Ær Queen
The official comment period for the Virginia Department of Education's new discriminatory Model Policy officially opens on Monday, September 26. It is crucially important that everyone who knows that the policy will cause incredible amounts of harm writes in during that comment period and have your voices heard.
Many people are (rightfully) distressed, worried, and angry about the policy, and the effects it will have, so here are some pointers for when you post your comment.
Keep it personal, but don't use names.
We can recite and repeat the facts and statistics surrounding the mental health outcomes of transgender students all day, but that is the exact information that they are patently ignoring in the creation of this policy. To put it frankly: they don't care. Those numbers are real, but they don't have faces or take up space, even though they represent the real people who are impacted they are not the actual people.
Talk about how the real people you know will actually be impacted by the new model policy, but never use their name or other personally identifying information: our goal is to protect the trans students, not put them in greater danger. Some things to include might be:
Concerns for the safety and well-being of your students who came out to a trusted adult under the original policy. These students acted on the information that they had and willingly shared with the expectation that their disclosure would remain confidential.
Ways that you as a transgender parent are overlooked in this policy that is meant to center the rights of parents.
How is your personal trans child impacted, how have they been impacted already, and how have their friends been impacted by the news of the policy.
What were your own experiences as a transgender young person, and how would you have benefited from the original 2021 policy if it had been in place when you were a K-12 student.
Say what you mean.
Even though we as trans people are a part of the general LGBTQIA2S+ community, this policy specifically targets trans people, not the community as a whole. "Sexual orientation" is only mentioned once in the entire document: under the description of Title VII.
When you are writing your comments, write about the impacts on trans students, nonbinary students, and gender-expansive students: don't erase the community further by using an umbrella term.
Keep the experiences of trans students at the forefront of your remarks.
If you are a self-proclaimed ally to trans students, please share that information in this situation: it is important that the people who are making decisions based on these comments know that it is not just trans people who care about the impacts this will have on the lives of trans people.
However: refrain from writing about how this will impact you or other teacher-allies. Keep your comment centered on the transgender, nonbinary, and gender-expansive students in your care.
For example, you could say:
If this policy goes into effect, my transgender students have shared that they are afraid for their safety, and that they will no longer have adults at school they can trust.
Instead of:
I do not want to be forced to out the students that have trusted me.
The difference is small, but powerful: we need to make it clear that we are unequivocally here for our students in this matter, and that they come first.
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