Virginia Faith and Freedom would like to express our support for HB 1387. This bill asks that every student participating in public elementary or secondary school sports have an athletic eligibility form signed by the approved medical professionals, as listed in the bill, confirming ability to participate in athletics and confirming biological sex. Then that child will be allowed to participate in sports that are allowed for their biological sex. This bill is for the protections of women's sports and to ensure that there is no unfair biological advantage. We want the Commonwealth to have protections for our female athletes so they can strive for the highest athletic achievements without worry of being ousted by males. It is not discriminatory to have sex segregation in athletic competition. As females, having to compete against males is unsafe, unfair, and takes away opportunity for these women and girls. It is a misconception that this is not an issue. 18 states have already taken action on this issue and passed similar ‘Save Women's Sports’ Bills. Virginia needs to take action to give women and girls fair play.

oppose bill HB1387 it sounds like it will complicate things and do harm. I think it's fine that everyone has different body types and abilities, they should still get to do sports as their gender

oppose HB1387 I agree with my family members who explained it to me and I believe we should oppose it

oppose HB1387 it is the option with less administrative work

OPPOSE HB1387

OPPOSE 1387, vote no keep it simple

OPPOSE HB 1387, please. I urge you to not create another barrier for young people, girls & boys, based on their gender. It is the path of least resistance to stop this bill. It 's time effective & cost effective to stop this bill now. Imagine how much administrative work would be added to put this into practice.. Transgender girls are girls & transgender boys are boys. That makes it so simple! When trans girls compete in girls sports, only girls are competing. We don't need to worry about children's body parts. Scientists have repeatedly said there is no single biological factor that determines sex, and sex assigned at birth is not the sole determinant of gender. Everyone has a range of different physical characteristics, like people who are disabled, transgender, or intersex. Many people who are not trans have hormone levels outside of the range considered average. Trying to measure this would be odd & exhausting for schools, teachers, admin, students. Important: suicide in youth: This is a life and death matter. Suicide is the 4th -largest cause of death in 15- to 19-year-olds globally. Transgender teens are *7.6 times more likely to attempt suicide*. Wow. Data indicate that 82% of transgender individuals have considered killing themselves and 40% have attempted suicide, with suicidality highest among transgender youth. A protective factor is supportive community opportunities. ALL kids need safe places where they can be their true selves to literally decrease the risk of death. Like sports teams. Anti-transgender state policies contribute to increased suicide attempts, here is how- Perez-Brumer et al. (2015) studied bills introduced to state legislatures July 2019-July 2020. 51 states/territories, 52-weeks, 2,652 observations. States’ passing of anti-trans rights bills were linked with more suicide &depression related Internet searches. Defeated anti-trans bills was linked with less suicide &depression related searches. (Cunningham et al 2022). In California & Connecticut with inclusive policies- all girls’ sports participation has increased by almost 14% in California 2014-2020. States with policies that exclude transgender youth from sports- see less engagement by all girls in sports. (CDC, 2020). I have heard talk that the trans sports ban HB 1387 would hurt all the non-trans girls, and my first thought was- doesn’t that reinforce stereotypes that women & girls are weak, in need of protection? We know that girls & women are strong, capable, & facing sexism. President Joe Biden issued an executive order calling on the federal government to fully implement the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, explicitly stating that “children should be able to learn without worrying about whether they will be denied access to the restroom, locker room, or school sports.” People use sports to cope, these kids are no different, sports literally save lives. We all need to feel included in a safe space! I am sure some of you found comfort in playing sports and making friends on the field even if you felt lonely other places. Oppose HB1387 please.

While I am temporarily not living in Virginia, I grew up in Fairfax County, did K-12 and undergrad there, and will return in the not too distant future to grow old there, so I have a vested interest in what this legislature decides. As a mental health professional who specializes in caring for LGBT+ individuals, I know the lifelong harm that can be done by efforts--by the individual or by institutions, peers, and yes, parents--who try to suppress a young person's natural gender or sexuality. And that is for the young people who survive; many, sadly, do not. And to be clear, when I say "natural gender" I am referring to a phenomenon that, with current science, we cannot determine except by the report of the person experiencing it. No one--not a doctor, not a parent, and certainly not a legislator who's never met them--can say what signals a child's nervous system is sending to the oldest and deepest parts of their brain; we can only determine it from the words and behavior of the child themselves, when they say "I am a boy," "I am a girl," "I am neither." And if modern science cannot determine it better than the child can, what can highly simplified, grade school biology based on science that was already outdated decades ago do? In short, the child is the world's top, and only, expert on their own gender. Anyone--parent, teacher, legislator, therapist--who declares otherwise is speaking about a topic on which it is impossible for them to have any knowledge; it is not a belief but pure foolishness. Worse than foolishness: we know that dismissing a transgender child's statements about their gender, trying to repress that and treat them as the gender some doctor declared after a few seconds of examination without consulting the world's only expert (who, admittedly, was probably either in the womb or crying at the time), dramatically increases that child's risk of depression, trauma- and stress-related disorders, and suicide. (The origin of that infamous "40 percent" statistic--it drops to levels comparable with the child's cisgender peers if their gender is accepted by their family and community.) Every time an institution insists on treating the child as their assumed gender rather than the one they know themselves to be--as school sports programs would be mandated to do by HB1387--is an act of harm toward that child. It is bad enough when laws allow schools to harm children; how much worse is a law that requires it? Which, like HB1387, HB2432 does as well. Again, speaking from my experience as a mental health professional who works with LGBT+ individuals, sometimes parents hurt their children. Many of my clients were mentally, emotionally, and sometimes physically harmed by parents who rejected their identities, and there is no one in a better position to gauge that risk than the child themselves. If a child feels safe revealing their identity to a teacher, counselor, or coach, and unsafe revealing it to their parent, there is very often a good reason. For the health and safety of the child--which must always take precedence over the rights of the parent, because children are people, not property--educators must be bound by confidence when the child reveals things that, if told to the parent, could bring the child to harm. In summary, please vote no on HB1387, no on HB2432, and yes on keeping trans children safe, healthy, and thriving.

I fully SUPPORT HB1387. My previous comments on the physical and physiological differences in both pre- and post-pubescent males stand. Males have an advantage over females, even after testosterone suppression — that is clear from vast amounts of scientific evidence. My concern, however, is the blatant misrepresentation of the intent of this bill. On January 30, Delegate Jeff Bourne announce the following on Twitter: “This morning I testified against legislation that would have prevented Virginia's transgender kids from playing in school sports.” As you know (and contrary to many of the comments on this site), HB1387 says nothing about preventing any individual from playing in school sports. The bill simply restricts who may play sports designated for women and girls — that is, only women and girls may play on women’s and girls’ teams. I respectfully ask that you 1. Recognize an appeal to emotion in comments opposing this bill and 2. Recognize that when a delegate either intentionally or unintentionally misleads the public on the intent of legislation, the public cannot respond on an informed basis. Furthermore, I strongly urge you to consider the application of HB1387 in its original scope —that is, it should apply to K-12 + institutions of higher education. Scholarships are at stake. Please do not enable men to take them away from women.

I am writing IN SUPPORT of HB1387 as it specifically applies to athletics in general and swimming in particular. In my opinion, those who maintain that biological females can fairly compete against biological males in swimming are denying the significant physical advantages that males have, starting as early as the 11-12 age group. In fact, when looking at local swim league records, comparing males and females, in 11 to 18 year old events, there is not a single overall record held by an individual female or relay team. Even in the 6 to 10 year old events there are only 5 individual records and 1 relay record held by females out of a total of 34 events. Four of those records are held by one exceptional female. In total, out of 82 sex specific events in our local swim league, only 6 overall records are held by females. The same is true with USA Swimming Age Group Records. There is not a single overall record held by an individual female or relay team in 11 and over events. It is impossible to deny the impact of testosterone on physical performance. We do not knowingly allow a youth athlete to participate in an age group that does not correspond to their biological age. It's obvious that the reason we have different age groups is that we clearly recognize the physical differences between, say a 10 year old and a 16 year old. I submit that sex differences are just as significant. This comment should not be interpreted as discriminatory against anyone who identifies as LGBTQ+. They should all be treated with respect and compassion afford to all. However, allowing biological males to compete as females clearly discriminates against biological females participating in female athletic events by putting them at an obvious disadvantage.

Our family supports this bill and believes that sports should be based on biological sex. Children and adults identifying as another sex are welcome to compete in their own leagues. There's room for all but the insistence that biological sex does not come into play in sports is absurd and a disservice to all who want to compete.

Vote no on this bill as it harms some of the most vulnerable of our children.

I urge you to oppose HB2432 and HB1387! These bills are harmful to trans students. Our schools and communities should strive to nurture and support our kids, not put measures in place that will cause them harm. As a parent myself, I know how important it is to make schools safe for ALL students.

Every student should be viewed with compassion and caring - no matter what his/her beliefs. Transgender youths do not impose their lifestyles on others, do not harm others, and should not be singled out or victimized. Their lives are difficult enough without adding more complications. Why single someone out when one IS NOT GOING TO CHANGE THEM? As a legislator, YOU should be acting in a moral and responsible manner - representing ALL of your constituents. This is NOT DOING SO!

As a Virginia resident, I am writing with grave concerns about HB 1387 (Greenhalgh), an anti-transgender bill that would harm transgender youth and prevent them from participating in school athletics in K-12 schools as well as higher education club sports. I'm also concerned about HB 2432 (LaRock), as this bill would require public school personnel to contact a student's parent if they believe that the student could be transgender and/or nonbinary. When the House Education Committee meets on Wednesday, I urge you to reject these bills. We can agree that transgender youth exist and live here in Virginia and attend public schools and colleges in Virginia. Transgender students, like any other student, deserve the same chances to learn teamwork, sportsmanship, leadership and self-discipline, and to build a sense of belonging with their peers through sports. Both the Virginia High School League and the NCAA have policies that allow transgender students to play in sports, and these policies are working just fine. HB 1387 is unnecessary and would prevent trans athletes from accessing the benefits of sports. Forcibly outing transgender youth also creates a unwelcoming school environment. Trust between school staff and students is necessary to provide adequate mental-health support. If students feel that their communications are not confidential, they will be less likely to disclose important information to their school counselors and teachers. Additionally, too many LGBTQ youth still face significant challenges fighting discrimination, misconceptions, and abuse by peers, family members, and others in their communities. Up to 40% of homeless youth identify as LGBTQ. Of these, 46% ran away because of family rejection. HB 2432 would place LGBTQ+ youth at risk for housing insecurity. This is not a bill that will help LGBTQ+ youth. Transgender students already face disproportionately high rates of bullying and rejection, and the mere introduction of this legislation is making it even worse. It essentially amounts to state-sponsored bullying. The legislature should be focused on real priorities that all Virginians are facing, not manufacturing a problem where none exists. I strongly believe that every Virginian should be treated with dignity and respect, including transgender young people. HB 1387 and HB 2432 are wrong for Virginia. Please reject them.

Please reject HB 1387. Trans young people deserve the same opportunities to play sports as everyone else. The rules for school sports are fair only when they include trans students. Please also reject HB 2432. Trans kids deserve to be treated with kindness and respect, and that means allowing them to come out to their parents when they feel ready and expect that they will be safe in doing so. Schools should not meddle in family relationships by outing children to their parents.

Please vote NO. Trans youth deserve respect and to be safe

Good morning, My name is Christina Villafaña Dalcher, and I am a resident of Norfolk, Virginia. I do not represent any organization; I merely write to the committee as a concerned citizen and an advocate for female athletes. The emotional arguments opposing this bill are strong, but they do not trump the primary objective argument supporting it (which also has to do with strength) that biological males are stronger than biological females. No amount of testosterone suppression can take away the advantages that male puberty affords. No amount of name-changing or identifying can alter the fact that males possess more muscle mass, heavier bones, less body fat, larger skeletons, increased lung volume, etc. Physical and physiological differences are a reality that cannot be identified or transitioned out of. It is not offensive, mean-spirited, or hateful to state this. What is offensive, and what is mean-spirited, is the idea that any girl or woman should be forced to compete with an individual against whom she has no chance of winning. We have seen this play out over the past few years with the University of Pennsylvania’s swim team, where Lia Thomas, who once competed on the men’s team, moved up in ranking after shifting to the women’s team. How much did Thomas move up? In the 500-yard freestyle, Thomas had ranked 65th when swimming with men during the 2018-2019 season. In 2022, competing against women, Thomas ranked first. Thomas also moved from 554th on the men’s team to 5th on the women’s team in another event—the 200-yard freestyle. How are we to explain this sudden shift in ranking other than in the patently obvious way: that Lia Thomas benefits from being born male and that Thomas enjoys the advantage of immutable physical traits. That this did not occur in Virginia, or that similar situations have not yet taken place in the Commonwealth, is not an argument. For every biological male who earns a place on a women’s team, wins a medal in a female division, or is offered an athletic scholarship to play as a woman, someone loses that place, or medal, or scholarship. And the person who loses is a woman. Allow me to put this in simple terms: across-the-board inclusion in women’s and girls’ sports is tantamount to exclusion of precisely the people for whom these sports are intended: females. Today, there may be a small handful of transgender athletes in Virginia. Again, this is not a valid argument in opposition to this bill. The magic number is not three or ten or five hundred. The magic number is one. One woman. One opportunity lost to an individual who already has a place in the athletic community: the men’s team. Please support House Bill 1387. Thank you for your kind attention.

As a Virginia resident, a former Virginia public school board member, and the proud parent of a non-binary Virginia college student, I am writing with grave concerns about HB 1387 (Greenhalgh), an anti-transgender bill that would harm transgender youth and prevent them from participating in school athletics in K-12 schools as well as higher education club sports. I'm also concerned about HB 2432 (LaRock), as this bill would require public school personnel to contact a student's parent if they believe that the student could be transgender and/or nonbinary. When the House Education Committee meets on Wednesday, I urge you to reject these bills. <P> Thousands of transgender students live here in Virginia and attend Virginia public schools and colleges. Transgender students deserve the same chances as any other student to learn teamwork, sportsmanship, leadership and self-discipline, and to build a sense of belonging with their peers through sports. Both the Virginia High School League and the NCAA have policies that allow transgender students to play in sports, and these policies are working just fine. HB 1387 is unnecessary and would prevent trans athletes from accessing the benefits of sports. <P> Forcibly outing transgender youth also creates a unwelcoming school environment. Trust between school staff and students is necessary to provide adequate mental-health support. If students feel that their communications are not confidential, they will be less likely to disclose important information to their school counselors and teachers. Additionally, too many LGBTQ youth still face significant challenges fighting discrimination, misconceptions, and abuse by peers, family members, and others in their communities. Up to 40% of homeless youth identify as LGBTQ. Of these, 46% ran away because of family rejection. HB 2432 would place LGBTQ+ youth at risk for housing insecurity. This is not a bill that will help LGBTQ+ youth. <P> Transgender students already face disproportionately high rates of bullying and rejection, and significantly higher rates of attempted suicide compared to their cisgender peers. The mere introduction of this legislation is making things even worse. It essentially amounts to state-sponsored bullying. <P> The legislature should be focused on real priorities that all Virginians are facing, not manufacturing a problem where none exists. I strongly believe that every Virginian should be treated with dignity and respect, including transgender young people. HB 1387 and HB 2432 are wrong for Virginia. Please reject them. Thank you for your time.

To the Education Committee, Please vote NO on all four bills --- to support the young people who would be affected. To protect their privacy .,respect their dignity and defend their rights. Barbara Morris Falls C hurch, Va.

Hb1387 no Hb1707 no Hb2137 no HB2432 yes

As a mother of a transgender child, I urge you to allow trans athletes to participate in sports that align with their gender identify. Sports have been life-saving for my child. There was a time when my child was so depressed that he could not get out of bed. Participating in physical activity is so wonderful for our physical and mental wellbeing and allowing children to be themselves and participate helps foster healthy lifestyle choices and promotes positive self image and mental health. Sports helped my child feel comfortable and accepted, and participating on a sports team has improved his mental health considerably. Good mental health has contributed to his excellent engagement in school and improved wellbeing in general. If he is no longer allowed to participate, I am concerned about the impacts on his mental and physical well-being. He now feels seen and accepted. Being excluded will be devastating and the effects will run much deeper and wider than the sports field. How would you feel being excluded from a beloved sport? Plead choose to include those in our society that are already feeling marginalized. Thank you.

I strongly oppose all of these bills. Transgender rights are human rights. Any regulations imposed by the government is government overreach. These bills do not put the mental health and well being of youth first. Did you know that on average 40% of trans youth die by suicide. These bills threaten to drive that frightening statistic higher. Please don't threaten the lives of transgender youth in our state!

I urge you to vote NO on HB 1387 & HB 2432. Both bills are fueled by hate and ignorance. Stop dividing all of us with dirty boots on the ground. NO on HB 1387 & HB 2432

Dear Board Members and Staff, I write to you as a resident of Virginia, a former teacher and a parent. I write to you as a firm believer in personal freedoms for all regardless of a person's age, race, color, ethnicity, political affiliation or economic status. By personal freedoms I mean the right to safely going about one's life without targeted harassment, without being labeled; to be able to feel save with one's identity. These proposed bills serve not to protect individual rights but to limit the rights of a group of children and adolescents who are in the process of discovering who they are and building their character. By limiting their ability to participate in school activities such as sport teams or by forcing them to share their most personal feelings about their identity and gender these bills, the actions that school staff, teachers and administrators will be forced to take will serve only to make them targets of discrimination and ostracism. Life is difficult enough for any teen or preteen trying to figure out where they fit in this world; they are all under such intense pressures to meet standards of academic performance, to have the "right" clothes, to have the latest tech item, to stave off peer pressure to experiment with drugs and alcohol and sex -- to add to all of that the fear of being called out, of being "outed" before the child is really ready to share that part of themselves with their peers or members of their family for fear of being rejected is just untenable; it's cruel and absolutely unnecessary. Then, for those students who have found the courage to share with the world their gender identity, to tell them that they cannot participate in school sports in a way that is in line with that gender identity is, essentially, telling them that they do not matter, that they do not have a place in the community, that they are unwelcome and less than human. To rob those students of the many life lessons and chances to build character and leadership skills and make what can be lifelong friends through sports on teams that match their gender identity is simply cruel and unnecessary. Transgender kids competing on teams that match their gender identity do not present threats to the potential achievements of their peers any more than non transgender teammates and opponents. We want all students to learn to respect themselves and to respect others, even others who look different, act differently and think differently. It is in learning how to interact respectfully with people who are different from us that we learn the important lessons that help us be good citizens of our local communities and the world. It opens so many doors of opportunity to explore different careers, different ways of serving our community and country. These bills will serve to teach kids that they do not have to be respectful of others who have gender identities that differ from their assigned sex at birth. What's next-- people who have different accents? different skin tones? from different neighborhoods? different wealth brackets? I implore you to think beyond the politically motivated sound bites and think of the mental, emotional and physical welfare of all students, trans, binary, nonbinary, -- all of them and vote NO on these bills. Thank you. JCMC

Dear Members of the Virginia House Committee on Education: I am a graduate of 2 Virginia public universities (B.S.Ed. UVa 2007, M.S. JMU 2016) and a mother of 2 young children whom I hope will attend Virginia public schools in a few years. Given this context, I write to express my strong opposition to the 2 anti-transgender bills up for vote during your meeting on Feb 1, 2023. The diverse student bodies of my undergraduate and graduate experiences were important components of the world-class education I received at UVa & JMU, and sexual orientation and gender identity are important components of this diversity. This diversity enriched my life and helped prepare me for my careers as a research administrator at UVa and now a speech-language pathologist serving adult rehabilitation inpatients. Furthermore, my children (3 years and 9 weeks old) are too young to have concepts of sexual orientation or gender identity, and they may grow up to be LGBTQ+. If my children identify as transgender or non-binary when they are older, my husband and I will fully support them. This will include ensuring they are educated in a safe and supportive environment. The anti-transgender bills I write to oppose [HB 1387 (Greenhalgh) and HB 2432 (LaRock)] would make public school inherently unsafe and unsupportive for my (and many other Virginia) children if they grow into trans or non-binary youth. This would force my husband and I to seriously consider not sending our children to Virginia public schools, which would make me a *very unhappy constituent.* I urge you to focus on important educational issues facing Virginians, such as improving compensation, morale, recruitment, and retention of teachers, bus drivers, and other staff; increasing mental health supports for students; and reforming our educational system to refocus away from success on standardized testing and toward training children for a creativity- and skills-based economy rather than manufactured issues around LGBTQ+ children and youth. Sincerely yours, Janice Dean

Children should not be pawns in your political agenda! Every child deserves an environment of encouragement, respect and opportunity. Our schools should not foster hatred and fear.

I am writing to oppose HB 1387 and HB 2432 and any anti Trans legislation that might come before the education committee. Access to athletics is important for all children and access to clubs is also important. Trans girls should have equal protection and be able to participate in the team building and leadership lessons that come with being on a sports team. And likewise kids should not be threatened with being outed in order to participate in any club. Stop targeting trans kids. All Kids need to be protected. Trans kids deserve equal treatment. Vote NO on HB 1387 and HB 2432 and all anti Trans and anti LGBTQ+ legislation. Support ALL Children and ALL families.

I urge your to vote NO to both of these bills As a parent, grandparent, and former educator in the US and abroad and in secular and religious education programs, I want to live in a state whose education system supports ALL of our students as they grow and evolve into the people they are born to be. That's the point : they are still growing and becoming. Adolescence is already a difficult time for them. Sexuality is complex, making it highly questionable to force students to identify in a rigid manner. They need understanding and support, not rigid, punishing laws. Let's be open and reasonable, treating all students with respect, and trusting that with wise adults watching over them, they will in time come to a good place regarding their self-confidence, sexual identity, and competence. Please vote NO to these two bills.

I oppose HB 1387 and HB 2432. They harm our youth and our communities. I ask that you oppose them as well, Marit Simenson

I oppose all four of the above bills that will hurt our trans youth, who are already one of the most at-risk groups in our state for mental health problems and attempting suicide. I am a Licensed Clinical Social Worker in Virginia, a small business owner in Herndon, and the parent of two children in Fairfax County Public Schools, one of whom is non-binary. As a therapist, I also regularly work with trans and non-binary students who fear for the safety at school and sometimes at home. Why is our state legislature trying to make the state LESS safe for our most vulnerable youth? As both an expert professional and a mother, I urge you to vote NO to all four of the proposed laws that would hurt our children.

Reject these horrible bills!! These are clear transphobia. This is putting trans youth in harm's way. All this bullying has to STOP!! Seriously. Stop hurting kids and actually do some good for a change. You have better things to do. Trans rights are human rights!

I am a native of Virginia and currently live in Arlington. I am appalled that the House of Delegates is actually considering adopting either HB 1387 (Greenhalgh) or HB 2432 (LaRock). I beg you to please reject both of these bills on Wednesday when the House Education Committee meets. My transgender son would be directly impacted by these bills. His ability to play sports would be imperiled by HB 1387, which unnecessarily and unfairly prevents all trans kids from being able to participate in sports. The VA HSL and NCAA have policies that allow transgender athletes to play sports. Please let those policies stand and reject HB 1387! HB 2432 needs to also be rejected. Many transgender students do not have the supportive home environment which my son enjoys. This bill will hurt kids and hurt supportive school communities. It will fuel violence against transgender kids and further divide families. Please reject this bill! Thank you.

