteristics, defining difference as damning is wrong. Every major religion declares it so, and science confirms it. 

Let us be clear: anti-transgender rhetoric is bigotry, based in bias born out of ignorance; no different from the other isms that hold anyone different from me is not as worthy as me. 

Let us also be clear: every child deserves the chance to learn and thrive. Every child deserves to live their days with dignity and kindness. There are no exceptions. EVERY CHILD.

4 Public Education will continue to support locally selected leaders and schools which provide a strong and generative education for all students without exception. 

Cheryl Binkley

President

4 Public Education