Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin insisted Sunday that there’s nothing “controversial” about the state’s new school policy requiring college students to make use of loos or play for sports activities groups that correspond to their organic intercourse and never their gender identification.
“This isn’t controversial,” Youngkin, a Republican, mentioned on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
He added that it is a matter mother and father must be deciding for his or her youngsters, no less than with regards to the loos, as a substitute of a blanket coverage determined by the faculties.
“I simply assume the concept we’re going to have insurance policies that exclude mother and father from their kids’s lives is one thing that I’ve been going to work on since Day One,” the governor mentioned. “We campaigned on it. We empowered mother and father to make choices almost about [COVID] masking in Virginia. We now have empowered mother and father to make choices almost about curriculum that matches their households’ choices.”
Youngkin, who made parental choice in colleges an indicator of his gubernatorial marketing campaign in 2021, has rolled again how his Democratic predecessor handled transgender college students.
The state’s new coverage, launched on the finish of September, now typically requires that college students use loos and locker rooms primarily based on their organic intercourse.
“We wanted to repair a mistaken,” the governor mentioned.
“The earlier administration had had a coverage that excluded mother and father and, in truth, significantly didn’t require the involvement of oldsters,” he mentioned.
“Dhildren don’t belong to the state. They belong to households. And so, in these most necessary choices, the 1st step needs to be to interact mother and father, to not the exclusion of a trusted instructor or an adviser, however to be sure that mother and father are concerned of their kids’s lives,” Youngkin mentioned.
CNN’s host Jake Tapper requested whether or not the coverage shuts out mother and father who assist their little one going to the lavatory or becoming a member of a sports activities group that aligns with their gender identification.
”If mother and father truly need their little one to have the ability to change a pronoun or their identify or use a toilet, if mother and father select that, then, legally, that’s what the faculties will do,” Youngkin mentioned.
“What we’re not saying is that there isn’t any lodging. What we’re saying is, mother and father should be engaged in that call. And if a baby and their father or mother, together with directors and academics, select to have lodging for that little one, they are going to be granted,” Youngkin mentioned.
However he mentioned sports activities groups are a special situation.
“I do consider that it’s unfair for ladies to have organic boys play sports activities with organic women. There are sports activities with segregated — with segregated sexes for these sports activities. And people sports activities must be honored that approach,” he mentioned.
”And there are sports activities the place they’re not segregated, the place, in truth, each sexes get to play on the identical time. Once more, there’s a commonsense method right here to this. And I do assume we have now to respect women as properly right here,” Youngkin mentioned.