As a Virginia resident, parent and educator, I am writing with grave concerns about HB 1387 (Greenhalgh), an anti-transgender bill that would harm transgender youth and prevent them from participating in school athletics in K-12 schools as well as higher education club sports. I'm also concerned about HB 2432 (LaRock), as this bill would require public school personnel to contact a student's parent if they believe that the student could be transgender and/or nonbinary. When the House Education Committee meets on Wednesday, I urge you to reject these bills. Transgender youth exist and live in Virginia and attend public schools and colleges in Virginia. Transgender students, like any other student, deserve the same chances to learn teamwork, sportsmanship, leadership and self-discipline, and to build a sense of belonging with their peers through sports. Both the Virginia High School League and the NCAA have policies that allow transgender students to play in sports, and these policies are working. HB 1387 is unnecessary and would prevent trans athletes from accessing the benefits of sports. Forcibly outing transgender and nonbinary youth also creates a unwelcoming school environment. Trust between school staff and students is necessary to provide adequate mental-health support. If students feel that their communications are not confidential, they will be less likely to disclose important information to their school counselors and teachers. Additionally, too many LGBTQ youth still face significant challenges fighting discrimination, misconceptions, and abuse by peers, family members, and others in their communities. Up to 40% of homeless youth identify as LGBTQ. Of these, 46% ran away because of family rejection. HB 2432 would place LGBTQ+ youth at risk for housing insecurity. This is not a bill that will help LGBTQ+ youth in fact it will put many of these youth in grave danger. Transgender students already face disproportionately high rates of bullying and rejection, and the mere introduction of this legislation is making it even worse. It essentially amounts to state-sponsored bullying. The legislature should be focused on real priorities that all Virginians are facing, not manufacturing a problem where none exists. I strongly believe that every Virginian should be treated with dignity and respect, including transgender young people. HB 1387 and HB 2432 are wrong for Virginia. Please reject them. Thank you for your time.

Honorable members of the House of Delegates, Jesus Loves the Little Children and so do I! Please vote no against these ugly, disgusting anti-children bills! Thank you!

This is the time to provide an inclusive environment for our youth. All young people deserve to feel safe, respected and included. LBGTQ+ youth are especially vulnerable and the one place they can feel accepted is in a school setting. Please don't take this away and make life more difficult. Sports provide so many skills that all kids deserve. There is no threat. Instead it is an opportunity for the Commonwealth of VA to continue to shine. We should not be taking away the rights of people or "outing" students to their parents. I am a long time VA resident (and Voter) and grew up in Northern VA in the 70's. I am contacting you now because I am very concerned about Human Rights in VA including LBGTQ+ and Women's Rights. I want to continue to be proud to live in Virginia. Please do the right thing and welcome all types of people in the education system. Provide a safe and inclusive environment for all. Respectfully, Cassandra Kudej

Before voting on HB1387 and 2432 I would insist that you visit with at least 20 transgender youth and ask them how they feel about these bills. My guess is you are carrying a bill you know nothing about and care little about but to score political points with a certain group. Virginia has real issues like housing and food insecurity and that is where the focus should be put. I oppose both of these bills as a resident and taxpayer of Virginia.

Trans youth (and all youth) deserve equal access to activities (including sports) and deserve to have their privacy rights respected. Legislators need to focus on protecting trans youth and on educating all youth to understand and respect peoples of different gender identities and sexual orientations, not on banning some students from sports and not on outing students to potentially transphobic guardians.

As an educator with over 35 years of teaching experience & of working with LGBTQ youth of all ages, I urge you to reject these bills that will only harm trans kids. Trans kids already face innumerable challenges at school & there is no valid reason that sports has to be yet another one. Please let these kids be themselves. Let them play for their respective teams. Allow trans kids to live their lives to the fullest. When we support trans kids, we support all kids .

As a resident of Virginia, and a proud parent of both a transgender child and a nonbinary child, I urge the committee to reject HB1387 and HB2432. These bills are attacks on an already marginalized community of Virginia youth. HB1387 would place barriers in the way for student athletes who happen to be transgender, prohibiting them from obtaining the benefits of playing sports with their peers. The VHSL already has procedures in place to allow transgender athletes to play sports fairly; these existing VHSL procedures work well, making this proposed bill a solution looking for a problem. HB 2432 would place transgender youth in possible danger; outing youth to parents who may be unsupportive could lead to homelessness and an increase in mental health crises. Additionally, it could prevent youth from feeling safe at school and stop them from reaching out for help from school counselors and staff. This bill would harm, not help, an already marginalized community. Virginia schools should make the safety and well-being of all students the top priority; these two bills would do the opposite, by making life harder and more dangerous for youth who identify as LGBTQ+.

As a Virginia resident and parent of a transgender child, I strongly oppose HB1387 and HB2432 in the interest of keeping my child and all the Commonwealth’s children safe from discrimination and harm.

My name is Nancy Kunkel. I am mother to four graduates of Virginia public schools: Three daughters and one son. One of my daughters is Transgender. Like probably many of you, I never imagined I would have a transgender child, but I am grateful for her courage, and that she is still alive. I live with the constant fear of losing my trans daughter to violence. She lives in fear she will be shamed, denied health care; physically attacked; or murdered just for being herself. Trans kids have the same inalienable rights as everyone, including the right to privacy. I want to see all children have the same chance to thrive, and that requires treating all children with dignity and respect. In addition, if we accept oppression of trans kids, we also open the door to oppression of many kinds of people who can be scapegoated in a similar fashion. As a Christian, I believe we are all members of the same human family. I pray that our shared humanity spurs the Virginia House of Delegates to show empathy and compassion, as well as follow best practices in the treatment of transgender children, by voting NO to the anti-trans bills HB 1387 and HB 2432. Thank you.

As a resident of Henrico, parent of two teenagers in public school, and Licensed Professional Counselor, I oppose the following harmful bills: HB 1387 (Greenhalgh), HB 1399 (March), HB 1707 (Durant), and HB 2432 (LaRock). Please join me in protecting trans rights.

I implore the House Education Committee to vote NO on HB-1387 and HB-2432. My children are not trans, but a small number of their friends are, and they are not publicly out to their parents yet, so these bills affect our lives in substantive ways. There is NO REASON for the state to interfere in a child or family's affairs in this way. It's biological fact that gender identity doesn't always align with biological sex. These bills would out children to potentially hostile parents which has real-world consequences in terms of mental health and physical safety. This is unnecessary and harmful interference in childrens' lives, and also puts teachers in situations they shouldn't be involved in. The party of "small government" has no right to demand these things be legislated and controlled by the state.

These proposed bills are transphobic, prejudicial and just plain harmful to transgender and/or non-binary youth of Virginia. While debate may ensue about transgender athletes leave it up to the individual schools. Regarding forced “outing” of students to parents by teachers and school staff this is an absolutely horrendous and potentially very harmful proposal! Earlier this year I went to a Fairfax County School Board meeting re this very topic. It was so sad and scary and absolutely heart wrenching to see young people who got up to testify against this proposed bill NOT for themselves but rather “for my friend who would be kicked out of their house tonight if their parents knew they were transgender”. Schools are supposed to be a place where students not only go to learn from books but also care, respect, support and tolerance FOR & FROM others! The young people who feel it is safe to share with their parents will, those that do not should be able to have sanctuary. Our immediate neighborhood has already lost one young person to suicide due to this scenario - do we need more on our hands? PLEASE VOTE NO!

I’m writing in opposition of HB 1387 (Greenhalgh) and HB 2432 (LaRock), both of which target transgender youth and make our schools less accepting. As a gay man who grew up in Southwest Virginia, I know how hard it can be to navigate understanding your identity and place when those around you aren’t always accepting of those identities. Schools should support all LGBTQ youth and create welcoming environments, especially for trans kids who already face hurdles and hate outside of school. Both of these bills punish trans youth who wish to have a normal school experience learning, playing sports, and connecting with peers. HB 2432 in particular also places new burdens on parents, teachers, school personnel, and students, while also forcing the government into the private lives of Virginians. I urge the committee to reject both of these hateful, divisive, and unneeded bills which create new problems and burdens instead of solving issues facing Virginians.

Hi! My name is Erin, and I am the mom of a seven-year-old nonbinary kiddo. Ever since my child could speak, they have insisted to us that they are not, in fact, a boy like we originally thought. They have turned into a fierce, fun-loving, dress-wearing, tree-climbing kid, who loves colorful leggings, Legos, headbands, playing with their friends (all girls), and playing soccer. My child did not choose their gender. They are clearly expressing a consistent gender experience, that while different than my husband and I expected, is no less real to them than their red hair or missing front teeth. They corrected us for years ("not sweet boy, sweet CHILD! Don't you remember, I'm not a boy!?") until we finally got the message, and adjusted their wardrobe and pronouns accordingly! My child loves to play soccer. It has already been a bit tricky, as most kids' teams separate by gender, and my first grader does not fit into either gender box. All of their friends are girls, the look and dress like a girl, and we are fortunate that our local soccer organization allows them to play on the team where they most closely identify. It is worrisome to think that at some point this may no longer be an option. My kiddo loves school, and has had incredible teachers in their VA public school for Kindergarten and first grade, that have fully supported who they are. We are incredibly lucky, but I know that this is not the norm. These bills that have been introduced (the trans sports ban and others), are not in the best interest of my child, or others like them. They are unnecessarily isolating, and increasing the likelihood of bullying and discrimination (and the resulting mental health challenges) during their school experience. Please consider bills that would instead focus on keeping everyone safe at school, and not further marginalizing kiddos who are already facing an uphill battle as it is. My kiddo just wants to be a kid. And wear a dress. And play soccer. Thank you for your time! ~ Erin Brown

I am writing as the parent of a trans young adult. I fully understand the reasoning behind these bills but those who support them don’t fully understand and appreciate the results we will see. According to the NIH 82% of trans young people consider suicide and 40% have attempted suicide. These numbers VASTLY outpace the general population. The leading reasons for these increased statistics is rejection and mistreatment from friends, family and community. Coming out is a deeply personal and emotional time for the vast majority of trans people. Uncertainties around who will accept them and the danger they are in from those who do not can not be understated. Providing confidentiality with teachers or other school staff gives the students a trusted adult to help them navigate this freighting and uncertain time and the support to maintain their mental health. Of course the goal of these adult will be for the young person to talk to their parents but many times this disclosure is dangerous for the trans person and having outside support is imperative to keeping these kids healthy and safe. Children do not belong to their parents. They are autonomous individuals who are allowed to disagree with their parents beliefs. I have been through this coming out as a parent and can promise you how one reacts from the jump is VITAL to the wellbeing of the child. It’s not an easy time by any stretch, but forcing a student out and not giving them time to process and talk through this period with a trusted adult who is not their parent only does harm to the child. The sports ban is just simple window dressing. You are playing politics with kids for show as none of the science backs any kind of advantage for trans people in athletics. Firstly it is a TINY, minuscule percent of the population that this subject is even applicable to. Second, the point of youth sports is to build sportsmanship, team building, camaraderie, and healthy outlets for physical exercise. I promise you no boy is going to go through the incredibly emotionally difficult transition to fake being a trans girl. It completely defies logic. Thank you for your time and please consider that fear mongering around an already very vulnerable group is truly distasteful and abhorrent.

As a public school parent in Virginia, I urge you to oppose HB 1387 and HB 2432. Please let Virginia students be themselves in a safe space, which may be school and not home. Let them participate in sports just like every other student. Gender diverse kids like mine just want to have a normal school experience like everyone else. I strongly oppose these bills and hope you will do the right thing in voting against them.

As a registered voting Virginia resident, I am writing with grave concerns about HB 1387 (Greenhalgh), an anti-transgender bill that would harm transgender youth and prevent them from participating in school athletics in K-12 schools as well as higher education club sports. I'm also concerned about HB 2432 (LaRock), as this bill would require public school personnel to contact a student's parent if they believe that the student could be transgender and/or nonbinary. When the House Education Committee meets on Wednesday, I urge you to reject these bills. We can agree that transgender youth exist and live here in Virginia and attend public schools and colleges in Virginia. Transgender students, like any other student, deserve the same chances to learn teamwork, sportsmanship, leadership and self-discipline, and to build a sense of belonging with their peers through sports. Both the Virginia High School League and the NCAA have policies that allow transgender students to play in sports, and these policies are working just fine. HB 1387 is unnecessary and would prevent trans athletes from accessing the benefits of sports. Forcibly outing transgender youth also creates a unwelcoming school environment. Trust between school staff and students is necessary to provide adequate mental-health support. If students feel that their communications are not confidential, they will be less likely to disclose important information to their school counselors and teachers. Additionally, too many LGBTQ youth still face significant challenges fighting discrimination, misconceptions, and abuse by peers, family members, and others in their communities. Up to 40% of homeless youth identify as LGBTQ. Of these, 46% ran away because of family rejection. HB 2432 would place LGBTQ+ youth at risk for housing insecurity. This is not a bill that will help LGBTQ+ youth. Transgender students already face disproportionately high rates of bullying and rejection, and the mere introduction of this legislation is making it even worse. It essentially amounts to state-sponsored bullying. The legislature should be focused on real priorities that all Virginians are facing, not manufacturing a problem where none exists. I strongly believe that every Virginian should be treated with dignity and respect, including transgender young people. Forcibly outing students will increase the strain on the current mental health provider shortage: “93 of Virginia’s 133 localities are federally-designated Mental Health Professional Shortage Areas; 37% of Virginians (3.2 million) live in them. Two localities have no licensed BH professionals; 35 have no trained BH prescriber (Psychiatrist, Psychiatric-Mental Health Nurse Practitioner). It will take a variety of short- and long-term strategies over a number of years to address Virginia’s significant shortage of licensed BH professionals." : Oswalt, 2022 Executive Director Virginia Health Care Foundation. HB 1387 and HB 2432 are wrong for Virginia. Please reject them. Thank you for your time.

I strongly oppose the above listed anti trans Bils which encourage discrimination and hatred of those who happen to be different. We should be accepting and supportive and ashamed to be devaluing our fellow human beings , especially our pr.ecious children

I am writing to ask that you No on these bills. They are squarely in opposition to Virginia's values. If we cannot abide by Patrick Henry's cry of "give me liberty or give me death," then what good are we. Not allowing our trans youth to live authentically and privately is tyrannical and dangerous.

I support HB1387. I ask that the Education Committee and (later) the House of Delegates support this bill as well. This bill would protect females in sports from unfair and unsafe conditions. The average biological male is scientifically proven to have greater bone density, more muscle, more weight, and be taller than the average biological female. During athletic competitions, this provides an unfair advantage to biological males when competing against biological females, even if the biological male identifies as female. Not only do biological males have a competitive advantage, but in contact sports against biological females they are also more likely to injure female competitors due to the difference in respective muscle mass, height, weight, and bone density. There are also many safety, security, and privacy concerns in regards to allowing transwomen (biological males) to share locker rooms and/or bathrooms with biological females. I think it is much safer to keep locker rooms, bathrooms, and other "private" rooms intended for females, solely for biological female use. I understand that the main counterpoints to HB1387 are that transgender people, especially teens/children, are likely to commit acts of self harm or commit suicide if they are not accepted for their identified gender. Additionally, critics may state that there are not enough transwomen competing in female sports to cause any major concerns in terms of fair competition, safety, or biological females being excluded from team sports due to having their spot on a team being taken by a transwoman. In terms of the first issue, in regards to self harm: I think allowing transwomen to compete in female sports due to fear of self harm/suicide is dangerous because it does not actually address the propensity for self harm. It instead avoids dealing with that important and dangerous issue. It puts the responsibility of the safety and self esteem of the transwoman on the shoulders of the female teams and leagues, instead of with the transwoman and their loved ones. I think focusing instead on solving the propensity for self harm due to lack of acceptance by others, is much more important than avoiding the subject altogether by instead focusing on acceptance in female sports. In regards to the second item, transwomen in sports being so few as to not substantially effect the female teams or leagues: that makes little sense to me. Even if only one transwoman plays in a female league, their unfair advantage during competition changes the game and experiences of every female they play. No matter how minute that change may seem to be, it would be wrong to allow, as those leagues were originally meant for (biological) females to play in. Those leagues were all solely constructed so that biological females had a safe, fair, and rewarding environment to compete in. This bill does allow for both trans students to play in "coed" or "male" leagues. So, for those trans athletes who feel they would miss out on sports, they should be aware that HB 1387 does not stop them from competing. It also does not stop them from creating trans leagues, similar to the NHL's trans hockey tournament that was popularized around Nov/Dec 2022. Lastly, I am confused by the critics of this bill...namely the majority of the Democrats in the HoD. They claim to be "champions of women's rights", but they don't seem to be listening to many biological women now.

I fully support this bill

Comments Document

HRC Opposition to HB 1387 and HB 1399

To the Higher Education Subcommittee of the Virginia House, My name is Makenna “Mak” Atkins. I am transgender college student attending a public state university, VCU. I am concerned about the bills HB 1387 and HB 1399, which would bar students in all levels of education from participating in school sports. I ask that HB 1387 and HB 1399 are voted AGAINST and NOT passed. I have been involved in the sport of rowing since middle school, and have continued through college. Rowing is a sport that requires extreme cooperation and unity; as many as 8 people are moving a boat together. We often prize it as “the ultimate team sport”. I first did a summer camp, to try it out before joining the high school team in the fall. I fell in love with the sport; being out on the glassy water and in green nature on gorgeous sunny days, while moving a boat yourself, is a refreshing way to spend the afternoon or morning. I was on my high school team for all four years, being a leader as a coxswain. A coxswain is the leader of larger boats who steers, gives instructions, and helps the coaches run practices. I also have been a part of a collegiate aged summer team, as well an adult, or masters, team. I am now a part of VCU's rowing team, with an opportunity to compete nationally against other college club rowing teams, especially in this spring semester. Personally, for me my teams have been a huge part of my social life for the last 5 years and will continue to be a great source of friendship, as well as mentorship from older teammates and from coaches. My position within the sport has also helped me develop leadership and communication skills. It has also forced me to confront my anxiety to some level, and I have been able to develop confidence. Having other people depend on me and have a common goal to work towards together also helped my confidence as well fueled my motivation to work hard at something. I have been able to earn numerous ribbons, as well as two medals; one during a scholastic state championship and one during a national summer competition. I still have strong connections to my past and current peers and teammates, many of whom are my best friends. I could not imagine my life without this sport! There are many trans rowers and coxswains, who are integral part of the sport at every level, before and during higher education, and are welcomed in our community. Without being able to be on either my high school or collegiate team, I would have not found a wonderful and unique sport, nor a tight knit group of friends who are like family. For many kids and young adults sports are an accessible way to connect with other people and exercise, which helps our mental health, but also to put work towards a goal and achieve. If HB 1387 and HB 1399 are passed, myself and other transgender kids and young adults would be denied these benefits and opportunities, and would be isolated from our peers. I beg you to let transgender children and young adults of all ages be able to join and continue to be on our schools’ scholastic and collegiate teams, in ALL sports. It benefits us in all realms - mentally, emotionally and physically, and we benefit and strengthen our teams and communities, just as any other person does. HB 1387 (Greenhalgh) and HB 1399 (March) would bar this opportunity from us. I ask you to please NOT vote for these harmful and devastating bills. Thank you, Mak Atkins (he/they)

HB 1387 and HB 1399 would harm transgender youth and prevent them from participating in school athletics- in K-12 schools and higher education club sports. I urge you to reject these bills. Thousands of transgender youth exist and live here in Virginia and attend public schools and colleges in Virginia. Transgender students, like any other students, deserves the same chances to learn teamwork, sportsmanship, leadership and self-discipline, and to build a sense of belonging with their peers. Both the Virginia High School League and NCAA have policies that allow transgender students to play in sports and these policies are working just fine. These bills are flawed solutions in search of a problem. Transgender students already face disproportionately high rates of bullying and rejection, and the mere introduction of this legislation making it even worse. It essentially amounts to state-sponsored bullying. The legislature should be focused on real priorities that all Virginians are facing, not manufacturing a problem where none exists. Every Virginian should be treated with dignity and respect, including transgender young people. HB 1387 and 1399 are wrong for Virginia. Please reject them.

I urge you to vote NO on Bill 1387 & Bill 1399. These bills are going to isolate the most vulnerable members of our student bodies. Please do not contribute to the hate any longer. It’s not only harmful to the human beings you targeted but it’s harmful to everyone in our community with dirty boots on the ground. Our teachers, parents, children, sheriffs, realtors, farmers, pharmacies. You are destroying the very communities you are trying to grow. Vote NO on Bills 1387 & 1399 and let our communities heal.

As a resident of Virginia, I urge you to oppose HB1387 (Greenhalgh) and HB1399 (March). I am worried about the continuing legislative attacks on transgender, nonbinary, and intersex people in our state. These two bills trying to ban transgender kids and young adults from sports are harmful, discriminatory, unnecessary, and frankly the opposite of good sportsmanship. Sports leagues like the NCAA have policies in place to ensure a level playing field while allowing opportunities for everyone to participate. Passing these two bills would be government overreach in an area that already has working policies to keep sports fair. Also, as someone who played on girls soccer teams growing up, I would have been happy to have a transgender girl on the team or to play against one to let her join in the joy and activity of the sport as herself. Every girl is an individual with different skills, abilities, strengths, and weaknesses--whether she is cisgender or transgender. Physical variations are vast, especially among kids and young adults as they are growing. Some sports favor small builds and flexibility, while others favor strength and speed. Being transgender doesn't necessarily provide you with any advantages or disadvantages. I always hear in arguments for bills like these about how transgender girls have higher testosterone, which supposedly gives them an advantage. As someone with PCOS, I have a higher level of testosterone than what is considered "average" among cisgender girls; I was still able to play sports and I was nowhere near the best player on my teams; I was never the fastest or strongest. The mere introduction of these bills causes distress to many of Virginia's citizens, both children and adults, athletes and nonathletes by rejecting an essential part of who they are. I want to live in a Virginia that is welcoming and supportive of all people, not discriminatory or even just tolerant. So I ask you to support our transgender, nonbinary, and intersex children and neighbors and encourage them to be themselves. Please say no to HB1387 (Greenhalgh) and HB1399 (March). Thank you.

Oppose HB1387 and HB1399! Don’t single out trans students and essentially ban them from school sports. You are taking a group of KIDS already facing many challenges including possibly dealing with harassment and bullying, and taking away a chance to make friends and be a part of a team. The only thing you’re doing with these bills are increasing the divide between cis and trans students and trying to stop a problem that only exists due to hatred and misinformation.

I am writting to oppose HB1387 and 1399. As a Christian minister, I have worked with several teens and college age students who identify as trans. Some of them are athletes. As they struggle to claim and live into their identify, they face many challenges and struggles. The pressure of living genuinely leads to anxiety, depression and sometimes attempts of suicide. Anti-trans rules for athletics just increases these students' stresses. They have to choose whether their identity as a team member and athlete is more important or their gender identity that they are struggling to share and live into. It is ridiculous to think that any student would lie about their gender identity in order to excel at a sport. Please, put the safety and mental health of our trans students first as your priority and reject this bill.

I'm the mother of two transgender children who attended public school in Virginia. One of them participated in high school sports. People often focus the discussion about transgender youth participating in sports on concerns that at the elite level, transgender girls have an advantage over cis-gendered girls. This is a terrible misfocussing of the discussion and bars ALL transgender youth from participating in sports despite the fact that the vast majority of public school sports participants do not compete at an elite level. Participating in sports gives students a sense of belonging that our transgender youth desperately need. There are other solutions for concerns about elite level athletes. They can include science-based limits on testosterone levels and the same sort of "cooling off" period that the NCAA uses for MTF transgender athletes. Our commonwealth has advertised that "Virginia is for Lovers" since 1969. Let's find a way to love our transgender youth, not hate them and tell them that they are "less than."

I urge your committee to pass Delegate Greenhalgh's HB 1387 and send this Bill for a vote. Her bill directly, clearly and accurately places the rights of parents's in proper standing. No person knows a child better and has the responsibility and judgement to make the best decisions for a child than their own parent or guardian. Allowing other's, no mater their title or education, to hide important psychological aspects of a child from their parent hurts the child, wrongly intrudes upon Parental Rights and breaks down the most cohesive structure of our society - the family.

