Virginia implemented new anti-transgender policies for schools, but Fairfax County Public Schools will not comply with them. The new policies go against federal law by restricting bathroom access for transgender students and allowing teachers to ignore using students’ chosen names and pronouns. Studies show that affirming policies help transgender students feel safer and have better educational outcomes. FCPS affirmed its commitment to protecting transgender students and allowing them to fully participate as their authentic selves. The policies have faced opposition from residents, students, and civil rights groups who argue they violate nondiscrimination laws and harm transgender youth. Superintendent Reid echoed that affirming policies are critical to providing quality education for all students. Overall, the new state policies have ignited debate around balancing students’ welfare with claims of parental rights.
Good. Student welfare and learning environment comes first. More places should refuse to enforce conservative’s ridiculous crusade.
I agree, but I have this sinking feeling that the politicians above them are going to find some way to punish or force Fairfax County into compliance. They’ll probably slash education funds or replace the superintendent in retaliation.
And I hope the community disobedience continues in response. If they replace the superintendent, just completely refuse to acknowledge them, shun them from every aspect of life these parents have any control over.
I know it’s not simple. But I think it’s time people start to make enforcing their nonsense as miserable and resource-intensive as possible.
Hard agree. It’s awful, but we can’t be intimidated or they become emboldened. Speaking from my own life experience- I think we have to make the bullies feel it’s not worth the trouble, or they will become emboldened and take it as a sign that they’re in the right and can do much worse things next year. I say “we” as somebody in another part of the country because i think this is happening everywhere in some shape, even where it’s not at the level of actual policy yet.
Look at what Texas did to HISD: took it over claiming “poor outcomes” despite it being one of the best districts in the state. I’m not sure how it works in Virginia but they may try something similar.
Worth noting that Virginia is a blue state that took a chance and elected a Republican governor. Don’t take chances.
Purple state is more accurate.
From Northern Virginia. Besides my region, Richmond and Virginia Beach the state is largely Republican. The reason we have Youngkin as governor isn’t because we wanted to take a chance. It’s because voter turnout for democratic areas wasn’t what it was supposed to be combined with the fact that Democratic candidate ran a poor campaign.
Purple state is more accurate.
I don’t think that’s true anymore. It’s pretty much solidly blue at this point. VA has not voted for a Republican President since 2004 and haven’t had a Republican Senator since 2006.
Sure you can take the presidential and senate elections as a data point but from someone who lives in Virginia and makes trips to see friends all over the state I can tell you it’s not so black and white (or red/blue).
That’s true of any blue state though; WA, OR, CA, NY. Solidly “blue” but leave major metro areas and it’s a whole different story. It’s a shortcoming of brushing any state with a red or blue brush.
Only region where both the urban and rural populations are majority blue would be New England.
There are no areas where both urban and rural areas are red.
That’s why Republicans have problems in any state with a large, dominant urban area.
Sooner or later they’re going to figure out that growing urban centers are a threat to their power and start explicitly sabotaging them. If Atlanta wasn’t doing so well, Georgia probably wouldn’t have turned purple.
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I disagree with this take. I live in NOVA. What happened in the last gubernatorial race was that the democrats ran the worst campaign I have ever seen. It was so bad that democratic turnout wasn’t high enough to beat the Republicans. That’s it.
If they democrats had run a halfway competent campaign then they would have handily won.
This the key problem in the Democratic Party right now, the onboarding of new people into the functioning of the party usually comes in the form people working on campaigns. The problem is that the campaigns with the most money, and thus the most ability to onboard new people in to the party system, are those mediocre bland candidates that do nothing to threaten large companies and rich individuals, so the bulk of new people coming in to the party for the past 30 years have been people who think such candidates are a good choice.
So now all the people with meaningful influence with in the party structure are people adverse to actually popular candidates. People who think “despite the poor poll numbers, we should continue to run candidates that look pretty and do a little as possible, because the average voter doesn’t want change, and we should seek to undermine any candidate that suggest otherwise as they may hurt our standing with the key “moderate” voter base”
They thought they were getting a Charlie Baker and instead they got a mini-DeSantis. (and it’s not the first time a Republican has pulled this stunt - Mike Pence for example famously ran as a non-boat-rocking moderate successor to Mitch Daniels before promptly going all cuckoo once elected)
Is this south park or is this a real life?
Like most satire, South Park can’t keep up with the ridiculous levels of fascism Republicans are pushing.
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It is facism when a minority ruling class tries to enforce their own moral standards on to every day people by way of actively suppressing and oppressing minorities. When they turn minorities in to evil boogie men than need to be eliminated to distract form them looting the country blind to benefit their rich supporters.
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“ I don’t care what the Jews do in their personal life, I just don’t want them teaching my kids Bolshevism and degeneracy” ~ how hitler convinced people to commit genocide. You’ve already fallen for step 1
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No one is asking you to celebrate them, people are just asking you not to make their existence or mentioning them illegal. That’s step one to in a path to another holocaust.
Do you not see that they’re pulling the wool over your eyes to cover up the continued consolidation of corporate power? This culture war bullshit is just a distraction and a way for them to tighten the screws of authoritarian control.
Next thing they’ll be arguing they need to prevent anonymity on the web to fight the “gay agenda” or that they need to be able to search people’s homes for “gay propoganda” without a warrant.
Says the one who jumped to sexualising children. Nobody is talking about their sex lives.
And if we’re on the topic. Straightness is forced down everyone’s throats, all the movies and TV shows that contain straight couples. An insanely high majority. Guarantee you’re fine with your kids knowing someone is straight. Homophobic asshole.
Given the fact that the government won’t leave us alone, you can sod right off with your “nobody cares what you do” nonsense.
They very, very obviously do care.
Lessons learned in school are often social in nature. Learning that queer people exist, and that they should be treated with respect is an incredibly valuable lesson.
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