The Chesapeake School Board this month effectively moved to ban transgender people from working as teachers and staff, proudly proclaiming its intolerance in a 7-2 vote that prohibited the use of pronouns that differ from employees’ birth certificates.
In succumbing to trans panic and promoting discrimination against a marginalized group, members of the School Board have made a decision that will reflect poorly on all that the city hopes to achieve. They may be cheering themselves today, but this ignoble act puts them firmly on the wrong side of history.
On Dec. 15, the School Board formally adopted a policy that discourages employees from “compelling any staff member to address any employee or refer to any employee in a manner that violates the staff member’s constitutionally protected rights” and “providing to a student his or her preferred personal title or pronouns if such preferred personal title or pronouns do not correspond to his or her sex.”
The effect of that policy is clear: It will single out transgender teachers, staff and students for embarrassment and ridicule. What school officials claim was a measure to improve tolerance in schools instead rips away the right of people in the district to be referred in the way they prefer. It is a clumsy attempt to erase the reality of transgender staff and students in favor of a narrow, outdated view of gender identity.
The policy reflects a growing and fervent campaign to push transgender Americans further into the shadows. Virginia voters saw this during the recent general election campaign, particularly by Republican Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears and John Reid, the GOP candidate for lieutenant governor. Those candidates sought to echo President Donald Trump’s attack against former Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential campaign, which painted Harris as being “for they/them, not for you.”
Singling out vulnerable groups for discrimination isn’t a profile in courage. And it’s extremely disappointing — and harrowing for transgender Americans — that polling suggests Trump’s line was an effective one. The president’s success with it opened the door to further legislative restrictions on transgender rights by the second Trump administration and by many Republican-led states.
Trump’s Jan. 20 executive order about gender identity made it the administration’s policy to only recognize two genders, male and female. The administration has moved to separate transgender service members from the military and to restrict access and funding for gender-affirming health care — for adults as well as children. It guarantees more hardship for these Americans, more anxiety and depression, more suicide attempts and more deaths.
Not that Republicans alone bear complete blame for participating in this ostracization campaign. In October, both U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine and Mark Warner voted for a National Defense Authorization Act that included a conservative wish list of anti-trans measures. Twenty-six Democrats voted for the legislation.
For Hampton Roads and the larger commonwealth, the necessity of the NDAA outweighs the harm it will inflict on transgender Americans who faithfully serve this country, but these are the trade-offs and compromises that continue to push these marginalized people further out of public life. If elected officials such as Kaine and Warner won’t stand up for these Americans, who will?
One may not be well versed in the biological or physiological research about gender identity to understand that every person deserves to be treated with dignity. That they are entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness promised by the Declaration of Independence. And they should be free to seek economic opportunity, such as employment, without prejudice.
It’s critical to note that Americans who identify as transgender represent a tiny fraction of our population. Oftentimes these policies have the effect of targeting a handful of people who deserve our defense and advocacy, not our belittlement.
Chesapeake officials can frame this however they want, but the intent — and the practical effect — couldn’t be clearer. Their intolerance is a stain on the city and those affected deserve far better from their community leaders.
