Posted on Monday, May 26, 2025
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by Alan Jamison
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1 Comments
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A bubbling controversy over a transgender bathroom and locker room policy in a Virginia school district could have an outsized impact on the state’s elections this November.
The story began earlier this month when local reporter Nick Minock uncovered that the Loudoun County Public School District (LCPS) was “investigating three high school boys who said they were uncomfortable with a female student using the boys’ locker room.” LCPS board policy “allows students to use bathrooms and locker rooms according to their gender identification, rather than biological sex.”
According to Minock’s investigation, a female student who identifies as male began regularly using the boys’ locker room at an LCPS high school this spring. In March, after gym class, the female student used her phone to record a video of the boys saying they were uncomfortable with a girl in their locker room – a clear violation of district policy that prohibits video recording in bathrooms and locker rooms.
But in response, instead of punishing the female student, LCPS opened a sexual harassment investigation into the three boys who said they felt uncomfortable with a girl in the boys’ locker room.
“Other boys were uncomfortable [with a female in the boys’ locker room],” a father of one of the boys explained. “There were other boys asking the same question. They [LCPS] created a very uncomfortable situation. They’re young, they’re 15 years old. They’re expressing their opinions, and now they’re being targeted for expressing those opinions.”
“I have a daughter that’s in high school as well, and if there was a male in there videotaping her in the locker room, I would have issues,” another father told a local ABC affiliate. “If it’s my son and there’s a female in the locker room videotaping, I have issues. Even if it was somebody of the same sex, I believe that this is an invasion of their privacy.”
In response to this latest outrage, Governor Glenn Youngkin and Attorney General Jason Miyares have announced an investigation into LCPS. “I can’t imagine how uncomfortable it would be to have a member of the opposite sex in the locker room where people were obviously changing clothes, and then later, on top of that, recording it,” Miyares said. “Even though they’re the victims in this, somehow, they’re being treated as perpetrators. I think this is an example, yet again, of a school district that tries to be so open-minded their brain falls out.”
The school district’s actions have also led to outrage among the community. Hundreds of parents and community members showed up to an LCPS board meeting on May 20. Minock reported that a vast majority of the meeting’s audience supported the three boys.
However, as concerned parents spoke, board members Melinda Mansfield and Anne Donohue interrupted them for allegedly violating public comment policy. Mansfield threatened to prohibit any more people from speaking and recessed the meeting at one point.
While the backlash brewing in Loudoun County is indicative of broader national opposition to left-wing transgender bathroom and locker room policies, it may also influence Virginia’s elections this November – and bears a striking similarity to the firestorm that engulfed the same district four years ago.
In 2021, LCPS was again at the center of national attention over the same transgender bathroom policy after district officials covered up an alleged rape and sexual assault committed by a student who identified as transgender.
As AMAC Newsline reported, in May 2021 a male student who identified as female raped a ninth grade girl in the bathroom of Stone Bridge High School. Instead of taking any disciplinary action against that student, school administrators worked to cover up the incident and transferred the offender to another district high school, where he sexually assaulted a second girl in a classroom.
In 2023, a jury found former LCPS superintendent Scott Ziegler guilty of using his position to retaliate against a teacher who attempted to expose the scandal.
That saga would ultimately become a major storyline in Virginia’s elections that year – and perhaps sealed the fate of Democrat gubernatorial nominee Terry McAuliffe. While Youngkin, Miyares, and lieutenant governor candidate Winsome Sears called on LCPS to repeal its transgender bathroom policy, McAuliffe refused to condemn the district and stand with the victims – a failure that was replayed over and over in negative campaign ads that fall.
This latest incident may present a similar opportunity for Sears – now the Republican nominee for governor – to draw a contrast with Democrat nominee Abigail Spanberger.
Spanberger, a former congresswoman who has carefully worked to build a reputation as a moderate despite her far-left voting record, has steered clear of the controversy so far. But if Sears and Virginia Republicans can keep the pressure on, she will be forced to either side with far-left gender ideologues, alienating parents, or side with the parents and students, thus angering her far-left base.
Once again, education, student safety, and parental rights could be the defining issues of Virginia’s elections. If Republicans seize the moment and explain how what is happening at LCPS is what is in store for the rest of Virginia under Democrat rule, that could be good news for the GOP’s chances this fall.
Read the full article here