The Loudoun County School Board in Virginia has voted to allow students who identify as the opposite sex to be able to use the toilets they identify with and join single-sex sports teams.
Policy 8040, which goes into effect immediately, also forces teachers to use the preferred pronouns of students identifying as the opposite sex.
But the policy has faced backlash from both staff and parents.
Policy
The motion is in response to new state-wide legislation on the treatment of transgender children in schools.
But despite the motion passing by 7 votes to 2, the policy has been subject to serious backlash since its first drafting, with previous board meetings being met with hundreds of concerned parents.
At the final vote earlier this month, one woman held up a sign reading “Girls’ rights or boys’ feelings: PICK ONE”, and on Twitter one user wrote: “The only ones adversely affected in these schools are the girls.”
Tanner Cross
In May, a Christian teacher in the State was suspended for saying that he would never “affirm that a biological boy can be a girl, and vice versa” due to his Christian beliefs.
“It’s lying to a child, it’s abuse to a child, and it’s sinning against our God”
Tanner Cross used examples of detransitioners taken from American news show 60 Minutes, and said of the policy: “It’s lying to a child, it’s abuse to a child, and it’s sinning against our God”.
Cross was initially put on leave and forbidden from setting foot on school grounds by the Board, but in June a judge called this action “unconstitutional” and said it had “silenced others from speaking publicly on the issue”.
The lawsuit is ongoing, and Cross is being supported by religious liberty organisation Alliance Defending Freedom. He has now been joined by two more Christian teachers, Monica Gill and Kim White, in opposing Policy 8040.
American Medical Association
Earlier this month, the largest medical association in the United States called for biological sex to be removed from birth certificates.
The American Medical Association said that it would “advocate for the removal of sex as a legal designation on the public portion of the birth certificate”, with biological sex being visible for “medical and statistical use only”.
Also see:
US: Biological sex on birth certificates attacked by AMA
Biden moves to drop protections for women, those of faith and the unborn
‘LGBT orthodoxy threatens US religious liberty’, warns Albert Mohler