I would like to voice my opposition to HB1387 and HB1399, both of which discriminate against trans and nonbinary/gender independent students. I am a teacher at one of our state’s pediatric mental health hospitals, and many of my students are transgender or gender independent/nonbinary. They often speak of not being accepted at their schools and feeling unsafe. I see the result of schools not supporting these students. They are in the hospital for attempted suicide, suicidal ideation, self-harm, and the list goes on. We know statistics show that LGBTQ+ students have a higher rate of dying by suicide than their non-LGBTQ+ peers. When students are denied opportunities to fully express themselves in supportive environments, they suffer. Our society is beginning to understand that gender is a construct that our society has created and that gender identity has nothing to do with biological sex. In addition, that construct is limited, allowing only for two genders, when in fact there are many. I know it can be very difficult for some to understand and accept this. Raising our consciousness can be at times difficult and time consuming work. But it is necessary for societies to become better. Let me remind you that you are being asked to determine how we will treat children and adolescents who are still developing cognitively, emotionally, and socially. It is our responsibility to provide safe environments in which they can be supported to develop and grow. I have heard some talk about the safety risk that allowing trans and gender independent individuals to play on the team that matches their gender identity poses to non-trans/non-gender independent students. Remember when we used to not allow black students and other students of color to attend school with white students out of fear that white students would be harmed? Another decision steeped in discrimination and based on another construct-race. What seemed so clearly right turned out to be profoundly wrong. I can understand that it can be very hard to get past the fear, often expressing itself in the form of anger, of something new. Maybe some of you are scared of what might happen as these brilliant and brave students ask us to allow them to do something never allowed in our schools before. But, I also imagine that all of you became politicians to affect change and to help Virginians, youth not excluded. I would say that whether we are ready for it or not, our society is changing, and trans/gender independent students are leading the charge. In 50 years, or less I hope, don’t you want to be the people who helped support what is right and just? Please support trans and nonbinary students, and all students, by allowing this very harmful legislation to die in this subcommittee.

I love my nephew, who is transgender and attends public high school. Students deal with so many stressors in school, including worries about school violence. Hearing that powerful lawmakers want to exclude them from sports makes life even harder for students like my nephew. I hope you think about the many Virginia public school students like my nephew. Please don't advance HB1387 and HB1399.

Good Morning, My name is Alanna and I am commenting on behalf of the gross government overreach that these bills would require. HB1387 would require a health provider to conduct a genital inspection and sign off on that? Call it whatever you want but that is exactly what "The bill requires identification of the student's biological sex on an athletics eligibility form signed by a licensed physician, nurse practitioner, or physician assistant to be submitted by any such student who desires to try out for or participate in an interscholastic, intercollegiate, intramural, or club athletic team or sport" would mean. It seems that there are many members of this General Assembly that are more pressed with taking individual rights away than creating policy that means something. The minors that these bills represent, just want to enjoy sporting activities or clubs, why gender needs to be brought into this is beyond me. I played baseball when I was a child and was heartbroken when at age 10 I had to play softball because "that's what girls played." Its not the same and removes the joy out of even playing any sport when one can't play what they chose to do. One final statement, my niece lives in the very Red State of Ohio and has enjoyed playing on the girls wrestling team for many years. What does Delegate March have against female wrestlers in HB1399. These bills are poorly written and flat out discriminatory.

HB 1387-NO HB1399 NO HB 1800 - NO HB 2272- yes

Please reject HB 1387 and HB 1399. It's cruel to exclude trans young people from playing sports with their peers. Like all kids, trans kids need to exercise, make friends, and learn the lessons about teamwork, discipline, and persisting through setbacks that sports can teach. Banning trans kids from sports denies them these important opportunities for growth. Worse, it sends them the message that they are unwanted. It sends other children the message that there is something wrong or bad about trans kids. It certainly doesn't serve the cause of fairness. My son's best friend growing up was trans. She was a kind, smart, funny kid that anyone would be happy to have their child play with. It hurts my heart to think of children like her being treated this way. Again, please oppose HB 1387 and HB 1399. Thank you, Anna Hebner Henrico

Dear members of the Higher Education Subcommittee, My name is Virginia Pannabecker. I live in Roanoke. I am writing to oppose HB 1387 (Greenhalgh) and HB 1399 (March), bills that would ban trans athletes from playing on the school sports teams that align with their gender identity, including in college-level club sports. I’m a Virginia community member and a parent of a college student and a high school student. I also work at a higher education institution. Many people I care about, family, friends, colleagues, and neighbors, identify as part of the LGBTQ+ community, including some who are transgender. Beyond fun and the challenge of athleticism, sports offer opportunities to connect with fellow students and to grow important life skills like: leadership, confidence, self-respect, and teamwork. Teamwork is important to me - from when I was on my high school swim team, to today when I team up with colleagues or neighbors to work together towards shared goals. Being on a team where your teammates respect and appreciate you for who you are is also affirming and increases our connections to each other across our communities. All students deserve a chance to play sports, including trans youth and young adults. I would be proud to join my family, friends, and community to cheer for teams that include transgender athletes, whether K-12 or college. The Virginia that I see is a state that welcomes and accepts people. Where we all belong. I urge you to oppose these bills, HB 1387 and HB 1399. Thank you for your time.

Dear Chairman Freitas and members of the House Higher Education Subcommittee, Equality Virginia is the leading advocacy organization seeking equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ+) people in Virginia. We respectfully submit our strong opposition to House Bill 1387 and House Bill 1399. There is simply no to back up the concerns that proponents of these bills claim to have. A small percentage of people identify as transgender in Virginia, and not all of them are interested in playing sports, and even fewer of them are elite level. There are real issues with gender parity in sports when it comes to funding, resources, pay equity, and more. Promoting baseless fears about trans athletes does nothing to address those real problems. Transgender people do not have an inherent competitive advantage in sports by virtue of their transition. In reality, transgender women and girls compete at levels similar to all women. No female transgender athlete has qualified for the Olympics, despite rules permitting participation that have been in place for more than a decade. At the high school level, 20 states already allow trans kids to compete in sports consistent with their gender identity. Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 was about opening up opportunities for people to be able to benefit from true, meaningful opportunities to participate in sports. Allowing transgender people to participate in sports doesn’t change that – it is part of that. Research from the Center for American Progress published in February 2021 highlights the “physiological, social, and emotional” benefits of youth sport participation. Their work also stresses how transgender youth are more likely to struggle with depression, suicidal ideation, and suicide attempts. There are two main takeaways from their report: 1) trans exclusionary sport regulations “deprive an already vulnerable group of the benefits of sports,” and 2) this sort of exclusion is likely to exacerbate the struggles of trans and gender nonconforming youth. Because allowing trans girls to compete in girls’ sports doesn’t hurt anyone, advocates for women and girls in sports such as the National Women’s Law Center, the Women’s Sports Foundation, Women Leaders in College Sports, and others support trans-inclusive policies and oppose efforts to exclude transgender students from participating in sports. Several local and national sporting institutions – including the Virginia High School League and NCAA – have adopted policies allowing transgender athletes to participate in sports consistent with their gender identity, designed to guarantee there is no competitive advantage conferred by transition. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) – an organization dedicated to athletic competition at the highest level –has even adopted a policy that allows transgender athletes to compete consistent with their gender identity. Moreover, HB 1387 and 1399 are part of a larger trend -- fueled and funded by national-level organizations -- to influence and interfere with state politics, particularly around youth identity. All of these bills seek to single out transgender young people and subsequently increase bullying and harassment by preventing them from participating in the sports they love. The Virginia I know and love is not one that passes legislation that puts kids in danger. I encourage you to oppose these bills.

1387 & 1399 VPEP Opposes There are only 9 transgender athletes in the entire state. This is a waste of State resources. VHSL already has a policy addressing this so State involvement is not required The IOC admits trans athletes under guidelines Because the VHSL and other leagues are capable of making their own policy, the only reason to enact a ban at the State level is to bully a portion of the population through legislative abuse.

I am writing this to oppose both 1397 and 1399. I am a transgender woman athlete and at the age of 41 I have competed against cisgender women almost the entirety of my life. I grew up riding horses and showing at equestrian competitions over fences. For the last three years I have played on a local roller derby team as well as the state all star team. I am also one of five trans women on quad roller skates that is a sponsored aggressive park skater in the entire world. You can read this and assume that I have all of this because I am a trans athlete. However, the truth of the matter is I have had to work harder at this than I have at anything else in my entire life. People have focused on trans athletes, and whether we have fair or unfair advantages when the fact is that there are only 25 at most trans athletes in VA schools at this present moment. You sit there and focus on the athletic side of things, while not actual taking in the factors of why people assume I would have an advantage. I can guarantee you what you’re doing is not saving women’s sports. I can also guarantee you that me having had testosterone through puberty doesn’t guarantee I have an advantage in sports. The only advantage I would have possibly had if I grew up in normal sports is the ability to have had more time put into the building of my athleticism. Growing up as a male, I would have had access to better equipment, better coaches, and more experience/expectations that what I do in sports in grade schools could lead to more options later in life. Women, whether trans or not don’t have that access still. Yet what you don’t see is the cis women I competed with growing up, and the teammates I have now are family. We do life together. We eat together, we train together, we celebrate each other, and we cry together. They come to me with questions and deep thoughts because they can trust me. By limiting sports for trans athletes you’re limiting social experiences for them as well. Now in my opinion that’s one of your goals because when you say “no kid left behind” that only means for the socially accepted kids that fall in line with what you believe. Again there are a max of 25 trans athletes in the entirety of Virginia public schools right now, and not a single one of them have “dominated” any sport. So tell me again why is this so important that we have 230 some anti trans bills in the United States as of this very moment, with over a dozen here in this state other than some agenda that is being pushed. These transgender athletes and kids basic human rights should always come before you’re inability to maneuver around being uncomfortable. Thank you for your time.

Strongly OPPOSE these bills. These bills essentially ban kids like mine from participating in sports. This type of legislation singles out trans youth and robs them of the many opportunities athletics provide: Being on a team, connecting with peers, and building confidence through physical activity.

The percentage of student athletes who identify as Transgender is negligible at best. These are more examples of Bills that are a waste of Taxpayer dollars, looking for a solution to a non-existent problem, and once again unnecessarily targeting a group of students.

VOTE "NO" HB 1387 and HB 1399 Here are my three reasons to oppose these trans athlete ban bills: 1) There is a perceived (though credibly debatable) “advantage” that trans girls would have in sports competitions against cis girls. Following this logic, it would make NO sense to exclude trans boys from male sports. My trans son played both soccer and baseball and it was so SO important for him to have that experience. And for his peers to experience him as a team member. (So, no, marginalizing [and outing] trans athletes into their own leagues is NOT acceptable.) 2) These days MANY trans girls NEVER go thru a “male” puberty. It is blocked from the start, and when they are ready, they go thru the correct female puberty. So, again, the above logic of the perceived “advantage” would not apply. 3) Also puberty arrives at different rates throughout the K-12 schooling years. So, even without hormonal intervention, many students (especially middle thru lower HS) would still not have this perceived advantage. 4) The only context where the perceived male-puberty advantage would come into play is for athletes in late-to-post testosterone puberty. There ALREADY exists a robust set of guidelines for such trans athletes thru the Virginia High School League (which middle schools also adhere to). The policy has guidelines for hormone levels and transition progression. Anything more robust than the VHSL guidelines is NOT appropriate and is simply discriminatory.

My name is Heather Massey and I’m a resident of Glen Allen, VA 23060. As the parent of a K-12 public school student, I’m writing to let you know that I oppose HB 1387. Categorically banning transgender youth from participating in sports singles out trans youth and robs them of the many opportunities that athletics provide: being on a team, connecting with their peers, and building confidence through physical activity. All youth should have an equal opportunity to participate in sports.

School sports should be based on biological sex because it clearly places female athletes at a disadvantage. Biological males are clearly stronger than female athletes and no science is really needed to prove that. It is common sense. Because of this, biological females simply cannot compete for college athletic scholarships and other professional awards if they are competing against male athletes. They will lose every time. This bill will put common sense back in sports.

As a Virginia resident who has enjoyed the passion, camaraderie, and invaluable life lessons gained through scholastic sports, I cannot imagine those experiences having been denied to me because of my gender identity. Transgender people — especially children and young adults — are just as deserving of these formative experiences as their cisgender peers, and they deserve to have them on a team that represents and shares the gender that they align with. I am strongly against HB 1387 and HB 1399.

Our trans students deserve to participate in the sports of the gender they identify with. This legislation would involve such an incredibly small number of kids, it is not at all necessary. Trans kids already face such bullying that they don't feel welcome to participate in sports. For those brave enough to follow their athletic dreams, they should be allowed to play.

HB1387 and HB1399 are both travesties in waiting that would target Virginia's transgender and queer students by barring them from participating in school sports safely. These bills would force trans students to play for teams that don't align with their gender, and that would create environments of bullying, intolerance, and discrimination. Our trans students need to be able to be safe and themselves in order to prosper in education, and they should not be made into tools in some political game. As a transgender woman myself who went to Virginia's public schools, I know that we should be working to promote safety and inclusion for transgender students, not forcing them out of public life and into the closet.

I oppose HB1387. Participation in sports should not be politicized. K-12 and college students are doing a better job than their parents at appreciating diversity and getting along with others, rather than creating divisiveness for attention. Please let transgender students participate in sports with their teammates.

Comments Document

In summary of my spoken statement, "biological sex" is a meaningless category when transgender individuals become involved, as a result of the way hormone replacement therapy affects trans people physiologically and the fact that many trans youth have not progressed through puberty enough to benefit from sexual dimorphism. I urge the Committee to consider the statements of experts, which support the fact that biological sex is not necessarily a predictor for athletic capacity: I cite the peer-reviewed article “Race Times for Transgender Athletes” by Joanna Harper and the Expert Declaration of Joshua D. Safer in the case Hecox v. Little in the Idaho District Court in particular; I have attached both of them for your review (the documents have been combined into one PDF for submission).

Re: HB1387 & HB1399. These bills promise to do irreparable harm to transgender youth across the state of Virginia, denying them safe, affirming access to intramural, club, and collegiate sports. While the bills' language does not explicitly mention transgender students, by defining and explicitly separating students on antiquated and oversimplified notions of biology and sex, the bills impact not those who align those notions, but rather stigmatizes, alienates, and denies equal access to those whose identities do not align with sexual binaries. Transgender athletes are a minority who pose no threat to their cisgender peers; instead the exact opposite occurs, as trans students are systematically and individually targeted by other people. As with any other student and athlete, we seek to play sports without having our identities threatened and pathologized by the state. Equal access does not stop at biological sex- for trans athletes to participate as our full selves, we must be allowed to play with the gender we identify with, not with the sex the state has imposed upon us. Transgender athletes DESERVE to participate with their peers, and reap the benefits of sports in public education.

I am strongly opposed to gender segregate youth sports and athletics clubs. Whether girls want to play on boys teams or transgendered students want to play on the sport group that aligns with their preferred gender. Please let us move forward as a society and not continue to go backwards due to fear and misinformation!

These bills are nothing but transphobic bigotry wrapped in the guise of “protecting women’s sports.” There is no scientific evidence to support the idea that trans athletes have a competitive advantage over their cisgender competitors. (Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5357259/ ) The only purpose they serve is to drive vulnerable trans youth out of public life, while pandering to the right-wing hate mob. I urge all delegates - particularly those who claim to be “pro-life” - to listen to the science and oppose these harmful bills.

Thank you for keeping our sports safe and fair, by continuing designated teams, based on your birth gender. I have a daughter is the goalie for women’s lacrosse. She made the JV team as an eighth grader. She was getting changed in the high school dressing rooms, and traveling alone on school buses with her female lacrosse team all over the Northern Virginia area. I wouldn’t have felt safe, knowing that there were biological males, choosing to identify as a female on her team, traveling and changing with her. I also wouldn’t feel comfortable having those same athletes shoot against her. At the end of every game, she already has many bruises from defending the goal against these high school young ladies. I can only imagine what the bruises would look like trying to defend from a 6 foot biological male, who chooses to identify as a female and use their full strength to hit the ball against her. Similarly, I have a son in middle school, who also plays sports and would not feel comfortable having biological females on his team, traveling with him. Nor would I like to see him being able to compete with biological women on a female team. Thank you for designating the teams as all female/all male/coed, giving everyone an option.

Requiring students to pass a genital check before participating in any sport is a violation of privacy. Yearly general pediactric examinations do not already include genital inspections, nor do they examine secondary sex characteristics, such as breasts. This bill would require students to either visit a practitioner who conducts these tests, or require general pediatricians to perform atypical tests that unnecessarily violate a student’s privacy.

Banning a specific group of people based on their gender is discrimination. The mere thought of having the audacity to enact such a bill is absolutely disgusting, and it is humiliating that laws like this are even being discussed in a country like the US. This is a country that was founded on differences in belief, ideals, and backgrounds with the purpose for a freedom of expression. Refuge to those who are in need and those of diversity, is encouraged not demolished. Equality, rights, and independence is the basis of who we are. Just as the state has no interlude to the ideals of the church, the state should hold no opposition to the identities of its own people and how these people choose to participate in organizations specifically developed for wellbeing and team-building. A sport organization should be able to decide for themselves who they want in their team. Proposing a law such as this is authoritarian and against the very nature of why this nation exists.

Please vote to defeat bills HB 1387 and HB 1399. Youth and young adults learn a lot of important lessons in sports: sportsmanship, leadership, confidence, self-discipline, self-respect, and what it means to be part of a team. All students deserve access to this kind of enrichment and growth. Transgender students want the opportunity to play sports for the same reason other students do: to be a part of a team where they feel like they belong. We shouldn’t discriminate against young people and ban them from playing sports with their friends just because they’re transgender. Appropriate locally based procedures already exist to manage the very few instances statewide of transgender students seeking to participate. There is simply no purpose to statewide legislation to address a circumstance that is already being handled in the few cases that exist. The mere introduction of these bills has a negative impact on our community. Please support transgender and nonbinary students by rejecting these bills that would take away their right to an equal and unencumbered educational experience.

Trans youth have a right to participate in sports just like everybody else. Allowing students to play on teams that align with their gender identity will simply even the playing field for both boys and girls. The range of body types will widen and it will all balance itself out. Frankly, it is shameful that this is even an issue on the table.

This is complete nonsense. Transgender athletes deserve to compete. As a transgender person and a parent of a transgender child I am so disgusted by this. We always say we're a free country and shit like this makes that the biggest lie I've ever heard. You are ruining transgender lives, treating us like we either don't matter or we're freaks.

The cruelty is the point. So they tell me. When my parents immigrated to Virginia, they had to catch up to a system that irrationally targeted them on the basis of their melanin. On some level we'd managed to figure out the irrationality of that. Or maybe we'd moved it to other groups. With slurs. Media portrayal. Conspiratorial perceptions. The "gay agenda" if you will. It's been three decades since my parents moved here and we've moved onto a new target. Why? I'm not exactly sure. All I know is it's impossible to legislate people out of existence. Everytime we try it ends with suffering and a inability to atone. The kids are the scapegoat. The kids are taught to hate themselves. Because the cruelty is the point. And maybe, maybe it shouldn't be. tl;dr let the kids play ball

I opposed to these two Bills!

I oppose these transgender athlete bans because sports participation is about so much more than winning. These bans will effectively prohibit transgender students from ever being part of a team and a school community based only on their identity. And so much more goes into athletic performance anyway than only your biological makeup: access to elite coaches and teams, nutritionists, time and transportation to practice, inner motivation and determination, mental grit, even networking connections that might get you on a team or seen by a college coach, all make a difference. Boiling down participation on a sports team at any level simply based on biology at birth will not level the playing field. It discriminates against transgender athletes simply because of who they are. Please vote no on these bills.

Banning a specific group of people based on their gender is discrimination. The mere thought of having the audacity to enact such a bill is absolutely disgusting, and it is humiliating that laws like this are even being discussed in a country like the US, a country that is supposed to represent a refuge to those who are in need, a country that was supposed to be a place where diversity is encouraged not demolished, a country that was built on the proposition that all people are equal and their equal rights should not be infringed. On top of that. It is not the state's business to decide who gets to participate in organized sports. A sport organization should be able to decide for themselves who they want in their team. Proposing a law such as this is authoritarian, against the very nature of why this nation is founded.

Comments Document

OPPPOSE HB 1387 and HB1399 Please see the document below with a personal story about a student athlete in Henrico County Public Schools. Thank you, Shannon McKay

Bills like this have been directly linked to an increased suicide rate among these children, who aren't hurting anyone. Please ask yourself: is that really worth it, does that sound like an equitable trade to you? Transgender students have been participating in Virginia sports with NO issues for years and years. Of all the things our legislature could be doing to address the state of Virginia right now such as education, gun violence, economic stability, infrastructure, etc it fills me with anger to see that any of my money is going towards trying to make sure a few kids cant play U10 soccer. This bill is blatant discrimination, its hateful, and goes against the recommendation of every major medical organization. Every child in Virginia should have access to sports, this bill is a violation of their rights and major government overreach. Land of the free? OPPOSE THIS BILL.

Being trans should not exclude students/children from participating in school sanctioned sports. You are taking someone who is already vulnerable to exclusion by their peers and further excluding them with law. This is an opportunity for all students to participate in team building, getting exercise, and being apart of a community and it would be incredibly cruel to use the power of the law to forbid them from doing so should they wish.

I urge the committee to vote NO on HB 1387 and HB 1399. Both bills seek to ban transgender students from participating in sports as their genuine selves. They go far beyond banning students from being on teams that compete against other schools. They ban transgender students from participating in any sport at any level—including clubs and intramurals. They ban schools from competing against other schools and clubs that don’t have similar bans. And they include vague “bounty” provisions that encourage legal action against any club, any school, and anyone who doesn’t go along with these bans. These provisions aren’t just for K-12 schools. They also apply to Virginia’s public universities. Universities would suddenly be in the business of checking the birth certificates of everyone signing up to play in the women’s intramural softball league or join the men’s rugby club. Our universities would also be banned from competing against private universities that also don’t have similar bans, wreaking havoc on schedules and participating in tournaments. These draconian bans are purported solutions in search of a problem. The Virginia High School League and the NCAA already have policies in place for transgender students to compete in sports. Those policies work. And as a practical matter, transgender student athletes are literally not a problem. About 75,000 girls play on high school sports teams in Virginia and are under no threat from the 9 transgender students who applied for VHSL approval to play. More fundamentally, these bills tell transgender children and young adults that they do not matter. That they are a threat. That they are a problem. That they do not belong. That they do not deserve the opportunity to participate in sports—at any level—with their friends. We should encourage children and young adults to participate in sports, not ban them. Please vote NO on HB 1387 and HB 1399 and instead spend your valuable time focused on the legitimate problems and challenges facing higher education in Virginia.

My name is L.F. Brown and I write in OPPOSITION to House Bill 1387 (Greenhalgh) and House Bill 1399 (March) as both bills infringe on the rights of SUPPORTIVE PARENTS, as well as, gender expansive, non-binary, and transgender students who seek to participate on K-12 and college level sports teams that align with their gender identity. Every school district in Virginia allows for student participation in ALL clubs within the structure of the school environment. Singling out transgender athletes in such a ban would negatively impact the shared excitement and camaraderie experienced being a part of a team. Team sports provide an opportunity to develop leadership skills, self-discipline, in addition to the important life lesson of resilience following team defeat. Notedly, the policies of the Virginia High School League (VHSL) ensure a level playing field for all students. These established processes have operated for many years without challenge. In my opinion, House Bill 1387 (Greenhalgh) and House Bill 1399 (March) serve as a solution in search of a problem. I strongly OPPOSE these bills.

I OPPOSE HB1399 and HB1387 for so many reasons including that it goes against NCAA and VHSL standards. In a time, where children are struggling with anxiety, depression along with childhood obesity, I can't see taking sports away is going to help any of that, especially from any child in k-12. All children deserve to play sports on a team that makes them feel safe and accepted. Forcing a transgender child play on a team of the opposite sex not only doesn't affirm them as their true selves, but it puts them in harms way and outs them to their peers. In the last 6 years the VYSL has only had 26 variance requests. This year there was maybe 4 requests for a trans athlete to play sports, we aren't talking about a problem, you're creating a problem by banning them from sports. Don't create a problem when their isn't one. Focus on a legacy that includes accepting all students regardless of their gender identity, not their worth as a political pawn for your career. Again, I oppose HB1387 and HB1399!

