2 Va. teachers join suit to stop policy that forces them to use transgender pronouns

Two more teachers have joined a lawsuit against Loudoun County Public Schools in Virginia after the district adopted policies cooked up by the liberal state legislature to suspend the rights of non-transgender students and staff.

Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) attorneys on Aug. 16 filed an amended complaint adding Monica Gill, a history teacher at Loudoun County High School, and Kim Wright, an English teacher at Smart’s Mill Middle, to a suit filed in June on behalf of Byron “Tanner” Cross, a Leesburg Elementary School gym teacher, reports the Loudoun Times-Mirror.

Cross stated during a School Board meeting that he would not refer to transgender students by their “preferred” names or pronouns, but use accurate names and terms, and was subsequently suspended.

The rights being abridged by the new policy include students’ right to compete athletically with players of their own biological gender and to use bathrooms that are off-limits to the opposite sex. Also suspended would be teachers’ and staff’s right to use the English language accurately and as they learned it, with pronouns that refer to actual, scientifically supported genders.

I.e., a male is “he” and a female “she.”

The suit that the two new teachers would be joining is scheduled to be heard in Loudoun County Circuit Court on Sept. 7 and 8, and claims that Cross’ constitutional rights were violated when he was suspended.

People opposed to Loudoun’s Policy 8040 say it lets students claim whatever name and gender they wish, regardless of the name and gender recorded in their permanent records.

“Teachers shouldn’t be forced to promote ideologies that are harmful to their students and that they believe are false,” said Tyson Langhofer, director of the ADF Center for Academic Freedom, in a statement.

“Loudoun County Public Schools is now requiring all teachers and students to deny truths about what it means to be male and female and is compelling them to call students by their chosen pronouns or face punishment,” he said. “Public employees cannot be forced to contradict their core beliefs just to keep a job.”

The Loudoun County School Board adopted the policy on Aug. 11 with a 7-2 vote.

Christian Action Network, along with Founding Freedoms Law Center, filed a lawsuit in March that opposed the transgender school policies shortly after they were passed and released by the liberal-Democrat-controlled Virginia legislature.

On July 27, Lynchburg Circuit Court judge Frederick Watson dismissed the claims of the two groups, saying neither had the standing to sue. Judge Watson did, however, rule the transgender policies to be merely guidelines for schools to follow, rather than state-mandated regulations. Both groups praised this decision as a victory in the case.

Currently, ten school districts in Virginia have rejected Richmond’s “Model Policies for the treatment of transgender students in Virginia public schools.”

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