Culture

A Right-Wing Group Is Coordinating Protests Against Trans Student Inclusion


 

A Christian group is organizing protests against statewide policies in Virginia that allow trans kids to feel safe and supported at school.

The protests are being organized by the right-wing organization Stand Up Virginia, a 501(c)4 that supports second-amendment rights and claims that schools are “indoctrinating” children, according to the queer news site LGBTQ Nation. At least 11 demonstrations have taken place in several counties — including Chesapeake, Stafford, and Dickenson — throughout June and July.

Stand Up Virginia also took credit for a recent clash at a school board meeting in Loudoun, where some protesters turned hostile, ultimately leading to an arrest. One action is scheduled for Wednesday, and a minimum of seven more will take place throughout August, according to the group’s Facebook page.

The group’s Virginia protests target a newly enacted requirement that school districts across the state ensure that trans students’ rights are protected. This includes the adoption of policies mandating the “maintenance of a safe and supportive learning environment free from discrimination and harassment for all students” and the “prevention of and response to bullying and harassment,” according to the Tennessee newspaper Kingsport Times-News.

The requirement arose from a statewide nondiscrimination bill passed in 2020 that called on the Virginia Department of Education (DOE) to craft policy addressing correct pronoun use, competition in school sports, and facility access for trans and nonbinary students. The legislation was the first of its kind in the U.S. South.

The most recent protest took place in Wise, Virginia on Monday, and about 120 people were in attendance, including several local GOP county officials, per the Times-News. Participants reportedly called trans-inclusive school policies “an outright abomination” that are “confusing young, innocent minds” and urged residents to be “forceful” by joining together to “stand up against the evil.”

Jony Baker, an organizer for Stand Up Virginia, told the Times-News that trans inclusion represents an attempt to take God out of schools and stated that he did not want his daughter to be “corrupted.”

“We love our guns, we love our God, we love our Constitution, we love those kids,” said Baker, a legislative aide to Virginia State Senator Travis Hackworth (R-38th District). “We can’t discriminate against my little girl and say we’re providing more freedoms for somebody else.”

Stand Up Virginia is just one example of conservative activists across the country orchestrating anti-trans opposition, largely with the intent of using transgender equality as a wedge issue ahead of the 2022 midterms. During the 2020 elections, right-wing groups targeted voters in Michigan and Pennsylvania with robotexts and misleading ads warning them about gender-affirming care for trans kids and student athletes being able to play sports in alignment with their gender.

Right-wing groups like Alliance Defending Freedom, Family Research Council, and the Heritage Foundation have upped the ante in 2021 by drafting policy for state lawmakers who wish to repeal trans rights. To request model legislation, all anyone has to do is fill out a form on their easy-to-access website.

Accordingly, a record number of bills attacking trans youth have been introduced across the country this year, and several have been signed into law.

While Stand Up Virginia dresses its actions up in grassroots rhetoric, Baker inadvertently admitted to the campaign’s larger aims. At the rally in Wise on Monday, he reportedly told the crowd: “We got an election coming up this November, and I didn’t come here to preach politics, but we gotta get that bunch out of Richmond.”

While much of the country has seen an increase in anti-trans legislation in 2021, Virginia has been moving in the opposite direction. The state’s 2020 legislative session saw three pro-LGBTQ+ bills signed into law by Democratic Governor Ralph Northam.

In addition to the nondiscrimination law requiring school boards to support trans students, Virginia expanded its definition of hate crimes to include violence committed on the basis of “gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, or disability.” It also became the first state in the south to ban both conversion therapy for minors and the LGBTQ+ “panic” defense.

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