We oppose these bills. These bills would ban trans athletes from playing on the school sports teams that align with their gender identity, effectively banning them from school sports entirely. This can have serious long-term negative impacts on these students’ health, education, and well-being. Thank you for your service to our Commonwealth and for the opportunity to provide feedback.

I writing to ask you to vote no on HB 1387 and 1399 - banning trans kids from participating in sports. My question to you is this - why do we have sports in schools? There is a lot of research on how sports help build key life skills for kids as well as improve their physical health. We also have sports to promote values of teamwork, perseverance, and ethical behavior in competition. Engagement in sports has been shown to improve self esteem, focus, and executive functioning skills. Sports programs in public education are NOT supposed to be farm schools for professional sports or scholarship programs to get into colleges. While we know that is a common feature of our schools, we need to keep those considerations out of decisions on who gets to play. In fact, excluding trans Virginia students violates the very values those programs are designed to promote. If the concern is "fairness" - remember that - unlike professional sports - Virginia has an obligation to educate and support ALL kids - yes, even the trans ones - in the Commonwealth. ALL kids in our school system are supposed to be welcome to engage in sports. And ranges of skills and body types are inherent in sports at this age. Teams may be made up of a 120lb 5 foot tall kid who hasn't hit puberty yet and the 6ft tall, 200lb kid who hit it early, even when they both have the same sex. Coaches work hard to make sure everyone is able to play safely together. In addition, these bills reinforce false beliefs that all boys are *always* better at sports than all girls, and the reason girls need their own teams is because they cannot compete with boys. These false beliefs are why these bills do not ban trans boys from boys teams, and only bans trans girls from girls teams, regardless of whether those trans girls have gone through male puberty, been on blockers, or have started HRT. This false belief in male superiority in sports is not even true with fully grown adults in professional sports, let alone in middle or high school. In addition, professional sports organizations have existing regulations and standards for trans athletes already, most of which allow trans athletes to compete if they meet specific criteria. This proposed law does not even follow the example of these organizations who determine who competes at the highest levels! Finally, where is the evidence of *actual* harm from allowing trans girls to participate in girls sports? Where are the injuries or lost scholarships? Feeling icky about trans people does not count as actual harm. And if you cannot provide *actual examples of harm*, why are you trying to pass this law? You have an obligation to protect and support ALL students in Virginia - including the trans kids. Vote no on these bills.

I am writing to ask the committee to pass this anti-trans bill by indefinitely because it is harmful to the students competing in intramural sports regardless of gender. I am a bisexual cis gendered woman and play collegiate rugby. There I have found more love and community than anywhere else in my love from both the men’s and women’s teams. My entire freshman year we couldn’t afford a women’s coach so we had to practice together as one club which wouldn’t have been possible had this uptick in public political transphobia begun a few years earlier. So, I ask that now you reject this bill in order to provide more young people with the opportunities that I had.

I am writing in opposition to HB1387 (Greenhalgh) and HB1399 (March), which would ban transgender children and young adults from competing on school athletics teams that align with their identified gender. These bills are solutions in search of a problem. Transgender athletes are not, as their adversaries would claim, destroying girls' and women's athletics. Trans athletes are actually underrepresented in athletics in general, and are particularly underrepresented on medals platforms - in either men's or women's divisions. The notorious "winning" trans female athletes are rare, and there is no indication they will become any less rare. I am not aware of are any competitive trans athletes in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Lawmakers traditionally do not enact legislation unless there is a demonstrated need or issue. In this case, no such need or issue exists. All that exists is a moral panic relating to a few athletes in other parts of the country, the most notorious of whom are no longer involved in competitive athletics. What these bills actually do is to stigmatize and "other" members of the transgender community, tarring them as cheaters and reducing transgenderism to nothing more than an excuse to cheat. The notion is patently ridiculous that anyone would profess membership in such a ruthlessly oppressed minority in order to win at athletics. There are much, much easier ways for athletes to be competitive that do not involve the innumerable deep sacrifices and personal costs one must endure to transition to the non-birth gender - namely training. Finally, these bills aren't just about transgender athletes. They impact the entire transgender community by vilifying its people, inducing and reinforcing moral panic against them, and carving out a slippery slope by which other civil rights may be eroded away. These bills are a way of eroding transgender dignity. They are a way of punishing transgender people for being different. And they are a way of telling them that they are not welcome to participate fully in society. America is the so-called "Land of Opportunity," and yet we seek daily to deprive many of our people of opportunity. A "level playing field" first requires all athletes should be allowed simply to step onto the field. These bills give different rights to different classes of people, and that's simply un-American. I urge the subcommittee to oppose HB1387 and HB1399.

Regardless of where you stand on gender politics, trans kids are still just kids. They are beloved children, friends, classmates - and teammates. Every student deserves the opportunity to find a space where they feel they belong and participate in an after-school activity that they find meaningful. Why would we deprive young people of the opportunity to find a space where they can flourish and live up to their fullest potential? Sports teams can provide a young person with a support system, collaboration skills, discipline, and long-lasting life lessons. Are we going to rob students of this valuable opportunity simply because we do not understand the way they dress or the pronouns they use? Individual expression and non-discrimination are values we hold onto dearly, but do these values not apply to trans students? Every student deserves the opportunity to participate in enriching activities that help them to build a happy, healthy life.

I am writing to urge you and, if necessary, beg you to not ban transgender kids in k-12 from participating in sports and in club sports for older kids. Sports is an outlet they desperately need for their health and mental well being. There is little to no evidence of their participation limiting non trans kids from participating. It has been our experience that people encourage and welcome trans kids to be part of teams. Furthermore, everyone learns and benefits and becomes more compassionate humans because of it. Thank you for reading and seriously considering my comments and experiences. A. Cahill Amanda

Transgender youth and adults deserve the the same rights to participate in sports and other activities as cisgender youth and adults.

Women's sports are more than just athletics: they boost confidence and teach working with others, especially women. It's unfair and discouraging to women to see podium spots go to males they're competing against. Women's divisions must be kept female to be kept fair.

I strongly oppose both proposed bills. Trans athletes deserve to be able to participate in any college sport of their choosing, if the team aligns with their declared gender identity. Sports teams are already not particularly inclusive places where locker room language often stops LGBTQ+ folks from taking part in team sports, let's allow this to be a team or school decision not enforce a ban statwide - republican beliefs should support the stance of delegating this choice to teams.

Female sports were created by women to give women and girls a fair and safe way to participate and compete in athletics. Men and boys are not better or more skilled athletes; however, the differences between male and female bodies put them on a different playing field than women and girls. Allowing male athletes to identify as female will force women and girls out of our own sports. It also puts women and girls at serious risk of injury in contact sports. Male can never become female or vice versa. Women are not small men or men with low testosterone. We are fully embodied beings. Our female bodies are powerful and have unique strengths and needs. This is plainly obvious in sports.

Comments Document

OPPOSITION for HB 1387, a bill to deny participation in public school athletics activities to transgender students

Its unbelievable that there is now a need to BEG legislators to recognize what a Boy or Girl in fact is in reality. The SICKO special interests which controls the atmosphere as well as the democrat party are disgustingly responsible for funding a socially constructed perverted CULT which knowingly intends HARMS purposely using MINORS as BAIT. Every one of you should’ve taken a stand against Stripping Female rights to safety, privacy, dignity and language while nothing but total dishonesty has fueled self hatred amongst Children to the point kids are now being branded with sex habit/fetish labels in effort of spreading a fashion that seeks to disqualify actual birth rights while drugging them into the delusion that it’s their choice to sterilize, mutilate and misrepresent the reality that personality and outfit choice do not determine male or female !! It’s very obvious who is sincere and who lies at ANY cost knowingly !!!!

Sports must be separated on the basis of sex for the protection and empowerment of young women.

Article 7 of the Declaration on Women's Sex-Based Rights states that "women have a right to the same opportunities as men to participate actively in sports and physical education." This statement is consistent with Article 10 (g) of the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, as well as with the Title IX Education Amendments of 1972. In accordance with these principles, I urge you to vote in support of this bill. It would prevent the incursion of males who claim to be women into female sports. These males tend to go on to outperform actual female athletes; you may remember this notably occurring in the case of the swimmer Will "Lia" Thomas. This bill would prevent such unfair mockeries of athletics and ensure integrity in women's sports. Vote YES to HB 1387!

I support HB 1387. Please vote yes for common sense and biological reality. We have single sex sports for a reason. Women and girls have the right to fair competition. Allowing males to compete as females against females is ridiculous not to mention unsafe. Imagine how daunting it must be for a female athlete to spend so much time training only to be forced to compete against a male, knowing you don’t stand a chance. I can’t help but think anyone who would vote no to this bill must really not care about women and girls and has zero respect for women and girls boundaries. Please vote yes to HB 1387. Vote yes if you respect women and girls rights, privacy and safety. Only a fool or a misogynist would vote no.

This bill would clarify Virginia school sports as being segregated by sex. Why does this matter? Because, physiologically, male and female bodies are very different. In relation to their bodies, males have larger individual muscle fibers than women, making them capable of greater absolute force production. They also have proportionally larger lungs and greater lung volume, allowing their muscles to access more oxygen. On average, a male has 12% more red blood cells than a woman. Because of the structure of the pelvis and subsequent angle of the femur, there's more gravitational pressure on women's knees, which makes them more susceptible to ACL and other knee injuries. The list of physiological differences between men and women goes on, but the point is that male and female bodies are structurally different at all levels. These differences give males a categorical advantage in athletic competitions. This advantage is not erased when a man says he "feels" like a woman. This feeling is not observable. Only the material body is. Women and girls have the right to athletic competitions that they actually have a shot at winning. Allowing males to take women's spots on the basis of an alleged "feeling" is unfair, demoralizing, misogynistic, and a denial of material reality that is frankly delusional. Women across all political parties (I'm a Democrat myself) urge all the subcommittee members to vote YES to Bill 1387, and help protect the fairness and integrity of athletics across the state.

Sports are separated by sex because men's bodies have physical advantages over women of similar fitness and age. Men, regardless of their levels of testosterone or estrogen retain these physical advantages which includes more fast-twitch muscles, lower body fat ratios, larger lungs and hearts, slimmer pelvis, height, weight, muscle mass, body fat, skeletal structure and aerobic capacity. As a group, women do not run, jump or swim as fast as men. Women are also more prone to certain types of athletic injuries from men when competing against them in contact sports. Concussions in particular have higher potential for brain damage in women because of our skull thickness. Any boy or man who takes a spot from a woman, even if that spot is the lowest ranked on the team, means a cascade of discrimination, starting with that one woman he bumped off to the woman below her, below her, etc. We need to base sports separations on sex, not subjective sense of gender identity (which is not measurable nor an objective material state). Sex is simply defined as male or female. There is no third sex, no third gamete. Please respect the science and don't let male bodies discriminate against females.

Sports are separated by sex because men's bodies have physical advantages over women of similar fitness and age. Men, regardless of their levels of testosterone or estrogen retain these physical advantages which includes more fast-twitch muscles, lower body fat ratios, larger lungs and hearts, slimmer pelvis, height, weight, muscle mass, body fat, skeletal structure and aerobic capacity. As a group, women do not run, jump or swim as fast as men. Women are also more prone to certain types of athletic injuries from men when competing against them in contact sports. Concussions in particular have higher potential for brain damage in women because of our skull thickness. Any boy or man who takes a spot from a woman, even if that spot is the lowest ranked on the team, means a cascade of discrimination, starting with that one woman he bumped off to the woman below her, below her, etc. We need to base sports separations on sex, not subjective sense of gender identity (which is not measurable nor an objective material state). Sex is simply defined as male or female. There is no third sex, no third gamete. Please respect the science and don't let male bodies discriminate against females.

This bill protects female sports and indemnifies institutions which do the same. I support female athletes. Please end the insanity of biological men athletically competing with women and support it too!

Commenting as a mother of four sons who’ve been schooled in Hanover County K-12, the youngest now at Maggie Walker, addressing these three bills with common sense and zero fear of the “woke” and “cancel” crowds: HB1379: absolutely parents need to have easy access to understand what materials are accessible to children within our schools! There should be no reason our schools would want to hide this information. And parents are right to demand sexually explicit materials be removed. Our children are in school to be nurtured and learn reading, writing, arithmetic, science, technology and the arts. They are not there to be sexualized. HB1387: without a doubt biological sex must determine whether the child is on the boy’s or the girl’s team. As a mother of four boys, all of which played sports - and having previously operated a dance studio with girls from 3-18yrs old - I have years of experience and common sense to know that girls and boys need to be separated for sports due to many reasons including: rate of physical development, general strength, potential strength, and during pre-pubescent and puberty for emotional and hormonal differences. If I had a daughter in high school that was subjected to a male in her team’s locker room or on the court/ field - I’d be livid. No female, especially our youth should be subjected to such a ludicrous situation. Our young ladies (biological females to be specific) need us to provide THEM safe places to learn, grow and develop. If someone wants to “identify” as anything other than their biological sex, they should seek co-ed teams. HB1397: I strongly believe the parents need to be the ones deciding how to manage THEIR children’s health. While I personally support fully-approved, long-standing vaccines such as the polio vaccine, I am against forcing any vaccine simply because the government decides to mandate it. I didn’t have an opinion prior to the COVID-era “emergency approval, skip the longitudinal studies, mandate the vaccine,” followed by areas of the country going down the path of “show your papers” to receive services. Now I have a strong opinion - parents are the ones responsible for their children, not the government.

I support this sensible bill.

"I support HB 1396 as introduced, and it deserves a vote." Thank you for your hard work and dedication to the School Choice fight! Quick Links: Join the Rapid Response Team of Virginia for Educational Freedom School Choice petition to legislators Donate to Virginia for Educational Freedom For Our Children, Natassia Grover Director Virginia for Educational Freedom PS- It is vital that you sign our Petition for School Choice today. The thing politicians fear most is large numbers of angry voters, and your signature on the petition will be added to the thousands that have already signed. This Petition will be delivered to the House Educational Committee, and they will be told they must support full and complete School Choice. So click here to sign! Copyright © 2023 Acton Advocacy Group, All rights reserved. Fighting to restore freedom in education in the Commonwealth Our mailing address is: Acton Advocacy Group 11895 Folly Lane Lovettsville, VA 20180 Add us to your address book

I support these bills and they deserve a vote!

Please support Bill #1396! So important for the children of the Commonwealth of Virginia!

I am fully in support of women's sports and it starts in school where girls prepare to compete to hopefully get a scholarship or train to be in the Olympics. putting biological boys who want to be girls in girls sports give biological boys an unfair advantage. There are some sports that don't rely on physical strength and If you want those sports to include all genders then make them CO-ED sports and keep the biological genders in separate locker rooms by biological gender.

Please vote NO. Trans youth deserve respect and to be safe

These bills cannot be passed if Virginia wants to protect all of its children. Allowing a child to be themselves at school is essential to providing a safe and welcoming environment. Schools are one of the only places where a child is not under the direct supervision of their guardian, therefore a child gains some independence. Children spend much of their developmental years in school and often experiment with their self expression and identity in ways they can’t at home. This can be changing clothes, hairstyles, or make up. These differences of school versus home aren’t required to be reported. These are small actions yet when affirmed by trusted adults have a massive impact on a child’s mental and emotional health and self worth. Regarding larger questioning of identity such as gender, it is vital that children have a space where they can experiment without being punished. Transgender youth are at a higher risk of suicide than their cisgender peers and it is because they frequently lack support. Lacking support from parents or guardians especially is incredibly damaging to a child’s development. If support from adults at school is also taken away, transgender youth will be put in a dangerous position as they will have much less access to trusted adults. They may turn to unsafe outlets like the internet in search of connection and become victims of child predators looking to take advantage of lonely kids. Alternatively they may internalize their emotions which can lead to depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideation. These bills also specify that in addition to alerting a parent of a child self identifying as a different gender than the one assigned at birth, the school must ask if the parent is aware of the child’s mental state and whether they wish to obtain or have already obtained counseling for such student. According to the World Health Organization, “Gender interacts with but is different from sex, which refers to the different biological and physiological characteristics of females, males and intersex persons, such as chromosomes, hormones and reproductive organs. Gender and sex are related to but different from gender identity. Gender identity refers to a person’s deeply felt, internal and individual experience of gender, which may or may not correspond to the person’s physiology or designated sex at birth.” This means that there is not an inherent, unchangeable connection between a persons sex and their gender. To have a different gender than the one associated with the sex assigned at birth is completely normal. Additionally, self identifying as a different gender alone is not indicative of whether a child needs counseling. The American Psychiatric Association has explicitly stated that, “gender nonconformity is not in itself a mental disorder.” The International Classification of Diseases 11th Revision also places gender incongruence under conditions related to sexual health, not mental disorders. Price-Feeney, Myeshia, et al. “Understanding the Mental Health of Transgender and Nonbinary Youth.” Journal of Adolescent Health, Elsevier, 25 Jan. 2020, https://www.jahonline.org/article/S1054-139X(19)30922-X/fulltext. “Gender and Health.” World Health Organization, World Health Organization, https://www.who.int/health-topics/gender. Gender Dysphoria - American Psychiatric Association. 2013, https://www.psychiatry.org/File%20Library/Psychiatrists/Practice/DSM/APA_DSM-5-Gender-Dysphoria.pdf.

As a Professional Registered Nurse for 28 years I am deeply concerned for the well-being and mental health for all minor children and teenagers. I am outraged at those who consider themselves Educators and having knowledge of the developing brain along with stages of growth and development who are creating chaos within the public education system. As a Crisis Management and Trauma Educator I have seen and continue to witness students who come to school with great physical, mental and emotional needs that are not being met at home. Students need mature and wise Educators and Counselors who can advocate for them individually and also by NOT turning students against their parents. Our current education system is causing great harm by feeding into the gender ideology and not seeking the best interests of minors. The developing brain needs sound instruction in the classroom and much needed outdoor activity. The developing brain working through puberty needs a classroom setting in which teenagers can channel their energy and emotions. Virginia needs trauma informed schools with curriculums that teach students to be resilient, to learn how to manage their emotions as well as seek out their identity in a safe and respectful manner. Parents also have many unresolved traumas in their life which many times creates generational trauma. Community resources along with resources within our public schools need to be focused on meeting needs and promoting healing not tearing families apart by keeping secrets regarding gender crises. Our very humanity is at stake and I strongly believe in human rights for every individual. I strongly believe every human needs a voice and to be heard. I am the voice for many parents that I personally know along with many students in my community. I listen as they share with me the daily struggles in their lives, the ongoing bullying and confusion regarding gender ideology. I mentor teen girls in my community and I am also SAGE’s mentor, the young lady for whom this bill was written. I know Sage’s story inside and out. I have walked in great darkness fighting for this young lady. I have stood up against those who should have been seeking the best for Sage. I am appalled at the lack of judgment and wisdom within our education system. I have studied Biology and Science in high school and Anatomy and Physiology all throughout my Nursing Courses. We need to empower our youth to embrace their gender and identity not go against the very science that makes us who we are. For many who are struggling they need a safe environment to discuss their feelings but their parents and caregivers need to be part of that as well. I urge you to consider the depth of what is happening and pass this bill to avoid further tragedies such as what Sage had to endure along with Sage’s parents. Sincerely, Jennifer Farney RN, BSN 434-258-9570

To the Education Committee, Please vote NO on all four bills --- to support the young people who would be affected. To protect their privacy .,respect their dignity and defend their rights. Barbara Morris Falls C hurch, Va.

Hb1387 no Hb1707 no Hb2137 no HB2432 yes

I oppose these bills as they will hurt trans youth. Being a transgender person myself I know the struggles that the youth will have in life if either of these bills r passed. Transgender youth r more likely to turn to suicide, or become addicted to drugs and alcohol due to the shame the they feel because they have to hide who they r . I encourage you to vote NO Thanks u for u time Emily Potts

I oppose these bills as they will hurt trans youth. Being a transgender person myself I know the struggles that the youth will have in life if either of these bills r passed. Transgender youth r more likely to turn to suicide, or become addicted to drugs and alcohol due to the shame the they feel because they have to hide who they r . I encourage you to vote NO Thanks u for u time Emily Potts

I oppose these bills as they will hurt trans youth. Being a transgender person myself I know the struggles that the youth will have in life if either of these bills r passed. Transgender youth r more likely to turn to suicide, or become addicted to drugs and alcohol due to the shame the they feel because they have to hide who they r . I encourage you to vote NO Thanks u for u time Emily Potts

I oppose these bills as they will hurt trans youth. Being a transgender person myself I know the struggles that the youth will have in life if either of these bills r passed. Transgender youth r more likely to turn to suicide, or become addicted to drugs and alcohol due to the shame the they feel because they have to hide who they r . I encourage you to vote NO Thanks u for u time Emily Potts

I oppose these bills as they will hurt trans youth. Being a transgender person myself I know the struggles that the youth will have in life if either of these bills r passed. Transgender youth r more likely to turn to suicide, or become addicted to drugs and alcohol due to the shame the they feel because they have to hide who they r . I encourage you to vote NO Thanks u for u time Emily Potts

I oppose these bills as they will hurt trans youth. Being a transgender person myself I know the struggles that the youth will have in life if either of these bills r passed. Transgender youth r more likely to turn to suicide, or become addicted to drugs and alcohol due to the shame the they feel because they have to hide who they r . I encourage you to vote NO Thanks u for u time Emily Potts

As a mother of a transgender child, I urge you to allow trans athletes to participate in sports that align with their gender identify. Sports have been life-saving for my child. There was a time when my child was so depressed that he could not get out of bed. Participating in physical activity is so wonderful for our physical and mental wellbeing and allowing children to be themselves and participate helps foster healthy lifestyle choices and promotes positive self image and mental health. Sports helped my child feel comfortable and accepted, and participating on a sports team has improved his mental health considerably. Good mental health has contributed to his excellent engagement in school and improved wellbeing in general. If he is no longer allowed to participate, I am concerned about the impacts on his mental and physical well-being. He now feels seen and accepted. Being excluded will be devastating and the effects will run much deeper and wider than the sports field. How would you feel being excluded from a beloved sport? Plead choose to include those in our society that are already feeling marginalized. Thank you.

I strongly oppose all of these bills. Transgender rights are human rights. Any regulations imposed by the government is government overreach. These bills do not put the mental health and well being of youth first. Did you know that on average 40% of trans youth die by suicide. These bills threaten to drive that frightening statistic higher. Please don't threaten the lives of transgender youth in our state!

Dear Board Members and Staff, I write to you as a resident of Virginia, a former teacher and a parent. I write to you as a firm believer in personal freedoms for all regardless of a person's age, race, color, ethnicity, political affiliation or economic status. By personal freedoms I mean the right to safely going about one's life without targeted harassment, without being labeled; to be able to feel save with one's identity. These proposed bills serve not to protect individual rights but to limit the rights of a group of children and adolescents who are in the process of discovering who they are and building their character. By limiting their ability to participate in school activities such as sport teams or by forcing them to share their most personal feelings about their identity and gender these bills, the actions that school staff, teachers and administrators will be forced to take will serve only to make them targets of discrimination and ostracism. Life is difficult enough for any teen or preteen trying to figure out where they fit in this world; they are all under such intense pressures to meet standards of academic performance, to have the "right" clothes, to have the latest tech item, to stave off peer pressure to experiment with drugs and alcohol and sex -- to add to all of that the fear of being called out, of being "outed" before the child is really ready to share that part of themselves with their peers or members of their family for fear of being rejected is just untenable; it's cruel and absolutely unnecessary. Then, for those students who have found the courage to share with the world their gender identity, to tell them that they cannot participate in school sports in a way that is in line with that gender identity is, essentially, telling them that they do not matter, that they do not have a place in the community, that they are unwelcome and less than human. To rob those students of the many life lessons and chances to build character and leadership skills and make what can be lifelong friends through sports on teams that match their gender identity is simply cruel and unnecessary. Transgender kids competing on teams that match their gender identity do not present threats to the potential achievements of their peers any more than non transgender teammates and opponents. We want all students to learn to respect themselves and to respect others, even others who look different, act differently and think differently. It is in learning how to interact respectfully with people who are different from us that we learn the important lessons that help us be good citizens of our local communities and the world. It opens so many doors of opportunity to explore different careers, different ways of serving our community and country. These bills will serve to teach kids that they do not have to be respectful of others who have gender identities that differ from their assigned sex at birth. What's next-- people who have different accents? different skin tones? from different neighborhoods? different wealth brackets? I implore you to think beyond the politically motivated sound bites and think of the mental, emotional and physical welfare of all students, trans, binary, nonbinary, -- all of them and vote NO on these bills. Thank you. JCMC

Children should not be pawns in your political agenda! Every child deserves an environment of encouragement, respect and opportunity. Our schools should not foster hatred and fear.

