VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. — While the updated model policy regarding transgender students from the Virginia Department of Education is still in the works, Virginia Beach students are speaking up against it.
The 2022 model policy revisions would include requiring parental approval for any changes to students’ names and pronouns, as well as requiring students to use bathrooms that correspond to their biological sex. They also direct schools to keep parents informed about their "children’s well-being.”
The VDOE is still sifting through more than 70,000 public comments regarding the policy change. They must finish that before anything is officially put in place and approved by individual divisions.
However, at a recent Virginia Beach School Board meeting, around 20 high school students voiced their concerns.
They asked the board not to adopt the policies, no matter what the VDOE decides.
For Joey Coley, an ideal day at school means feeling safe and respected.
"I’m Joey and I’m a non-binary student."
When it comes to Coley's chosen name and preferred pronouns of they/them, that doesn’t always happen in the classroom.
"The anxiety I feel on a day-to-day basis whenever I see a substitute teacher and I don’t know what name they’re gonna say," they said. "Sometimes they say 'Joey.' Other times they say my dead name. Then also the uneasiness I feel when they say the wrong name and I’m sitting with my friends who know, but they didn’t really know my dead name and I have to sit in that and it's awkward."
A "dead name" refers to a transgender or non-binary person's name used prior to transitioning, like their birth name.
Coley said the VDOE's proposed model policies regarding transgender students scared them.
"Hearing adults who say I shouldn’t be who I am is really harmful," Coley said.
That is why over a dozen Virginia Beach high schoolers approached the podium at the last Virginia Beach School Board meeting.
While nothing is up for a vote yet, student after student preemptively asked the board not to adopt the proposed policy if VDOE approves it.
"It is really scary," said Ela Stanton, who is part of the LGBTQ community. While she’s not transgender, she wants her friends to feel safe going to school.
"We’re not here to even try to convince you that being transgender is correct or right, we’re just trying to convince you that every student has the right to be treated as an equal human being," she said.
Charlie Bodenstein is heavily involved in his school's theatre program. Through that, he said he has become friends with quite a few transgender and non-binary students.
"Before, I wasn’t really aware at all of the problems they face and all of the hardships that they go through," he said. "I'm a straight, white man who has never had to go through these issues and it’s hard to understand."
He said even though he is not a part of the LGBTQ community, he feels a responsibility to stand up for his friends.
"Regardless of which policies they pass, or what they elected to do ... the transgender community is respected and treated equally, just as everyone else is because that’s what they deserve. Every human deserves to be treated equally," said Bodenstein.
Stanton said specifically, schools notifying parents about name or pronoun preferences can be harmful if the student hasn’t come out to their parents yet.
"Students will eventually come out to their parents, it’s just a matter of when they want to and so, these policies are a threat to that and I know it’s making a lot of students feel uncomfortable and unsafe," she said.
Coley said they know supporters of the new policy claim it's being changed to get parents more involved, but they want people to think of the students first.
"They’re not thinking about how it’s going to affect students or why in the first place, the parents aren’t involved."
Stanton said letting students be who they are is the best way to let them get the most out of their time at school.
"You need to get a solid education and it’s very hard to do that when you don’t feel safe and accepted," she explained
Coley said at the end of the day, it comes down to letting people be themselves: "I just want to be able to be who I am and have my friends be who they are. We’re all happy with who we are. We’re all really proud of who we are."
The proposed changes come under Governor Glenn Youngkin’s administration.
In the past, the Republican governor has insisted the measures are not controversial, but simply an attempt to reinsert parents in the most important decisions for kids.
Lt. Governor Winsome Earle-Sears has previously said, "I don't want the school boards, and I think parents don't want the school boards, to make policies that separate them from their families, and they don't want policies that will destroy their families."
Just last week, the Virginia Senate killed all remaining anti-trans bills, meaning that none passed during this legislative session.