I oppose all four of the above bills that will hurt our trans youth, who are already one of the most at-risk groups in our state for mental health problems and attempting suicide. I am a Licensed Clinical Social Worker in Virginia, a small business owner in Herndon, and the parent of two children in Fairfax County Public Schools, one of whom is non-binary. As a therapist, I also regularly work with trans and non-binary students who fear for the safety at school and sometimes at home. Why is our state legislature trying to make the state LESS safe for our most vulnerable youth? As both an expert professional and a mother, I urge you to vote NO to all four of the proposed laws that would hurt our children.

Honorable members of the House of Delegates, Jesus Loves the Little Children and so do I! Please vote no against these ugly, disgusting anti-children bills! Thank you!

This is the time to provide an inclusive environment for our youth. All young people deserve to feel safe, respected and included. LBGTQ+ youth are especially vulnerable and the one place they can feel accepted is in a school setting. Please don't take this away and make life more difficult. Sports provide so many skills that all kids deserve. There is no threat. Instead it is an opportunity for the Commonwealth of VA to continue to shine. We should not be taking away the rights of people or "outing" students to their parents. I am a long time VA resident (and Voter) and grew up in Northern VA in the 70's. I am contacting you now because I am very concerned about Human Rights in VA including LBGTQ+ and Women's Rights. I want to continue to be proud to live in Virginia. Please do the right thing and welcome all types of people in the education system. Provide a safe and inclusive environment for all. Respectfully, Cassandra Kudej

As an educator with over 35 years of teaching experience & of working with LGBTQ youth of all ages, I urge you to reject these bills that will only harm trans kids. Trans kids already face innumerable challenges at school & there is no valid reason that sports has to be yet another one. Please let these kids be themselves. Let them play for their respective teams. Allow trans kids to live their lives to the fullest. When we support trans kids, we support all kids .

As a resident of Henrico, parent of two teenagers in public school, and Licensed Professional Counselor, I oppose the following harmful bills: HB 1387 (Greenhalgh), HB 1399 (March), HB 1707 (Durant), and HB 2432 (LaRock). Please join me in protecting trans rights.

These proposed bills are transphobic, prejudicial and just plain harmful to transgender and/or non-binary youth of Virginia. While debate may ensue about transgender athletes leave it up to the individual schools. Regarding forced “outing” of students to parents by teachers and school staff this is an absolutely horrendous and potentially very harmful proposal! Earlier this year I went to a Fairfax County School Board meeting re this very topic. It was so sad and scary and absolutely heart wrenching to see young people who got up to testify against this proposed bill NOT for themselves but rather “for my friend who would be kicked out of their house tonight if their parents knew they were transgender”. Schools are supposed to be a place where students not only go to learn from books but also care, respect, support and tolerance FOR & FROM others! The young people who feel it is safe to share with their parents will, those that do not should be able to have sanctuary. Our immediate neighborhood has already lost one young person to suicide due to this scenario - do we need more on our hands? PLEASE VOTE NO!

As a registered voting Virginia resident, I am writing with grave concerns about HB 1387 (Greenhalgh), an anti-transgender bill that would harm transgender youth and prevent them from participating in school athletics in K-12 schools as well as higher education club sports. I'm also concerned about HB 2432 (LaRock), as this bill would require public school personnel to contact a student's parent if they believe that the student could be transgender and/or nonbinary. When the House Education Committee meets on Wednesday, I urge you to reject these bills. We can agree that transgender youth exist and live here in Virginia and attend public schools and colleges in Virginia. Transgender students, like any other student, deserve the same chances to learn teamwork, sportsmanship, leadership and self-discipline, and to build a sense of belonging with their peers through sports. Both the Virginia High School League and the NCAA have policies that allow transgender students to play in sports, and these policies are working just fine. HB 1387 is unnecessary and would prevent trans athletes from accessing the benefits of sports. Forcibly outing transgender youth also creates a unwelcoming school environment. Trust between school staff and students is necessary to provide adequate mental-health support. If students feel that their communications are not confidential, they will be less likely to disclose important information to their school counselors and teachers. Additionally, too many LGBTQ youth still face significant challenges fighting discrimination, misconceptions, and abuse by peers, family members, and others in their communities. Up to 40% of homeless youth identify as LGBTQ. Of these, 46% ran away because of family rejection. HB 2432 would place LGBTQ+ youth at risk for housing insecurity. This is not a bill that will help LGBTQ+ youth. Transgender students already face disproportionately high rates of bullying and rejection, and the mere introduction of this legislation is making it even worse. It essentially amounts to state-sponsored bullying. The legislature should be focused on real priorities that all Virginians are facing, not manufacturing a problem where none exists. I strongly believe that every Virginian should be treated with dignity and respect, including transgender young people. Forcibly outing students will increase the strain on the current mental health provider shortage: “93 of Virginia’s 133 localities are federally-designated Mental Health Professional Shortage Areas; 37% of Virginians (3.2 million) live in them. Two localities have no licensed BH professionals; 35 have no trained BH prescriber (Psychiatrist, Psychiatric-Mental Health Nurse Practitioner). It will take a variety of short- and long-term strategies over a number of years to address Virginia’s significant shortage of licensed BH professionals." : Oswalt, 2022 Executive Director Virginia Health Care Foundation. HB 1387 and HB 2432 are wrong for Virginia. Please reject them. Thank you for your time.

I am writing to ask that you No on these bills. They are squarely in opposition to Virginia's values. If we cannot abide by Patrick Henry's cry of "give me liberty or give me death," then what good are we. Not allowing our trans youth to live authentically and privately is tyrannical and dangerous.

Doing this isn’t going to help anything. It’s just going to put people down and make them realize that the country that they were supposed to love, doesn’t love them back. Right now, school sports is really unnecessary to have restrictions. We need to focus on bigger issues that will affect everyone and not just the LGBTQ+ community.

Support

I am in OPPOSITION of HB1707 and HB2432. Forcibly outing youth creates an INCREDIBLY unsafe environment for them, considering LGBTQ youth are more likely to experience bullying, harassment, discrimination, all of which correlate to higher rates of anxiety, depression, and suicide. These are violent and hateful pieces of legislation which exist to only serve the beliefs of a small group of people. Please consider the true purpose of the bill and the evidence-based rates of poor mental health amongst LGBTQ youth, especially trans youth, when looking at this bill. If you care about children, this bill is not the solution; it is part of the problem.

I fully support these bills

It is proven that transgender people, and LGBT+ people in general, have a higher rate of suicide when they aren't allowed to be who they are and when their loved ones don't accept them. This bill proposes the acception of hundreds, if not thousands, of children dying. If you can accept their blood on your hands but not their true identities then you are the true problem, not someone's gender. You all care so much about children before they're even born, but are willing to let them die just because they don't fit your idea of who they are and "should" be. If you truly cared about the next generation of doctors, nurses, politicians, then you would be doing everything to ensure they live long enough to become those things and change the world for the better.

I represent TReVoices; my name is Scott Newgent a 50-year-old transman. As shocking as it may be I agree with NOT allowing schools to change a child's pronouns; we are against childhood medical transition. I am happy to testify in person as to why if needed. -Scott Newgent

Trans students suffer from a higher rate of suicide than their straight peers. Providing a safe and supportive environment at school has been proven to drastically reduce that risk. These bills would remove that support and lead to more dead children. I don’t think anyone wants that.

My name is Prisha. I was 15 years old when I learned about gender ideology from the trans community. At 17, I was being medicalized with a high dose of testosterone. One year later, my healthy breasts were cut off. I had pre-existing diagnosis’s of anorexia nervosa, anxiety, panic disorder, major depression, and borderline personality disorder. I also experienced a sexual assault at 14. These other conditions and issues were all put to the side when I uttered the word “gender.” My therapist even attested that all of my other problems were caused by being born in the wrong body. This wasn’t true, but I was medicalized anyway. I was deemed “stable and well” despite multiple recent suicide attempts, active cutting, and malnutrition. During the time of my transition, I also asked my doctors for liposuction. They told me “no” because I was “too unwell to have an elective cosmetic surgery,” but decided I was healthy enough to have my breasts removed. Now at 24, I have two huge scars where my breasts should be, and no sensation but the occasional zapping pain I feel. My body is disproportionate, causing me to be clumsy and ugly – I have no hips and large shoulders. My neck, back, and shoulders constantly burn from the over-growth. My throat is sore, and I can no longer sing or raise my voice, jeopardizing my safety and taking my joy. I have suffered hair loss, as well as hair growth on my body, which I have to treat with lazer hair removal. My muscles and joints ache. I decided that I did not want to be a woman before I had ever gotten to be one. I was a little girl. Now I will never fully know what it is like. I fully support a bill that protects youth from “Gender Affirming Care.”

VPEP Opposes 1707 amd 2432 these bills Destroy the bond of trust between the faculty and the student. Trans students disproportionately suffer homelessness and abuse. They also suffer a higher rate of attempted suicide. To force a teacher to out a student puts the student in potential danger and puts the teacher in a tentative legal position.

I write to oppose HB2432 and HB1707 as classic examples of government overreach. The bills themselves are perfect examples of the generational divide on the gender issue. The sad fact is, not all parents are accepting or understanding of gender identification issues because the choose to be that way. There may be a perceived stigma of having a child with gender identity differences; there may be a deep-seated religious intolerance; there could be a simple inability to process the information and new ideas and concepts. Whatever the cause, the result is that children are put at risk by this legislation by forcing schools - a supposed safe space - to notify parents. If the children felt comfortable talking to their parents about this issue, they would. Sometimes the only time a child can feel safe and heard is with a teacher or counselor who is TRAINED to deal with these difficult issues and while they undoubtedly care about the student, they are not as blinded by proximity as a parent likely is. I am the parent of a trans child, a former Fairfax County public school student. Despite creating a fully open and accepting environment, our child still struggled with his feelings and emotions. I can only imagine how awful it would be for a child experiencing the same emotions in a non-caring, non-supportive environment. The legislature does not belong in the middle of this fast-developing issue. Stay out of it. Perhaps time would be better spent on issues of actual public safety, maybe in schools? Or mental health services? There are a lot of issues that actually impact, in a real way, your constituents. Work on those. Not these false issues.

Parents, not the government will always be financially responsible for followup costs when things go wrong.

As a Virginia Resident and recent high school graduate who is transgender, I urge you to vote NO and OPPOSE the bills HB 1707 Durant and HB 2432 LaRock. These bills would forcibly out transgender children to their parents WITHOUT their consent. Minors should have the legal right to explore their gender and expression safely at school, without extra anxiety and fear at home. Children, including transgender children, have personhood and humanity. Both of these bills pathologize being transgender as “mental illness”, implied by the text stating that a child expressing that they are transgender means they are in a bad mental state and require counseling solely because they are transgender. Transgender students do need support and mental health care to help them deal with others’ hatred around them; bullying, harassment, assault from peers and adults in and out of school, as well as the rise in propositions of anti-trans legislation nationwide and within Virginia. But the suggestion of forcing transgender students into counseling because the government, or anyone, perceives transness as a “mental illness” and that it should be fixed, is conversion therapy. Conversion therapy seeks to somehow eradicate transness (which is not possible) by gaslighting, torturing and traumatizing the people who are forced into it. Transness is not a choice, we do not choose what our gender is or how we feel. Children should NOT be forced to repress their feelings. I was able to safely explore my gender and expression at my secondary school, with the support of peers and teachers, despite not being “out” at home. If school was an unsafe and restricted space for me, I know my mental health would have declined severely. I am very lucky, as many of my transgender peers in my school and in other schools had to deal with severe harassment, bullying AND physical threats and violence, especially in other places in the Commonwealth which are significantly more unsafe than my area. Expression of self is a key and important freedom for all people, including children. Many transgender K-12 students already face harassment, bullying, and violence in their school environments. Trangender children should not have to face these anxieties at school, in addition to worrying how their parents would feel about their identity and/or personal expression. If transgender students were outed to their parents, they could potentially face abuse, emotional and physical, and even being thrown out of their home or being disowned. Restricting children’s expression of themselves IS emotional abuse. Trangender identity and gender-nonconforming expression are NOT harmful to children, unnatural, or mental illness. Please protect the safety and mental health of transgender children, the same as for any other student, by voting NO and OPPOSING HB 1707 Durant and HB 2432 LaRock. Students should NOT be outed by schools and their staff!

Please oppose HB1707 and HB2432, as they are extremely harmful to trans and nonbinary students. I am a teacher, and educators are well aware that every student needs at least one trusted adult in a school setting to feel safe and supported. This has been directly related to a student's success in school. Please do not ask teachers to betray the trust of a student who might only feel supported in their gender identity at school. These bills suggest that a student who identifies with a gender other than the one assigned to them at birth is in a mental health crisis. This idea is insulting to trans youth, but they very likely will be in a crisis if bills like this become law. Why is it the job of a legislator to decide that choosing a gender different from the one assigned at birth is a problem? What will they decide is a problem next? Sexual orientation? Interracial relationships? Religious beliefs or lack of? Please don't let these bills out of your subcommittee. Thank you for your service and time.

As a student in Virginia, I strongly oppose this bill. LGTBQ+ students are not pawns in your political games. Students deserve freedom and privacy and safety and you want to take all that away. I urge you to reject HB1707.

HB1454 No HB1707 NO HB2432 NO

Please reject HB 1707 and HB 2432. As an educator and a former queer child, I trust LGBTQ+ kids to have important conversations with their parents when they are ready and when it is safe for them to do so. Unfortunately, it isn't always safe. Children have more information than school personnel to understand whether it is. It is not the job of schools to meddle in family relationships by outing children to their parents. It is the responsibility of schools to provide children with a safe and respectful environment that supports their learning. Forcing kids to come out to their parents before they are ready is an abdication of that responsibility. These bills would require school staff to betray trust that children already have placed in them. Just worrying about this possibility is surely, right now, already keeping kids from learning. Again, please reject HB 1707 and HB 2432. Thank you, Anna Hebner Henrico

Dear members of the K-12 Subcommittee, I’m Virginia Pannabecker and I live in Roanoke. I’m writing to oppose HB 1707 (Durant) and HB 2432 (LaRock), bills that would require public school personnel to contact a student’s parent if they believe that the student’s self-identified gender does not align with their “biological sex.” I’m writing as a parent and as a community member. Many people I care about, family, friends, colleagues, and neighbors, identify as part of the LGBTQ+ community. Every LGBTQ+ person’s journey is unique and discovering and deciding to share parts of their identity with others can be a sensitive time. There have been a few times in my life where a friend or family member has come out to me or shared a part of their identity with me, and I feel grateful that they felt safe to do so and felt they could trust that I would listen and not talk with others about what they shared without their permission. Some provisions in these bills would force school officials to betray the trust of students by demanding they “out” students to parents, even if the student is not ready. Pushing school staff to disclose deeply private information to parents without the student’s consent breaches trust and adds to the already high risk of bullying, harassment, and isolation that LGBTQ+ youth may face. Trust between school staff and students is necessary to provide adequate mental-health support. If students feel that their communications are not confidential, they will be less likely to disclose important information to their school counselors and teachers. Please oppose HB 1707 and HB 2432 and protect the safety and respect that LGBTQ+ youth need and deserve to thrive. Thank you for your time.

Not all families are created equal. There is no purpose served in ‘outing’ a child/student to an unsupportive family, unless your end-goal is to see harm to the child/student. Please consider who is harmed the most by these bills, and perhaps ask yourself why grown adults continue to target LGBTQ-identifying children.

As a parent and citizen, I'm in support of those bills.

Good Morning, My name is Alanna and I am a LCSW here in the state of Virginia with a high school age student at Albemarle County Schools. I am writing today to express my frustration with the bill that are being discussed today, introduced by the GOP delegates. My input speaks as my experience as a LCSW but more importantly a mother trying to raise my child to be a well rounded, kind, and inclusive human. HB 1707 and HB2432 are disgusting bills which label a person wanting to be comfortable and loved in their own skin for who they are as a "mental state". I know first hand providing therapy services to adolescents that some parents/guardians/grownups are just not safe to talk to. This very narrow-minded view of a bill can cause real harm for some of the minors that it is our duty to protect. They view the minors in their care as property or a reflection of who they are and not as a person with emotions, opinions, and bodily autonomy. The only "mental state" we as a society need to be concerned with those "Minors and students who self-identifying as a gender different from biological sex" or don't identify with any gender, is the depression and anxiety as a result from hearing that who they are isn't good enough for out of touch adults who expect those who aren't like who they identify as, to suffer in silence alone. It is our jobs as the "adults" to teach the younger generations to value all in our society for exactly who they are. These bills are nothing more than government overreach, exactly what the GOP says they don't want.

Dear Subcommittee Members, As a cisgender parent of a non-binary person, I am writing in opposition to HB1707 and HB2432. Based upon the wording of these bills, it is evident that these bills authors perceive atypical gender identity as a mental health issue in need of parental intervention. Medical research has established that this is simply not the case. Positive, respectful parental involvement is a necessity for happy, healthy children As a parent of a non-binary person I can assure you that mental health is a big concern of mine that arises not from my child's identity, but from society's view and treatment of atypical or non-conforming individuals. In an ideal world, young people would be able to speak freely with their parents, peers, teachers and others about any and all matters of things without fear of rejection and rebuke. Sadly, we know this is not the case. It is not the place of the legislature to force these conversations. Supportive school environments are paramount to the security and safety of all students; these bills would force parental involvement when we know parental support and care is not always guaranteed. Reject these ill-conceived bills. Thank you.

I work with hundreds and hundreds of families across VA every year who find themselves on the gender journey. Most families have a difficult time in the beginning understanding and accepting that their child is transgender or nonbinary. With accurate information and quality trusted resources, those families are able to move forward to work with their child (of any age) and figure out the next steps that feel right for them. Sadly, there is often a parent that is NOT on board or cooperative and rejects their child's gender identity and causes harm, such as verbal or physical abuse. A disapproving parent may shave a kids hair off (without their permission) or say they cannot wear the clothes they prefer with the message...not my kid, not in my house. As a result, youth may find themselves with housing and food insecurities. Youth may search for other sources of support and that is often their friends, another family member, or a club at school. To OUT a student (tell someone about their identity before they are ready) to a parent without their permission or making a plan with them, can have a devastating impact if they are LGBTQ+. Please respect a student's right to privacy and work with them with safety in mind, just as schools do over other potentially harmful or dangerous situations. Students deserve as many spaces to feel they can explore their identities, engage socially with peers, and feel a sense of belonging. Vote NO on HB1707 and HB2432

I am NOT in favor of HB 1707. I do not believe that public educators have any place in interjecting themselves into any highly personal aspect of their students' lives especially the highly controversial and family-private subject of gender identification. In fact, any educator who dares to speak to a student about such a private matter should understand that such conduct is a form of psychological sexual abuse which would render both the educator and the school district liable for the intentional infliction of mental pain and anguish. NO to HB 1707.

If we want students to be safe (and I think we can all agree on that goal), we cannot forcibly out them to their parents. Children should feel free enough at school to be who they are. Not all families would welcome the news that their child is gay, and the child should be allowed to tell their parents when they feel the time is right. This is a safety issue for a population that is already at high risk for self-harm.

HB1707 and HB2432 are incredibly dangerous bills that would destroy any chance of safety for many transgender Virginian students. I am a transgender woman who went through the Virginian school system not too long ago, and it was only in one of the classrooms I went to where I was able to be out and myself, without fear of violence from my parents. Unfortunately, many transgender students are at risk from abuse or violence from their parents if they were to be outed to them as transgender, and if these bills pass and require students to be outed to their parents, then it will be disastrous. Please strike down these bills, and let these students live their lives in peace, and not as tools in some political game.

I am STRONGLY opposed to outing any non-binary or transgender student to caregivers and parents who are not supportive of their identities. I am currently a School Counselor in Virginia. Youth have a high risk of suicidality and suicide attempts and the LGBTQIA+ group has the highest risk of suicide due to unsupportive family, school systems, etc. Side by Side has been working for years to help the growing number of displaced and homeless LGBTQIA+ youth in the state of Virginia due to how high of a risk outing them too soon or to unsupportive caregivers is! UMFS now has mostly non-binary and transgender kids - kids rejected and now homeless for just being who they are. If we continue to out our youth before they or their caregivers are ready, trained, counseled, coached ... you will be overflowing our already strained systems of support! Can we really afford to lose more youth due to misinformation and fear?!

It is the teacher’s job to support and nurture their students, not to serve as gender police on behalf of a Puritan hate mob. Trans and nonbinary youth need to be supported and treated with dignity and respect. I urge all members to oppose this ridiculous, pandering, anti-trans legislation.

As an educator and parent of a transgender child in the Virginia public schools, I write to express my opposition to yet another set of proposals that are hostile to children like mine. In what is clearly "open season" on our kids, HB 1707 and 2432 are two more badly thought-out bills with real-life consequences that need to be considered. Both claim to support parents and include them in the process of gender transition, and as such a parent I can only say that inclusion is great, but only because I came into the process from a position of supporting my child. The unintended (or perhaps intended) consequence of these bills would be to expose vulnerable students to parents whether they are supportive or not -- and we know, from alarming statistics about suicide and homelessness among trans and non-binary youth (as well as the horrific practice of conversion therapy) that may parents are not be. Instead of supporting at-risk students, these bills would make them even more vulnerable to unsupportive and potentially abusive parents, while removing the ability for schools to operate as safe spaces for them. Lastly, as an educator, it troubles me that these proposals place teachers in the position of having to police their children, putting them in an invidious position in which they cannot build relations of trust, when what transgender and non-binary students need are trusting relationships with the teachers who have ethical obligations to care for them and look out for their best interests while at school. Like similar bills before this committee targeting trans kids, these two should be tabled.

I am the parent of two transgender young adults and I am writing to strongly oppose these bills that propose school officials notifying a student's parents about their gender identity without the student's consent. Telling your parents you are transgender is hard enough, even if you think you will be still be loved and supported and not kicked out, let alone having your parents informed or you telling your parents under duress before you are ready for them to know, possibly before you really have even clarified for yourself whether you are transgender or not. These bills put school officials in the middle of a decision that should be an individual's decision; students know their families best and how the family might respond. I know many teachers who want to be teachers because they care about the well-being of students and want to be positive forces in students' lives. These bills instead create situations where teachers cannot be supportive, kind, and loving, the kind of people transgender students need in their corner due to their already high levels of bullying and harassment. These bills remove potential mental health and emotional support from transgender students by forcing them to conceal their identity at school, because they are unable to ask for help for fear of being outed, or by informing students' parents long before the student is ready, creating conflict and possible abuse at home when parents are unsupportive and refuse to listen to or get help for their students. Please talk to transgender youth about how their discussions with their parents proceeded before assuming every parent has the student’s best intentions at heart, boundless love, and willingness to let students explore their gender or to be able to adjust to their child being different. Please vote NO on these bills that would prevent teachers from being kind, compassionate, and supportive to students who are struggling.

Please vote NO on HB 1707 and HB 2432. These bills require anyone working in a school or for a school board to notify parents if they believe a child might self-identify as a different gender. A child who is doing well in school, expressed no concerns to a teacher or counselor, and caused no disciplinary problems, would still be “outed” to their parents simply for being perceived as different or because a teacher believed the child thinks they may be gender non-conforming. Being transgender is not a problem. It is not a crime. It is not a threat. Yet these bills equate non-traditional gender expression with suicide, requiring urgent parental notification. In many—and hopefully most—instances parents are aware that their child is gender non-conforming, and love & support their child as best they can. However, in far too many households these children face ridicule, shame, or abuse. There are many reasons why trans youth face tragically high rates of homelessness and suicide. Lack of family support all too often plays a major role in the substantial burdens transgender children face simply trying to live their daily lives. These bills would create an instant chilling effect on the children in Virginia schools who may be struggling with gender identity. Teachers, counselors, and therapists would go from being a potential listening ear or source of support to instruments of the state, reaching into their personal lives. Both bills are deliberately vague about the very real practical challenge of teachers and administrators knowing how a child self-identifies. Both bills create a threatening environment where teachers police what clubs children join along with their appearance, speech, clothing, and social groups. Virginia is much better off when teachers, counselors, and administrators focus on educating, nurturing, and supporting every child, rather than forcibly outing children on vague notions of who may, or may not, be gender non-conforming.

Our country was built on freedoms so stop trying to take away the rights of our teenagers and children. It is not the right of anyone to forcibly out LGBTQ+ students to anyone without the students consent or knowledge. Stop playing politics by destroying the rights of others. These children already have enough to deal with in their lives without the intervention of destructive laws aimed to harm them further.

Without exaggeration this will lead to children getting disowned, abused, or killed. I'm lucky to come from an accepting family but I've known many peers who are not as fortunate. A student should be able to express themselves amongst their peers at school or in clubs and the teachers should not be forced to inform their guardians about anything the children would not want them knowing so long as it is not harmful. (ie bullying) A GSA club can be an important formative experience for both queer and cishet students to form a community together.

Stop these horrific bills! These bills do nothing but put trans youth in harm's way!! And I also strongly oppose HB1387 and HB1399, the transphobic sports bills. Let trans kids play and as who they are. These bills are about erasing trans youth socially. These hateful transphobic attacks need to stop. Trans rights are human rights, period!

Schools' primary responsibility is to students. Students are not property of parents or guardians, and students have rights, including privacy rights. If students don't want to disclose information about their pronouns, nicknames, relationships, gender identity, or sexual orientation to parents, that is the students' right. Schools are not surveillance apparatuses for parents or guardians and should not violate students' trust.

Re: Oppose House Bill 1707 – a bill to forcibly out transgender and nonbinary youth without their consent Dear Chair Avoli and members of the K-12 Subcommittee: The ACLU of Virginia strongly opposes House Bill 1707, which would encourage Virginia educators to attempt to identify nonbinary and transgender students and then disclose that information without their consent and before they and their families may be ready. This bill targets vulnerable Virginia youth and makes them less safe both at school and at home. We urge you to reject this bill. Best, Wyatt S.M. Rolla Senior Transgender Rights Attorney ACLU of Virginia

HB 1707 and 2170 - This is discrimination and harming students of being involved in sports, and their identity to be who they are as they participate. Putting this pressure on teachers and coaches is outside their job roles. A child’s identity is nobody’s business but their own. I do not support this bill. HB - 2432: As a resident in counseling, it is my duty to cause no harm to my clients and to keep confidentiality, even with minors. The only time we, as counseling professionals, break confidentiality is if they are a threat to themselves or others. If we suspect parents are non-affirming, this is a risk to our client’s safety and psychological health. I do not support this bill.

How dare you put this burden on teachers? It’s not in their Motis to be determinants of someone’s sexual presentation. Frankly, you were trying to have the teacher be aware of some thing that soon themselves may not even be aware of yet. This is not something the state should be taking on. Let the kids be who they are.

Outing anyone, regardless of age, is potentially lethal, one that tends to bring violence to those who are LGBTQ. It is not something that anyone should redisclose without permission, and with you it runs the risk of causing abuse, neglect, homelessness, or suicide, and we should not be changing our laws to risk a youth’s physical or mental health. As a mental health provider specialized in this area, it is the ultimate risk and one that I cannot ethically or morally take. We need to be acting in concert with what mental and medical health experts recommend, affirming care, which means not redisclosing someone’s identity to others, especially without permission. Allowing youth to participate in clubs, sports, and performing arts without explicit permission from parents is also essential to character formation, gives them control, of which they have little as minors, and may, in fact, help save their lives. Please allow youth to participate in school-sanctioned groups and activities without the burden of denial of participation by parents.

Hateful, unfounded in fact or any intelligible sense, dangerous. This kind of disgusting oversight into LGBTQ+ students' identities has no place in any modern society, and certainly doesn't belong in Virginia. It's extremely embarrassing to have neighbors so ignorant that bills like these could even make it onto paper, let alone to committee. Why not try reading some of the scientific and social literature instead of making up reasons to spew hate onto your neighbors? Seriously, get a life.

I oppose these bills as they purposely are designed to intimidate, coerce, and out all students who identify as LGBTQIA and also any student who is an ally to LGBTQIA students. As a lifelong resident of Virginia, I have first-hand and personal knowledge of how difficult it is to being in a school setting as a Queer individual without these measures. So, I feel especially confident that making these bills law in the state of Virginia will absolutely cause irreparable harm to incredibly vulnerable students. Further, these bills are framed as parental rights issues, but in truth, they are designed to discriminate based on personal religious beliefs, which is unconstitutional due to the First Amendment and the Establishment Clause. You should remember that suicide rates amount LGBTQIA children are not due to them identifying as LGBTQIA, its due to how they are treated. It is the second leading cause of suicides in young people....45% of these youths have seriously considered suicide per the Trevor Projects 2022 survey. Why would you want to increase that? Why would you want to even add a tiny bit of influence in that regard? These bills are cruel and the students that will be affected will be put in seriously dangerous situations. There are many, many, many parents that would intentionally harm their children to "remove the sin of homosexuality", whether it be physical abuse, emotional abuse, or spiritual abuse - this is proven to cause lifelong damage. These bills are not for parental rights. They are to shame students who do not identify or present as straight, period. They would remove any sense of safety for those who find it in the school setting, destroy trust between school staff and students and impose an unconstitutional discriminatory law to the very place that students are sent to not only be educated, but to find out who they are. You need to remember that these students grow up to become adults who contribute to our society. That will pay taxes, buy homes and, yes, in some cases, have children of their own. Do you think that they will forget these actions? That there was a concerted effort to intentionally harm them? I don't and history will not be kind.

HBs 1707, 2170, 2432 would force school districts to “out” students to their parents. Every LGBTQ person’s journey is unique, and for many, their discovery of self can be a sensitive time. A child’s decision to disclose parts of their identity should remain solely in their hands. Some provisions in these bills would force school officials to betray the trust of students by demanding they “out” students to parents, even if the student is not ready. Pushing school staff to disclose deeply private information to parents breaches trust and creates an uncomfortable school environment for LGBTQ+ youth. This effort to “out” children is unethical and unenforceable. The adults that work in schools are there to educate and protect children, not police their identities and serve as agents for a discriminatory political agenda. These bills would destroy trust between students and school staff. While we agree that important information about a child’s welfare should not be withheld from their parental guardians, we are suspicious of provisions that do not consider the consent of the minor in question. Trust between school staff and students is necessary to provide adequate mental-health support. If students feel that their communications are not confidential, they will be less likely to disclose important information to their school counselors and teachers. This legislation endangers LGBTQ+ students, who already face high rates of bullying, harassment, and isolation. LGBTQ students who lack support and face harassment and discrimination at school experience increased isolation, depression, and risk of suicide and are more likely than their peers to miss school, often in an effort to avoid abuse. These negative experiences can have serious long-term negative impacts on these students’ health, education, and well-being.

I oppose the above bills regarding informing parents of a child's LGBTQ status for the following reasons: • These bills would force school districts to “out” students to their parents. o Every LGBTQ person’s journey is unique, and for many, their discovery of self can be a sensitive time. A child’s decision to disclose parts of their identity should remain solely in their hands. o Some provisions in these bills would force school officials to betray the trust of students by demanding they “out” students to parents, even if the student is not ready. Pushing school staff to disclose deeply private information to parents breaches trust and creates an uncomfortable school environment for LGBTQ+ youth. o This effort to “out” children is unethical and unenforceable. The adults that work in schools are there to educate and protect children, not police their identities and serve as agents for a discriminatory political agenda. • These bills would destroy trust between students and school staff. o While we agree that important information about a child’s welfare should not be withheld from their parental guardians, we are suspicious of provisions that do not consider the consent of the minor in question. o Trust between school staff and students is necessary to provide adequate mental-health support. If students feel that their communications are not confidential, they will be less likely to disclose important information to their school counselors and teachers. • This legislation endangers LGBTQ+ students, who already face high rates of bullying, harassment, and isolation. o LGBTQ students who lack support and face harassment and discrimination at school experience increased isolation, depression, and risk of suicide and are more likely than their peers to miss school, often in an effort to avoid abuse. o These negative experiences can have serious long-term negative impacts on these students’ health, education, and well-being. As the parents of a recently graduated high school student who has many LGBTQ friends, I can tell you what havoc implementation of these harmful practices would have on children and educators. None of you are experts in child health, child psychology or education and you should not be promoting these types of harmful and destructive practices. If you were experts in these areas, you would know what you are proposing in these bills is wrong and bad for kids.

I strenuously OPPOSE all of these bills. They impose value judgements on students, teachers and administrators that are not the purview of the state but of youth and their families.

What happened to the American ideal of privacy? What gives school personnel the right to betray that ideal? What happens when school personnel "out" a person who is in fact not gay? How will that affect that child? Can the janitor or lunch lady now decide who is gay or not? Teachers are there to teach, not get involved in the intimate privacy of students. Being LGBTQ is not a crime so don't try to make it one. Stop the politics with our children. Instead worry about making sure our students are safe from gun violence in their schools. Allow our students to learn in a safe environment without bullying.

Stop attacking these families and their kids. Gender dysphoria is real, and these children need to be accepted and supported. Their classmates need to learn to accept and be kind to those who are not exactly like they are (so when they grow up, we don't continue to have to deal with the ignorance and cruelty we see here today). Everyone deserves to be who they want to be, this is America, right?

I oppose HB 1707. This bill is not only I'll conceived, but possibly endangers children. Students should trust their teachers, especially in situations where a student may not feel comfortable with their parents. This bill erodes trust and is opposite of the freedom Virginia stands for.

These are harmful to children. And should absolutely not be passed. Do your jobs instead of trying to discriminate against kids.

Please vote NO on these bills.

I oppose these bills. Please scrap them.

I strongly oppose HB 1707, HB 2170, and HB 2432. They limit the freedoms and liberties of students, taking away their support from educated adults. As a senior at Langley High School, as a student speaking for students, we do not want these bills in our schools!

HB 1707 (Durant)- Oppose. HB 2432 (LaRock)- Oppose. Some children share things at school that they are afraid to say at home for fear of mental or physical abuse from their parents or guardians, Strongly oppose.

My name is Robert Luong. I grew up in Centreville, Virginia. I attended Liberty Middle School & Centreville High School. I graduated from Centreville Highschool in 2012. Sometime between the ages of 12-14 years old. I remembered I had gone to a school counselor speaking on the issue of my mother experiencing mental illness and the fact I had felt unsafe in my home. I also stated that I was a homosexual while crying in fear. I told my high school counselor in confidence. That then resulted in a call home to my mother. Telling her I was a homosexual. Which then resulted in an argument with her. Then her calling the local police department over the issue of my sexuality, not my mother's mental illness. When I left the house in order to attempt to run away in broad daylight after the result of the argument. I had the great opportunity of meeting a police officer. Who had attempted to offer to quote "save my soul" with prayer. Which then resulted in me calling the local police department requesting an atheist police officer due to violations of my first amendment rights. I was lucky the 911 operator had empathized with my situation. Then a second police officer arrived on the scene in an attempt to diffuse the situation without religious intervention and spiritual counsel. There were many instances I felt unsafe. My mother had been threatening me with homelessness since I was 8 years old. There were many where I feared for my physical safety. My mother never hurt me but she would break into my room and enter my personal space to scream at me with hostility and aggressiveness close to my face, and person. For those of you who do not know Casa Ruby did not exist until 2012. My mother believes that the government was stalking her, tapping her phone, the internet, and her car. I was also physically assaulted while attending school by other students which would lead me to get into physical altercations as a means of self-defense. he educators often looked the other way as did the administrators because there were no protections for LGBTQ+ students in the student handbook. If students can not trust their peers, their educators, or their local police department. Who can they trust? The school did not bother to call home because my mother became difficult to deal with. I truly struggled. Between my home life, and physical altercations within the school. My grades suffered tremendously. School should not be treated like a prison. Please protect LGBTQ+ students. LGBTQ+ youth deserve housing, affirmation, respect, and understanding. When we take away their safety we are endangering their lives.

I write to urge you and your colleagues to vote down HB 1707, 2432, and 2170. HB 1707 and 2432 will, in no uncertain terms, cause greater abuse, neglect, and mistreatment of queer youth in Virginia. These two bills require teachers--some of the most important people in children's lives--to "out" them to their parents if they suspect a schoolchild is trans or otherwise gender nonconforming. Whatever your politics and perceptions of queer people, surely we can agree our schools are a sacred place where children should feel safe and included; there will be plenty of time for division and prejudice once they grow up. These two bills are plainly an attack on our Commonwealth's children, driven by a political extremism that is willing to drag our children into a national circus of fearmongering and hate. The bills' sponsors may make contrived arguments about "protecting" children against some formless danger; they know they are arguing in bad faith. You all know it. I trust that you ran for office and came to Richmond because you all genuinely want to improve our Commonwealth. I implore you to see that these bills do the opposite, and hurt the children most in need of our help. Work today to protect them: End these bills. HB 2170 is subtler than the first two. It uses a process requirement to hide its true purpose and effect. On the surface, requiring parents to agree to their child participating in extracurricular activities does not seem so onerous or unreasonable. And yet, it would have the effect of ensuring no students could attend a meeting of a gay-straight alliance or similar group without fear of a teacher reporting it to their parents. Even for students from loving homes, such an implicit threat could easily scare them off and prevent them from seeking out important help and education as they try to learn more about who they are. For students from abusive homes, reporting on their attendance would be a very real threat to their physical safety. Please, do not weaponize our schools and harm our children's education and wellbeing to serve a political agenda. This is not the work you were sent to Richmond to do. It is, simply put, bullying. It is behavior we should have outgrown when we were schoolchildren ourselves.

Sharing private or personal information about a person without their consent is not something anyone should have to experience, especially LGBTQ students whose wellness and safety could be compromised by the actions of teachers, staff, or administrators. How a person feels about themselves or the way they identify should not be subject to a form of harassment known as outing. When a person is outed, personal or private information is shared with their control or consent. When straight people have autonomy over their own identities, and LGBTQ don’t, this is discrimination. Targeting one group of people specifically for their identity is discrimination. Outing children without consent is putting minors at risk for harmful repercussions. Gender policing by teachers breaks trust between students and educators. LGBTQ students deserve to feel safe at school and at home. LGBTQ students deserve to have their privacy and personal information respected and protected by adults in school. I am the parent of an LGBTQ student, and if a school administrator felt the need to out my child to me, I would have serious questions about why that adult was discussing my child’s personal information without my child’s consent or mine. Neither my child’s teachers, school administrators, or the VDOE or the state of VA have the right to publicly communicate personal or private information about my child without my child’s consent or mine. If the governing bodies of the state of VA believe that there is something wrong with my healthy, happy, and much loved LGBTQ child, then I ask the governing bodies to carefully examine their own beliefs and harmful prejudice and biases. I would hope that my child might be offered a safe and supportive environment in Virginia schools rather than one that demeans and undermines the wellbeing of my young student by outing them, which is targeted harassment and discrimination. If my child can experience a safe learning environment, then my child can accomplish the work all students are in school to do, which is to learn and grow. Please treat our amazing, wonderful, and loved, LGBTQ kids with respect and dignity. Let them pursue their educational goals without fear and harassment. Let them thrive. Please stop scaring me, as a parent, with the intention to harm my LGBTQ student. I deserve to know my LGBTQ child is safe in Virginia schools. Thank you, Cate Tillack

As the parent of a graduate of Virginia public schools and a current student, I'm asking you to vote against HB1707, HB2170 and HB2432. All students should feel safe as themselves at school.

As a Virginia resident, I urge you to oppose HB1707 (Durant) and HB2432 (LaRock). These bills are dangerous attacks on gender-nonconforming youth, especially transgender, nonbinary, and intersex children. The bills imply that not identifying as your assigned gender at birth (referred to incorrectly in the bills as "biological sex") is akin to committing suicide by giving it the same attention as "risk of suicide" in parental notification laws. Gender nonconformity is not itself harmful to mental health; in fact, it can help mental health by not hiding an essential part of yourself. The discriminatory treatment of these individuals by society -- such as considering and passing bills like these -- is what causes harm to mental health. When children (and adults) are shown that people in their communities think they don't belong or have a right to be themselves, that causes low self-esteem, depression, and anxiety. When their gender identities are welcomed, it can improve mental health. According to The Trevor Project’s 2022 National Survey on LGBTQ Youth Mental Health ("the Survey"), LGBTQ youth who live in communities and attend schools that were LGBTQ-affirming reported lower rates of suicide attempts than those who did not have that acceptance. These bills also ignore the harm that parents and guardians who don't accept their child's gender identity can do. The notification laws on suicide risk carve out exceptions for if the risk is related to parental abuse or neglect. But these bills wouldn't make exceptions to the gender identity notification requirement if the educator has reason to believe the child may experience abuse or neglect by revealing their gender identity. In fact, HB2432 ensures that gender identity won't be protected in those cases by saying, "in no event shall referring to and raising the child in a manner consistent with the child's biological sex, including related mental health or medical decisions, be considered abuse or neglect." But gender nonconforming kids often experience abuse and neglect because they are transgender, nonbinary, or otherwise gender nonconforming and have parents who are transphobic. According to the Survey, more than 2/3 of transgender and nonbinary youth felt their homes were not gender affirming. If educators and counselors are forced to tell parents of students' gender identities regardless of the realities at home, it will likely put many of them at risk. These bills would also reduce the trust students have in educators and school counselors. If they know these professionals could reveal their gender identity to their parents, they are more likely to hide any feelings related to that identity. They would be less likely to seek help in understanding what it means to be transgender, nonbinary, or intersex and instead feel confused and like an outsider. And they would be more likely to hide any self-harm thoughts or threats from others that stem from the transphobia in society or their home. According to the Survey, 45% of LGBTQ youth who wanted mental health care didn't get it because of concerns with obtaining caregiver permission and 29% didn't get it for fear of being outed. The Survey also says 37% of transgender and nonbinary youth reported that they have been physically threatened or harmed due to their gender identity. These bills would actively put them at risk of not getting help they may want or need. Please vote no on HB1707 and HB2432. Thank you.

As an actual parent (not an activist) I am appalled that this even needs to be said. School staff should not withhold ANY information from parents. If a child is at an increased risk for self-harm, running away or suicide the parents need to be informed of the situation. It also should not be assumed that a student is reluctant to tell their parents because the parents are abusive. Using a child’s birth name and biological gender should never be considered abuse. It is also completely normal for teens to withdrawal from their parents. Rather than encouraging students to lie, schools should be facilitating dialogue. As mandated reporters, school officials who see “misgendering” as abuse need an updated training on how to properly identify child abuse.

Many LGBTQ youth lack access to affirming spaces, with only 55% of LGBTQ youth reporting that their school is LGBTQ-affirming and only 37% saying that their home is LGBTQ-affirming. Fewer than 1 in 3 transgender and nonbinary youth found their home to be gender-affirming and a little more than half (51%) found their school to be affirming. The Trevor Project’s research consistently finds that LGBTQ young people report lower rates of attempting suicide when they have access to LGBTQ-affirming spaces.

Teachers are often the only adults in whom students can trust to share their true authentic selves. Passing these bills will directly and negatively impact the bonds of trust between students and teachers. As a former teacher, I valued the honestly and trust my students put in me. These bills will harm our young adults when they are most vulnerable and need support, not outing.

Hello I am a Trans/Gender Non-Conforming student in Montgomery County, and I am opposed to these bills (1707, 2170, and 2432) These bills will harm me, my friends, and every trans student in the Virginia Public School System Thanks for taking time out of your day to read this, A Transgender Student

HB 1707 & HB 2432 -- When home isn't safe, school should be. For their own survival, there must be safe places for LGBT kids to exist freely as themselves and that should be the public schools. When LGBT kids choose not to tell their parents of their journey, they do so for a reason. Outing any LGBT person is a terrible practice. But for kids, it's life threatening. That 1707 is proposing an amendment that will increase youth suicides, to a law that aims to PREVENT suicide, is a gross misunderstanding of how all of this works. HB 2170 - There already exists a process to give parent permission for school sports (in the physical forms each year). School activities are a great place for students to explore all sorts of interests -- even interests parent don't approve of -- poetry, arts, different political party clubs, and even LGBT clubs. This is what school is for, for students to discover who they are. Students must be able to freely explore a variety of school activities without worries about parents. Also, why all of this extra administrative tedium for our already under resources schools?? How do you envision they would add on this responsibility? The party of small government? Not really.

I’m an LBGTQ+ youth, and I OPPOSE HB1707, HB 2170, and HB2432. Education should preach safety and acceptance, and I should not have to worry about laying trust in people that will be required to out me to my parents. This will cause real harm to people who come from homophobic and transphobic households, who look to school as their one safe zone to be who they are and find a community in which they are accepted. These bills stomp on safety, and on the autonomy we are told we get when we enter the public school system. I urge you to take a closer look into these bills, and to get rid of them.

I oppose these bills because they would force school districts to “out” students to their parents. o Every LGBTQ person’s journey is unique, and for many, their discovery of self can be a sensitive time. A child’s decision to disclose parts of their identity should remain solely in their hands. o Some provisions in these bills would force school officials to betray the trust of students by demanding they “out” students to parents, even if the student is not ready. Pushing school staff to disclose deeply private information to parents breaches trust and creates an uncomfortable school environment for LGBTQ+ youth. o This effort to “out” children is unethical and unenforceable. The adults that work in schools are there to educate and protect children, not police their identities and serve as agents for a discriminatory political agenda. · These bills would destroy trust between students and school staff. o While we agree that important information about a child’s welfare should not be withheld from their parental guardians, we are suspicious of provisions that do not consider the consent of the minor in question. o Trust between school staff and students is necessary to provide adequate mental-health support. If students feel that their communications are not confidential, they will be less likely to disclose important information to their school counselors and teachers. · This legislation endangers LGBTQ+ students, who already face high rates of bullying, harassment, and isolation. o LGBTQ students who lack support and face harassment and discrimination at school experience increased isolation, depression, and risk of suicide and are more likely than their peers to miss school, often in an effort to avoid abuse. o These negative experiences can have serious long-term negative impacts on these students’ health, education, and well-being.

Myself and my friends would all be harmed because of these bills. I plead to the members of the committee not to let HB2432, HB2170, and HB1707 pass. It targets us directly. Our humanity is in question here, and I don't want to have to go into hiding and pretend to be someone I'm not. School is the one place where I feel really at home and respected, and to tear that away is ruthless and completely amoral. Please don't let them pass. For your future, and ours, and for everyone else writing here.

I am the mother of two children in Virginia public schools and I am writing to OPPOSE HB 1707 and HB 2432. The bills are government overreach - they seek to regulate decisions best left to schools and parents. They are harmful because they make it unnecessarily difficult for school personnel to create safe and supportive educational environments for all students. These bills also single out LGBTQ+ students, who are already at high risk of being harassed and bullied in school. As a mother, I want my children to be able to explore their identity in school without feeling like teachers and administrators and watching and judging them. Instead of judging how my children express their gender, I want teachers to be paying attention to whether they are suicidal, being bullied, struggling with learning, or don’t have enough to eat. Those issues are directly related to student safety, not any adult’s judgment about the way they express their gender.

I urge you to please reject all legislation that would force school districts to out trans children to their parents. As an educator and as someone who was once a queer kid, I trust trans children to have important conversations with their parents when they should. Children are the ones who have the information to determine whether it's safe for them to come out at home. It is not the job of schools to intervene in family relationships by outing children who have not made their own decision to come out to their parents. However, it is the job of schools to provide children with a safe and respectful environment that supports their learning. These bills would prevent teachers and other school staff from doing that part of their jobs. Unconscionably, these bills would force schools to betray the trust of children who have been out at school because they thought it was safe. Just the introduction of legislation like this hurts vulnerable young people. These bills should be rejected as promptly and completely as possible.

I strongly oppose 1707. This endangers an already vulnerable group. School should be a place students can feel safe and supported. But this bill would destroy trust between school staff and students. We don't want our young people to have to push down their feelings and work through them all on their own because they know their teachers will tell their parents before they are ready to do so.

Strongly oppose these bills. These bills would forcibly out LGBTQ+ students which puts them in danger. They already face high rates of bullying, harassment, and isolation. STOP this madness against trans children.

I’m a Virginian, a former School Board member, and the proud parent of a nonbinary Virginia college student. I write to oppose HB 1707, HB 2432, and HB 2170 and urge you to vote against them. HB 2170 is unnecessary for students overall, and harmful for our most vulnerable students. Students already have to get parental permission for school-recognized activities including sports, academic teams, field trips, and more. School-sponsored clubs already have adult supervision by qualified teachers and school staff, so students should be safe. School clubs are often comforting spaces for students who are exploring their artistic, athletic, mathematical, and musical selves. This is even more true for clubs such as Gay-Straight Alliances that provide a refuge for some of our most vulnerable students: those who are understanding their identity, gender, and/or sexuality. Barring those students from GSAs and similar clubs because their parents are unsupportive or because the students aren't yet ready to discuss their gender or sexual identities with their parents puts those children at greater risk. HB 1707 and HB 2432 would harm LGBTQ+ students. They would force school officials to betray the trust of students by demanding they “out” students to parents, even if the student is not ready or sharing that information with parents would put the child at risk. Forcing school staff to disclose deeply private information to parents puts our educators in a terrible position: breaching trust with their LGBTQ+ students, and eliminating what is often the only refuge for those students. The adults that work in schools are there to educate and protect children, not police their identities and be forced to act as agents to serve someone's political agenda. Vote no on all these discriminatory and harmful bills.

Education must be focused on the goal of autonomy and thoughtful decision making. This bill is unnecessarily invasive and creates problems that do not exist by requiring excessive parental oversight. LGBTQ students who lack support and face harassment and discrimination at school experience increased isolation, depression, and risk of suicide and are more likely than their peers to miss school, often in an effort to avoid abuse. Protect our kids by keeping schools safe spaces rather than political battlegrounds.

I am a true ally to members of the LBGTQIA+ community and strongly object to HB1707 and HB2432. because it infringes on the freedom of any individual to go by the pronouns and names THEY choose for themselves. Also, it could make a great divide between students and teachers/school staff and turn a place they go to for learning and support into one of alienation and betrayal. VOTE NO on both please - for the good of the many LGBTQIA+ youth of America.

As an Ally of Transgender Youth in VA I STRONGLY oppose proposed HB1707 and HB2432 as they are both punitive, potentially dangerous and considerable overreach on the part of the state and its oversite of schools and its teachers and staff. Some provisions in these bills would force school officials to betray the trust of students by demanding they “out” students to parents, even if the student is not ready. Pushing school staff to disclose deeply private information to parents breaches trust and creates an uncomfortable school environment for LGBTQ+ youth. This effort to “out” children is unethical and unenforceable. The adults that work in schools are there to educate and protect children, not police their identities and serve as agents for a discriminatory political agenda. Very sadly, our family is very versed on what can happen if a family, community, etc does not support a young person in what they feel is their own needed identity in the fact that a young friend of ours committed suicide by hanging in the basement of the very home she was not supported in. Does the state legislature want this type of horrid happening/statistics on their hands? VOTE NO!!!!

Legislation is cruel that forces organizations to identify or categorize people according to their gender without their consent. As a teacher, I call on the legislators to learn more about the trauma that gender conformity causes young people, and to design compassionate legislation that supports everyone in Virginia. Thank you

HB 1707, HB 2432, and HB 2170 are anti-freedom pieces of legislation aimed at hurting LGBTQ+ students, specifically trans and gender non-binary students. They create new and extra regulations that don’t solve any problems and just create new ones for students, parents, and school administration. LGBTQ+ young people have unique journeys and for many disclosing their gender identity against their will can cause harm and far reaching repercussions. I urge the committee to reject all three of these bills.

Every LGBTQ person’s journey is unique, and for many, their discovery of self can be a sensitive time. A child’s decision to disclose parts of their identity should remain solely in their hands. Some provisions in these bills would force school officials to betray the trust of students by demanding they “out” students to parents, even if the student is not ready. Pushing school staff to disclose deeply private information to parents breaches trust and creates an uncomfortable school environment for LGBTQ+ youth. This effort to “out” children is unethical and unenforceable. The adults that work in schools are there to educate and protect children, not police their identities and serve as agents for a discriminatory political agenda. These bills would destroy trust between students and school staff. While we agree that important information about a child’s welfare should not be withheld from their parental guardians, we are suspicious of provisions that do not consider the consent of the minor in question. Trust between school staff and students is necessary to provide adequate mental-health support. If students feel that their communications are not confidential, they will be less likely to disclose important information to their school counselors and teachers. This legislation endangers LGBTQ+ students, who already face high rates of bullying, harassment, and isolation. LGBTQ students who lack support and face harassment and discrimination at school experience increased isolation, depression, and risk of suicide and are more likely than their peers to miss school, often in an effort to avoid abuse. These negative experiences can have serious long-term negative impacts on these students’ health, education, and well-being. We acknowledge that these bills are moving quickly, which can be overwhelming and stressful for those who are directly impacted or have loved ones who are. Please keep checking in with yourself, and take breaks as you need. We’re all in this fight together, and we appreciate your dedication to protecting transgender and nonbinary youth.

We oppose HB 1707 and HB 2432 as unconscionably intrusive to the inherent worth, dignity, and personal agency of students. It is quite chilling indeed to empower the state to determine ones personal identity and to implement punitive measures if one does not conform to the state's determination. This idea is particularly reprehensible and abusive when applied to children who often are still forming language to describe their felt identity. Schools have managed to deal successfully with family dysfunction brought into the school environment for a very long time. Using the legislature to unfairly mediate family dysfunction to the detriment of the vulnerable party is entirely inappropriate. These attacks on vulnerable children must cease.

My name is Felicity, and I’m a non-binary queer student in Loudoun County. I highly oppose HB 2170 because LGBTQIA+ students need to be protected and deserve safety. This bill would put many students in danger. I oppose HB 2432 because it endangers queer and trans students. LGBTQIA+ students need protection and the government trying to pass these bills puts all of us in harm's way. I oppose HB 1707 because trans students need to be protected and this bill is dangerous. It is disgusting how the government is using their power so they can bully queer and trans students. In conclusion, I highly oppose bills HB 1707, HB 2170, and HB 2432.

Dear subcommittee members, I am writing as a resident of Virginia since 2004 with the strongest objections to HB 1707. Much of this is similar to my objections to HB2358, but I wanted to be clear that neither bill is at all acceptable to me. As a faculty member at James Madison University, I see firsthand how college students who have had support for identity exploration and identity development during K-12 years are able to lead with more confidence, succeed academically, and flourish as human beings. This bill offers no support for the students who would be faced with the outcomes of being “outed” to their parents and in their schools. Regardless of how people feel about gender non-conforming identities, gender exploration is a part of every kid’s development, and they need to be able to access counselors and teachers with confidence and trust. This bill violates that rust, and disregards the professional knowledge and discretion of teachers and counselors. This bill additionally interferes with parent-child communications by having public officials intervene or initiate discussions between parents and children. Most importantly, this bill would do harm to all children who are learning about their gender, from those who are experimenting with different clothes and behaviors to those who are confident that their gender does not match that which was assigned to them at birth. All children need a safe environment in which to learn, one where they can flourish and be themselves. In the schools, that environment is enriched by professional personnel such as teachers and counselors. The environment proposed by this bill is instead one of decreased safety, where school staff cannot be trusted and children are at increased risk both at school (increased bullying, harassment, and isolation). LGBTQ kids are especially at risk: the Trevor Project’s 2022 survey found that 45% of LGBTQ youth seriously considered attempting suicide in the past year. However, youth who found their school to be supportive of LGBTQ+ youth reported lower rates of attempted suicide. For that reason alone, it is crucial to find policies supportive of LGBTQ+ youth. I urge you to review and follow the recommendations of the Virginia LGBTQ+ Advisory Board Annual Report (October 2022, p. 7-8) to “Create Educational Environments Where Students are Empowered to Live and Learn Authentically” by supporting model policies for transgender students as directed by HB145 and SB 161, and to create or firm up anti-bullying policies that mention LGBTQ+ students specifically. Thank you for your service to the Commonwealth. Jody Fagan 333 Copper Drive Broadway, Virginia

Please do not implement or support policies or legislation requiring outing of LGBT youth to parents without those children’s consent, as this opens them to abuse and torture by those parents inclined to forcibly repress their own children.

My name is Heather Massey and I’m a resident of Glen Allen, VA 23060. Thank you for this opportunity to share my thoughts. As the parent of a K-12 public school student, I oppose HB 1707 for several reasons. This bill would force school districts to “out” students to their parents even if the student isn’t ready. Pushing school staff to disclose deeply private information to parents breaches trust and creates an uncomfortable school environment for LGBTQ+ youth. That’s not the type of environment I want for my child. Furthermore, this effort to “out” children is unethical and unenforceable. School staff are responsible to educate and protect children, not police their identities and serve as agents for a discriminatory political agenda. I’m a parent, so I understand that information about a child’s welfare should not be withheld from their parental guardians; at the same time, I’m suspicious of provisions that do not consider the consent of the minor in question. This legislation endangers LGBTQ+ students, who already face high rates of bullying, harassment, and isolation. Outing them without their consent would result in a negative experience that will have serious long-term negative impacts on their health, education, and well-being. Therefore, I must once again emphasize my opposition to HB 1707.

Please do not endanger gender nonconforming (GNC) youth more than they already are by legitimizing these bills (HB1707, HB2170, and HB2432), all of which relate to forcing school staff to "out" these children to their parents. The justifications of these bills appear to be either predicated on the idea that the parents of GNC youth always have the best interests of their child in mind, or on the unspoken premise that GNC youth should face more bullying, harassment, and isolation than they already do. The first option is demonstrably false (see: rates of abuse of queer youth compared to their peers), the second option is shockingly hateful and cruel. GNC children need a safe environment in which to learn, one where they can flourish and be themselves. The environment proposed by these bills is instead one of decreased safety, where school staff cannot be trusted and GNC children are at increased risk both at school (increased bullying, harassment, and isolation) and at home (being abused, disowned, and/or forced to leave). The most charitable read of this bill I can fathom is that it comes from a place of profound ignorance about the lived experiences of GNC youth and the statistical risks they face. It's difficult not to also see genuine malicious intent toward, and craven political targeting of one of our most vulnerable groups of Virginians.

Please vote No on this bill. We need to leave these trans kids alone. They have enough problems without government bullies piling on.

These are incredible dangerous, irresponsible bills that will unnecessarily endanger children. You are opening Virginia schools up to lawsuits and will waste taxpayer money. Shame on you for using your power to harass children.

My name is Carla Pratt Keyes. I am the pastor of Ginter Park Presbyterian Church here in Richmond. I am writing in opposition to HB 1707 (Durant) and HB 2432 (LaRock), which would require public school personnel to contact a student's parent if they believe that the student's self-identified gender does not align with their "biological sex." I believe this requirement would inadvertently undermine and endanger children who understand themselves to be non-binary or transgender. One of the things I've had to come to terms with during my ministry is how much harm the Christian Church has done to the queer community. It was in church I learned that homosexuality was a sin. It was in church I learned that God created humans male and female (different as night and day, right?... without all the complexity of dawn and twilight and dusk). So clear was my belief in the perversion of homosexuality and the distinctness of gender: if I’d felt attracted to other women as a teenager … or if I’d wanted to wear men’s clothing or something, I would never have told a soul! I knew such yearnings were wrong. I believed such behavior was shameful. That’s the problem with the beliefs so many churches have taught through the years: those beliefs can lead to judgment and shame and hiding. I have learned to see differently – learned it in the church, actually! I have come to believe, as many Christians believe, in God’s unswerving, unconditional love for all kinds of people. I have come to believe, as many Christians believe, that the beauty and complexity of God is reflected in the full spectrum of humanity, including the spectrum of queerness. I have learned to celebrate a world in which children can explore their identities, express themselves, ask for what they need, and be appreciated for who they are – even when what they’re feeling and wanting does not conform to our expectations around gender or sexuality. As a parent and as a pastor, I want our schools to be those kinds of safe, celebratory places. Of course, I also want every home and every family to be that safe and celebratory. I feel certain that’s what we all want for ourselves and for our children. The tragic reality with this (as with so many things) is that we are not there yet. Too many people have been shaped as I was shaped; there is still too much judgment and shame, especially around all it means to be transgender and non-binary. If children have not spoken with their parents about their nonconforming gender, they probably have good reasons for having avoided that conversation … and for the government and school system to force that conversation may endanger the child. One day (I have faith!) things will be different. Until then, we must do what we can to keep our children safe. So I urge you to reject these proposed requirements.

Hb1707/2432 - Trans and Gender nonconforming children deserve safety and respect. By outing them to their parents you are putting them at greater risk of abuse at home, and suicidal ideation. This is not in the best interest of the child in any way. HB2502 School time is for school not for religious activities. If this exception is made, then I assume that it will be made for a Muslim class or a Satanic Club as well.

LGBTQIA+ students deserve safety, privacy, and respect for their chosen identities. I strongly oppose these bills.

These bills infringe on the rights of our children to live their lives with free expression of who they are. No one has the right to express their implicit bias by informing their parent guardian. It is very difficult to be born in a body that does not match your gender identity. Their schools should not have any rights to communicate choices children make while away from their families. It’s very important that children have an environment outside of the home to be safe and free without being “told on”. Every LGBTQ person’s journey is unique, and for many, their discovery of self can be a sensitive time. A child’s decision to disclose parts of their identity should remain solely in their hands. This effort to “out” children is unethical and unenforceable. The adults that work in schools are there to educate and protect children, not police their identities and serve as agents for a discriminatory political agenda. School is difficult for students that express their true self and having the school staff reporting to their parents makes everyday harder. If the children are comfortable with having their parents aware of their choices then they will tell them when they are ready. These bills will cause hardships in the students and their families lives. Let people be and stop applying your limited view and acceptance of people who don’t act like you. By defeating these bills we will support our children who need adults to respect them.

I am a student in Virginia and I oppose bills 2432, 2170, and 1707 on the reasoning that it would lead to an increase in discrimination within school systems, negatively affecting the right to free public education to which all US students are entitled, as stated within the Constitution. These bills would negatively affect the safety of thousands of students should they be passed. Discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity is prohibited under Title IX, as enforced by the US Department of Education, so it is within the best interests of the law that these bills not be passed.

Please protect LGBTQ children and teenagers. Do not pass a forced outing bill. Protect their access to medical care and allow them to transition with the help and advice of medical professionals. These bills show that ignorance and hate and political stunts are more important to these legislators than the health and well-being of transgender children. We cannot accept legislation that is based on lies and hate and not on medical science.

I will be graduating from Fairfax County this coming June. However, I worry how these bills will affect future / current students who are queer. When I came out to my mom for the first time, she yelled and screamed at me how it was a sin and that I “don’t make sense.” I don’t want any other student to face that, and I worry that such things will happen more frequently if these bills are passed. I don’t want future students to be forcibly outed to parents who may yell, scream, make fun of, or even beat their own child for their own identity. As a closing note, if these bills are passed and teen suicide rates go up, do not be surprised. You brought this upon yourselves.

I oppose these three bills. These bills erode the trust kids have in their counselors and teachers, and forced outing places some children in danger.

I am speechlessly angry that you would assault the children of Virginia in this way. You have NO business deciding what gender my child should be. Are you going to say that my son must be gay if he wears pink? I bet none of you even knew that pink was an exclusively male colour until Mimi Eisenhower. Gender is a social construct and even biological sex is not as binary as penis or no penis. Your God or mine has NO place in the law of the land. These bills come from a place of religious intolerance and fear. Is that what Virginia should be knonw for?

I am writing to oppose the bills proposed which would force schools and staff to out students who are questioning their gender identity or using a gender identity at school that is not their gender assigned at birth. These bills degrade trust between students and school staff and potentially endanger children whose families are not accepting. This is an unnecessary and purely harmful policy that targets trans and non-binary kids. Kids should be able to express themselves and be safe in school.

Imagine wanting to cause further pain and undue suffering on a child who, through literally no fault of their own, is different from your status quo. I am a transgender adult, but I was once a transgender kid. It was scary and upsetting enough then trying to come to terms with myself without being vilified by a political party for political points, while they rally their base to increase hatred and vitriol. Trans kids these days don't get that luxury. They know that there is a nationwide spotlight on them when there shouldn't be. It is unconscionable to want to further perpetuate burdens and pain on any minority group of people, including kids. If these bills pass you will only be doing further harm on trans kids--you won't be getting rid of them like you want. They'll still be here. Trans people have always, and will always, be here. And we will stand with each other against archaic bigoted legislation brought forth by ignorant and out of touch representatives. Have the day that you all deserve.

HB1707: This bill will remove important protections for trans, non-binary, and gender non-conforming students and will affect their safety, autonomy, and sense of belonging. By forcibly outing students, you are potentially putting them in danger, as well as taking away the safe space they have tried to create. HB2170: While this bill may seem simple, it will infringe upon students' rights to join any teams or committees without fear of being outed or facing retaliation from their family. Kids who may want to join a Gender Sexuality Alliance/Gay Straight Alliance will have to choose between finding a supportive and healthy community and being outed to their family who may not be supportive of their identity. HB2432: The fact that this bill would force Therapists and counselors to out their clients to potentially unsupportive family members is horrible. This opens kids up to dangerous situations at home, by outing them without their consent. This also would protect families who deny their child's gender identity, which again, puts kids into dangerous situations. Affirming a child's gender identity can be life saving! A study from the Trevor Project found that "LGBTQ youth who found their school to be LGBTQ-affirming reported lower rates of attempting suicide." By removing these safe places and actively not supporting youth's gender identities, you are putting thousands of lives at risk. Trans youth are not going away, but if bills like these pass, they will be put at risk. All children deserve to be treated with respect, and for their whole identity to be supported and affirmed.

I oppose both bills HB 1707 and HB 2432. These bills are attempts to destroy young lives. If the student trusted the parent they would have a conversation with them. It is not the school place to report if the THINK a student may be transgender or non-binary. There are positive merits to bill 1707 but until it is re-written to remove the language surrounding reporting transgender students I cannot support it.

I OPPOSE these bills for the following reasons: These bills would force school districts to “out” students to their parents. -Every LGBTQ person’s journey is unique, and for many, their discovery of self can be a sensitive time. A child’s decision to disclose parts of their identity should remain solely in their hands. -Some provisions in these bills would force school officials to betray the trust of students by demanding they “out” students to parents, even if the student is not ready. Pushing school staff to disclose deeply private information to parents breaches trust and creates an uncomfortable school environment for LGBTQ+ youth. -This effort to “out” children is unethical and unenforceable. The adults that work in schools are there to educate and protect children, not police their identities and serve as agents for a discriminatory political agenda. These bills would destroy trust between students and school staff. -While we agree that important information about a child’s welfare should not be withheld from their parental guardians, we are suspicious of provisions that do not consider the consent of the minor in question. -Trust between school staff and students is necessary to provide adequate mental-health support. If students feel that their communications are not confidential, they will be less likely to disclose important information to their school counselors and teachers. This legislation endangers LGBTQ+ students, who already face high rates of bullying, harassment, and isolation. -LGBTQ students who lack support and face harassment and discrimination at school experience increased isolation, depression, and risk of suicide and are more likely than their peers to miss school, often in an effort to avoid abuse. -These negative experiences can have serious long-term negative impacts on these students’ health, education, and well-being.

These bills would force school districts to “out” students to their parents and destroy trust between students and school staff. They endanger LGBTQ+ students, who already face high rates of bullying, harassment, and isolation. As the mother of a gay child and a long time PFLAG facilitator, I oppose these bills and urge their defeat.

These bills would force school districts to “out” students to their parents. - Every LGBTQ person’s journey is unique, and for many, their discovery of self can be a sensitive time. A child’s decision to disclose parts of their identity should remain solely in their hands. - Some provisions in these bills would force school officials to betray the trust of students by demanding they “out” students to parents, even if the student is not ready. Pushing school staff to disclose deeply private information to parents breaches trust and creates an uncomfortable school environment for LGBTQ+ youth. - This effort to “out” children is unethical and unenforceable. The adults that work in schools are there to educate and protect children, not police their identities and serve as agents for a discriminatory political agenda. These bills would destroy trust between students and school staff. - While we agree that important information about a child’s welfare should not be withheld from their parental guardians, we are suspicious of provisions that do not consider the consent of the minor in question. - Trust between school staff and students is necessary to provide adequate mental-health support. If students feel that their communications are not confidential, they will be less likely to disclose important information to their school counselors and teachers. This legislation endangers LGBTQ+ students, who already face high rates of bullying, harassment, and isolation. - LGBTQ students who lack support and face harassment and discrimination at school experience increased isolation, depression, and risk of suicide and are more likely than their peers to miss school, often in an effort to avoid abuse. - These negative experiences can have serious long-term negative impacts on these students’ health, education, and well-being.

We oppose these bills. While we agree that important information about a child’s welfare should not be withheld from their parental guardians, these bills would destroy trust between students and school staff. Trust between school staff and students is necessary to provide adequate mental-health support. If students feel that their communications with school staff are not confidential, they will be less likely to disclose important information to their school counselors and teachers. The bills should include provisions to consider consent of the minor in question for this reason. These bills also endanger LGBTQ+ students, who already face high rates of bullying, harassment, and isolation. LGBTQ students who face harassment and discrimination at school and do not trust school staff experience increased isolation, depression, and risk of suicide and are more likely than their peers to miss school, often in an effort to avoid abuse. This can have serious long-term negative impacts on these students’ health, education, and well-being. Thank you for your service to our Commonwealth and for the opportunity to provide feedback.

I Oppose These Bills: These bills would force school districts to “out” students to their parents. Every LGBTQ person’s journey is unique, and for many, their discovery of self can be a sensitive time. A child’s decision to disclose parts of their identity should remain solely in their hands. Some provisions in these bills would force school officials to betray the trust of students by demanding they “out” students to parents, even if the student is not ready. Pushing school staff to disclose deeply private information to parents breaches trust and creates an uncomfortable school environment for LGBTQ+ youth. This effort to “out” children is unethical and unenforceable. The adults that work in schools are there to educate and protect children, not police their identities and serve as agents for a discriminatory political agenda. These bills would destroy trust between students and school staff. While we agree that important information about a child’s welfare should not be withheld from their parental guardians, we are suspicious of provisions that do not consider the consent of the minor in question. Trust between school staff and students is necessary to provide adequate mental-health support. If students feel that their communications are not confidential, they will be less likely to disclose important information to their school counselors and teachers. This legislation endangers LGBTQ+ students, who already face high rates of bullying, harassment, and isolation. LGBTQ students who lack support and face harassment and discrimination at school experience increased isolation, depression, and risk of suicide and are more likely than their peers to miss school, often in an effort to avoid abuse. These negative experiences can have serious long-term negative impacts on these students’ health, education, and well-being. Dusty Sabourin Virginia State Director American Atheists

As an LGBTQ Virginian, I am opposed to HB1707, HB2170 and HB2432 because they will harm LGBTQ kids under the guise of "protecting" them or by seeming to favor parental authority. If a trans kid wants to be a different gender at school, who does this harm? And why make teachers the bad guys by requiring them to become informants to parents who may not have child's best interests at heart. The truth is that not all parents are good parents. HB2170 is clearly designed to prevent LGBTQ kids in need of friends and support from joining a LGBTQ club unless their parents approve. That club could be the one safe place for that child. As far as HB2432, what happened to "Sage" was tragic, but I disagree with those who link the child sex trafficking to the state's decision to remove Sage from the grandparents' home. To the contrary, I feel lawmakers are exploiting Sage all over again but for their own personal political agendas. LGBTQ kids face enough struggles in a society where they are bullied, slandered and are the targets of hateful legislation that seeks to impose others' opinions on their lives. I was a lucky kid in that my parents supported me, but not all parents are as wonderful as mine were. Let these LGBTQ kids find their way, give them a supportive space in which to do so, and quit trying to legislate how others live their lives.

My name is L.F. Brown and I write in OPPOSITION to House Bill 1707 (Durant) and HB 2432 (LaRock) which seeks to force school districts to “out” students to their parents. These bills infringe on the unique self-discovery of gender expansive, non-binary, and transgender youth whose decision to disclose parts of their identity to a trusted teacher, counselor, or other school official is a sacred experience. Requiring school staff to disclose a student’s personal and private information to their parents, breaches trust and creates an uncomfortable school environment for LGBTQIA+ youth. As teachers, counselors and other school officials are strategically positioned to support the educational pursuits of EVERY student under their supervision, school staff do not serve to police gender identities or act as agents for a discriminatory political agenda. In my opinion, House Bill 1707 (Durant) and HB 2432 (LaRock) are attempts at a solution in search of a problem. I strongly OPPOSE these bills.

The anti-Trans bills you’re all pushing are abhorrent and give a green light to further marginalization and bullying against Trans students in the Commonwealth of VA. As a Trans woman myself, I know firsthand what an oppressive educational environment does to marginalized students. The 3 bills (HB 1707 / HB 2170 / HB 2432 respectively) being heard are performative and unfathomably cruel, attacking a marginalized group of students that already deal with a high degree of bullying / harassment by adults as well as their cis-hetero peers. Do the right thing and withdrawal this cynical and heinous legislation.

I've chosen to write together to these three bills because they seem to me to limit the freedom of students to learn and explore. My middle-schooler tells me of many students who are using different gender identities at school with friends and perhaps staff than they are at home. I don't see any need for parents to know this from the schools - the parents who are already inclusive and welcoming know these gender identities, and there may be good reasons why the other parents do not. Students may not feel safe at home, or may want to keep this exploration private until they are ready to share outside of their chosen groups at school. The rule about clubs follows - the school hosts these clubs and activities to give the students alternate methods to learn things - maybe about the environment by picking up litter, or the government by expressing freedom of speech, or their athletic ability with a running club. I believe that the schools are child development professionals and I respect their judgement on whether these clubs are worthwhile. Please do not legislate on top of them.

These bills would force school districts to “out” students to their parents. Every LGBTQ person’s journey is unique, and for many, their discovery of self can be a sensitive time. A child’s decision to disclose parts of their identity should remain solely in their hands. Some provisions in these bills would force school officials to betray the trust of students by demanding they “out” students to parents, even if the student is not ready. Pushing school staff to disclose deeply private information to parents breaches trust and creates an uncomfortable school environment for LGBTQ+ youth. This effort to “out” children is unethical and unenforceable. The adults that work in schools are there to educate and protect children, not police their identities and serve as agents for a discriminatory political agenda. These bills would destroy trust between students and school staff. While we agree that important information about a child’s welfare should not be withheld from their parental guardians, we are suspicious of provisions that do not consider the consent of the minor in question. Trust between school staff and students is necessary to provide adequate mental-health support. If students feel that their communications are not confidential, they will be less likely to disclose important information to their school counselors and teachers. This legislation endangers LGBTQ+ students, who already face high rates of bullying, harassment, and isolation. LGBTQ students who lack support and face harassment and discrimination at school experience increased isolation, depression, and risk of suicide and are more likely than their peers to miss school, often in an effort to avoid abuse. These negative experiences can have serious long-term negative impacts on these students’ health, education, and well-being.

Schools are not surveillance apparatuses for parents. Students have human rights and that includes the right to privacy. Parents do not own students. Schools have no business sharing information about students' gender, sexuality, relationships, or any other personal characteristic or identity against students' wishes.

These three proposed bills are incredibly transphobic and dangerous. They will do immense harm to our youth. Affirming a child's gender identity can save their life. Bills HB1707, HB2170, and HB2432 are heinous. They cannot become law.

These bills will harm trans youth. They will also harm all youth. If you increasingly make it difficult for trans youth to exist and have their right to privacy, you push them towards suicide. If a queer child feels the need to keep their queerness secret from their parents that is their right. And there is a reason for it. Some queer kids if outed would become homeless. If you are willing to pass these measures that would create homeless children then fuck you. Fuck yourself you assholes. Suck my feminine dick and literally swallow a cheese grater.

I'm writing today to oppose HB1707, HB2170, and HB2432. As a queer woman who had violently homophonic relatives, I knew growing up that my mental and physical safety depended on much of my family not knowing about my sexuality. This is sadly a common story for so many of us in the LGBTQ+ community, most especially for our trans and non-binary youth. By requiring parental notification or parental consent as laid out in these two bills, we are risking the safety of our students who are in unsupportive and potentially hostile living situations. We owe it to all LGBTQ+ Virginia students to come out on their own terms, to people who will be safe and supportive, and when they feel ready to do so. These bills would strip agency from our young people and would shatter the trust they have with faculty. At a time when trans and non-binary youth are facing alarming rates of bullying, harassment, homelessness, and abuse, these bills would have the catastrophic side effect of only adding to these numbers. I trust you will put the wellbeing of Virginia's youth ahead of personal opinions and not move forward with these three bills. Thank you for your time.

I oppose these bills which are designed to cause harm to children.

I am writing in OPPOSITION to HB1707 (Durant), HB2432 (LaRock), and HB2170 (Williams), which would require Virginia schools to inform parents whether their children are transgender or gender nonbinary (HB1707 and HB2432) and to require parental permission for children to participate in school clubs or organizations, including gay-straight alliances and other such groups (HB2170). Not all transgender students have parents who are supportive of sexual orientation and gender identity issues. Involuntarily disclosing a child's transgender status to unsupportive parents can put the child at risk of violence, rejection, and homelessness. In particular, transgender children are disproportionately represented in homeless youth populations and become vulnerable to sex trafficking. Not surprisingly, this also can put a child at risk of suicide. None of these are acceptable outcomes for a child. These bills seem to be a misguided attempt to prevent transgender children from walking down a path that leads to irreversible medical treatments. They do not take into consideration that any form of medical treatment requires parental consent, so a child would need to disclose his or her transgender status, voluntarily, with his or her parents - on the child's own terms, and at his or her own level of comfort. Lacking this parental disclosure, no irreversible medical treatments are even possible. It is also possible that these bills are a misguided attempt to prevent children from "deciding" to be transgender. Being transgender (or even gay) is not a choice. It is the result of how we develop in utero, combined with certain genetic factors. Thus transgender people cannot be prevented from being transgender. They can only be punished and humiliated and impeded from living their authentic lives. These hurdles are unnecessary and are damaging. Every child deserves a safe environment in which to interact with other children as his or her authentic self. Every child deserves the ability to talk to a teacher or school counselor without fear of being "informed on." Every child deserves the "space" to sort out complicated social and emotional issues on his or her own terms. These bills deprive children of these personal rights. A much better model of responsible and effective school intervention would be to make a school counselor available to discuss gender identity issues with any children who might seek guidance, and then to counsel the children with regard to how they might approach their parents - on their own terms and in their own time. Trusted school staff should make themselves available to mediate in safe discussions between transgender children and their parents. However, under no circumstances should children be involuntarily reported to their parents for having been born different. This requirement removes an invaluable safety net that the child needs. I urge the committee to oppose these bills. They accomplish nothing beneficial for the children they target, and in fact they would do great harm. Nothing in these bills would stop a transgender child's trajectory towards transitioning and seeking medical treatment, if that is what he or she eventually decides is appropriate. They would only make the journey more traumatic, strip the child of caring resources, and place the child in danger of violence, rejection, homelessness, sex trafficking, and/or suicide. Please vote NO on HB1707, HB2170 , and HB2432.

As we grow we evolve, or at least we hope to. However, as we continue our journey we learn things about ourselves. There are times we learn them, yet are not comfortable with sharing them. Sometimes we know that if we share something about us, even with family, we know it could put us in a dangerous situation. Just because it’s your family does not mean that a child will be loved, especially if that family doesn’t agree or support you. These bills are extremely dangerous and will hurt kids, not help them. I guarantee you that passing these bills will have more harm done than any good that you possibly think can come from it. I plead with you to allow these kids to be who they are, and know that they know the situation they’re in better than us.

I am strongly opposed to HB 1707, HB 2170 and HB 2432. The notification (outing] of a student to his parents could eradicate the trust a student feels towards school staff and the ability ti share with them. Also, this could open the student to additional bullying at school and puts the student at additional risk of depression, hopelessness and suicide. Although it is preferable to have a student and their parents to communicate about these important matters, we know that not every family shares this ability to communicate. I urge you to vote against these bills which would lead to unethical and inexcusable results.

As an lgbtq person, I strongly disagree with any bill that forces the outing of transgender youth. So many youth do not have supportive adults at home and many commit suicide. Forced outing is unsafe for our youth.

I do not support these bills. Virginia schools should focus on our children’s education, not how they want to identify. The adults that work in schools are there to educate and protect children, not police their identities and serve as agents for a discriminatory political agenda.

I strongly oppose any bill that would require ANYONE to "out" an individual regarding their gender identity. This would be a harmful, psychologically damaging to a child, and could result in assault. It is appalling this id even being considered. Students should also be able to attend any after school or school related program of their choice without a guardian's permission.

These bills are heinous bills introduced solely to marginalize a community that already is at one of the highest risks of both youth suicide and homicide. Forced outing to a parent would do nothing but endanger the lives of children in our state, children who already scared and confused because they have been forced to live in a way that does truly describe who they really are. What these bills do is put these children at risk with abusive parents, some of which would either physically abuse their children if they found out their identity or at worst murder them. Please do not unnecessarily endanger the lives of our youth. Thank you.

I am writing in opposition to bills HB 1707, HB 2432, and HB 2170. These bills would force school districts to “out” students to their parents. Every LGBTQ person’s journey is unique, and for many, their discovery of self can be a sensitive time. A child’s decision to disclose parts of their identity should remain solely in their hands. Kids know who they can trust...it's our job to BE that trusted grown-up. Some provisions in these bills would force school officials to betray the trust of students by demanding they “out” students to parents, even if the student is not ready. Pushing school staff to disclose deeply private information to parents breaches trust and creates an uncomfortable school environment for LGBTQ+ youth. This effort to “out” children is unethical and unenforceable. The adults that work in schools are there to educate and protect children, not police their identities and serve as agents for a discriminatory political agenda. Trust between school staff and students is necessary to provide adequate mental-health support. If students feel that their communications are not confidential, they will be less likely to disclose important information to their school counselors and teachers. This legislation endangers LGBTQ+ students, who already face high rates of bullying, harassment, and isolation. While important information about a child’s welfare should not be withheld from their parental guardians, these bills do not consider the consent of the minor in question. LGBTQ students who lack support and face harassment and discrimination at school experience increased isolation, depression, and risk of suicide and are more likely than their peers to miss school, often in an effort to avoid abuse. These negative experiences can have serious long-term negative impacts on these students’ health, education, and well-being. If you think schools should out kids to their parents, you might ask yourself if you're the kind of parent your kid would willingly come out to: It's the parents' responsibility to create a home environment of unconditional love, trust, and support from day one and the schools' responsibility to be a safe place for all kids. I vehemently oppose these bills that put identity politics ahead of student safety and well-being.

I oppose these bills! These bills would force school districts to “out” students to their parents. Every LGBTQ person’s journey is unique, and for many, their discovery of self can be a sensitive time. A child’s decision to disclose parts of their identity should remain solely in their hands. Some provisions in these bills would force school officials to betray the trust of students by demanding they “out” students to parents, even if the student is not ready. Pushing school staff to disclose deeply private information to parents breaches trust and creates an uncomfortable school environment for LGBTQ+ youth. This effort to “out” children is unethical and unenforceable. The adults that work in schools are there to educate and protect children, not police their identities and serve as agents for a discriminatory political agenda. These bills would destroy trust between students and school staff. While we agree that important information about a child’s welfare should not be withheld from their parental guardians, we are suspicious of provisions that do not consider the consent of the minor in question. Trust between school staff and students is necessary to provide adequate mental-health support. If students feel that their communications are not confidential, they will be less likely to disclose important information to their school counselors and teachers. This legislation endangers LGBTQ+ students, who already face high rates of bullying, harassment, and isolation. LGBTQ students who lack support and face harassment and discrimination at school experience increased isolation, depression, and risk of suicide and are more likely than their peers to miss school, often in an effort to avoid abuse. These negative experiences can have serious long-term negative impacts on these students’ health, education, and well-being. Melissa

Schools have a responsibility to care for their students' safety and well-being. Forcibly "outing" kids to parents who may not respond to that news in a kind or loving way could put those students at real risk of harm. While I sympathize with the importance of parental notification, kids' safety and health should come first. Please vote no on any bill that would require schools to "out" kids as LGBTQ+ to their parents.

VPEP Opposes this proposal Forcing teachers to reveal a student's gender identity against that student's wishes will drive a wedge between the student and the educator. Trans students are at high risk of abuse and of being thrown out of their homes. Trans youth disproportionately suffer from homelessness. Revealing a Trans student's gender identity to an unsupportive family will cost lives. This bill is one of many cynical attacks on the Transgender community that is being used to raise headlines and appease an intolerant segment of the voter base.

Re: Oppose House Bill 1707 – a bill to forcibly out transgender and nonbinary youth without their consent Dear Chair Coyner and members of the Early Childhood/Innovation subcommittee: The ACLU of Virginia strongly opposes House Bill 1707, which would encourage Virginia educators to attempt to identify nonbinary and transgender students and then disclose that information without their consent and before they and their families may be ready. This bill targets vulnerable Virginia youth and makes them less safe both at school and at home. We urge you to reject this bill. Best, Wyatt S.M. Rolla Senior Transgender Rights Attorney ACLU of Virginia

1454 - are you serious? Anyone who remotely values having an educated society will oppose 1454. Good Lord. 2170 is also utterly ridiculous. I OPPOSE 2170, of course. This undermines students' ability to explore their extracurricular interests in the school setting. 1707 and 2432 - I OPPOSE these. These bills would threaten the safety of trans students. 1803 - I OPPOSE this. People need to trust educators to do their jobs, and not impose their beliefs on public schools. I SUPPORT 1497 and 1566. It is disgraceful how educators are treated in this country, and these bills would begin to rectify that. Thank you, Delegates Convirs-Fowler and Rasoul. I support 2388 and 2439. I SUPPORT 2177 as a foreign language teacher. I just wish more bills promoting foreign language education could be on the agenda.

I strongly oppose HB 1707. This will cause direct harm to vulnerable students. It will create a threatening environment unconducive to learning. Please defer to best practices from pediatricians and mental health professionals on the treatment of transgender and nonbinary students and the 2021 affirming policy in place.

Educators not only provide knowledge but are safe spaces for many vulnerable teens who do not have nurturing homes. Forcing educators and administrators to out students causes harm. Students face higher levels of suicide when they do not have safe spaces to be their authentic selves. This year alone, I've directly had to face 2 students whose only choice was suicide.The possibility of a bill such as HB1707 has sent fear into so many students; not only LGBTQ but straight allies as well. Many discussions have been had on stress and harm that such a bill will cause. This also puts a burden on educators that already have too full of a plate. We need to keep all the educators, not give another reason to leave as most educators I know fiercely love and protect their students from the many harms faced in public education. Educators not only put their lives on the line for students everyday. We let them use our shoulders to ease the burdens they face daily. I would rather quick than be forced to out my student to families that abuse their student or will force them out of their home. I have a student struggling to graduate this year because the are housing insecure. Stop burdening public education more than it already is. Stop forcing people to leave professions they love. We are short educators and need to keep the ones that do the million tasks asked of them everyday with the pay that is received. If nothing else, please attend a meeting at a public school and talk to LGBTQ students. See first hand what they, and the educators that love them, have to say. Know we are human beings trying to survive each and every day.

I am opposed to HB 1707 Public school students; self-identification as gender other than biological sex, parental contact. I see two problems with the bill. First, biological sex is not nearly as cut-and-dried as many people think. XX and XY are not the only genetic combinations found in people. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/q-a-mixed-sex-biology/ And there are a variety of situations involving hormones that can complicate biological sex. So what this bill actually means is what the newborn child appeared to be. Sometimes puberty demonstrates that was deceiving. Second, young people who don’t fit the expected mold may need some time to sort themselves out. They often need to acquire the terms and concepts to explain themselves. Most of them, when they are ready will talk with their parents. When some third party short-circuits this process of self understanding, they can push a young person farther than the student wanted to go. And the whole tone of this mandated tattling sets a family up for embarrassment as though gender questioning were a form of delinquency. I have been on the board of the local PFLAG for a dozen years and have seen how difficult we make it for children who are different but just as normal as children who are left-handed. Please don’t advance HB1707 or any other bill that oversimplifies young people’s lived experience.

"I support HB 1396 as introduced, and it deserves a vote." Thank you for your hard work and dedication to the School Choice fight! Quick Links: Join the Rapid Response Team of Virginia for Educational Freedom School Choice petition to legislators Donate to Virginia for Educational Freedom For Our Children, Natassia Grover Director Virginia for Educational Freedom PS- It is vital that you sign our Petition for School Choice today. The thing politicians fear most is large numbers of angry voters, and your signature on the petition will be added to the thousands that have already signed. This Petition will be delivered to the House Educational Committee, and they will be told they must support full and complete School Choice. So click here to sign! Copyright © 2023 Acton Advocacy Group, All rights reserved. Fighting to restore freedom in education in the Commonwealth Our mailing address is: Acton Advocacy Group 11895 Folly Lane Lovettsville, VA 20180 Add us to your address book

How soon we forget the nightmare that was distance learning. Or maybe none of you experienced that. These school aged children that lost time in the classroom for reading instruction will be MISSED if this FULL expansion of the Virginia Literacy Act is not passed. There are a key group of children that, yes, are soon to be in middle school (in school year 2024-2025) and struggle with reading due to the havoc caused by Covid. Please support and fund this HB1526 bill in its entirety. All of these house bills go to strengthen our schools with providing parents the knowledge they need to advocate for their children and better equipping teachers to teach within their large and neurodiverse classrooms (1:5 students are dyslexic). thank you for your service to our great Commonwealth.

Please vote NO. Trans youth deserve respect and to be safe

To the Education Committee, Please vote NO on all four bills --- to support the young people who would be affected. To protect their privacy .,respect their dignity and defend their rights. Barbara Morris Falls C hurch, Va.

Hb1387 no Hb1707 no Hb2137 no HB2432 yes

I strongly oppose all of these bills. Transgender rights are human rights. Any regulations imposed by the government is government overreach. These bills do not put the mental health and well being of youth first. Did you know that on average 40% of trans youth die by suicide. These bills threaten to drive that frightening statistic higher. Please don't threaten the lives of transgender youth in our state!

Dear Board Members and Staff, I write to you as a resident of Virginia, a former teacher and a parent. I write to you as a firm believer in personal freedoms for all regardless of a person's age, race, color, ethnicity, political affiliation or economic status. By personal freedoms I mean the right to safely going about one's life without targeted harassment, without being labeled; to be able to feel save with one's identity. These proposed bills serve not to protect individual rights but to limit the rights of a group of children and adolescents who are in the process of discovering who they are and building their character. By limiting their ability to participate in school activities such as sport teams or by forcing them to share their most personal feelings about their identity and gender these bills, the actions that school staff, teachers and administrators will be forced to take will serve only to make them targets of discrimination and ostracism. Life is difficult enough for any teen or preteen trying to figure out where they fit in this world; they are all under such intense pressures to meet standards of academic performance, to have the "right" clothes, to have the latest tech item, to stave off peer pressure to experiment with drugs and alcohol and sex -- to add to all of that the fear of being called out, of being "outed" before the child is really ready to share that part of themselves with their peers or members of their family for fear of being rejected is just untenable; it's cruel and absolutely unnecessary. Then, for those students who have found the courage to share with the world their gender identity, to tell them that they cannot participate in school sports in a way that is in line with that gender identity is, essentially, telling them that they do not matter, that they do not have a place in the community, that they are unwelcome and less than human. To rob those students of the many life lessons and chances to build character and leadership skills and make what can be lifelong friends through sports on teams that match their gender identity is simply cruel and unnecessary. Transgender kids competing on teams that match their gender identity do not present threats to the potential achievements of their peers any more than non transgender teammates and opponents. We want all students to learn to respect themselves and to respect others, even others who look different, act differently and think differently. It is in learning how to interact respectfully with people who are different from us that we learn the important lessons that help us be good citizens of our local communities and the world. It opens so many doors of opportunity to explore different careers, different ways of serving our community and country. These bills will serve to teach kids that they do not have to be respectful of others who have gender identities that differ from their assigned sex at birth. What's next-- people who have different accents? different skin tones? from different neighborhoods? different wealth brackets? I implore you to think beyond the politically motivated sound bites and think of the mental, emotional and physical welfare of all students, trans, binary, nonbinary, -- all of them and vote NO on these bills. Thank you. JCMC

Children should not be pawns in your political agenda! Every child deserves an environment of encouragement, respect and opportunity. Our schools should not foster hatred and fear.

I oppose all four of the above bills that will hurt our trans youth, who are already one of the most at-risk groups in our state for mental health problems and attempting suicide. I am a Licensed Clinical Social Worker in Virginia, a small business owner in Herndon, and the parent of two children in Fairfax County Public Schools, one of whom is non-binary. As a therapist, I also regularly work with trans and non-binary students who fear for the safety at school and sometimes at home. Why is our state legislature trying to make the state LESS safe for our most vulnerable youth? As both an expert professional and a mother, I urge you to vote NO to all four of the proposed laws that would hurt our children.

Honorable members of the House of Delegates, Jesus Loves the Little Children and so do I! Please vote no against these ugly, disgusting anti-children bills! Thank you!

As an educator with over 35 years of teaching experience & of working with LGBTQ youth of all ages, I urge you to reject these bills that will only harm trans kids. Trans kids already face innumerable challenges at school & there is no valid reason that sports has to be yet another one. Please let these kids be themselves. Let them play for their respective teams. Allow trans kids to live their lives to the fullest. When we support trans kids, we support all kids .

As a resident of Henrico, parent of two teenagers in public school, and Licensed Professional Counselor, I oppose the following harmful bills: HB 1387 (Greenhalgh), HB 1399 (March), HB 1707 (Durant), and HB 2432 (LaRock). Please join me in protecting trans rights.

These proposed bills are transphobic, prejudicial and just plain harmful to transgender and/or non-binary youth of Virginia. While debate may ensue about transgender athletes leave it up to the individual schools. Regarding forced “outing” of students to parents by teachers and school staff this is an absolutely horrendous and potentially very harmful proposal! Earlier this year I went to a Fairfax County School Board meeting re this very topic. It was so sad and scary and absolutely heart wrenching to see young people who got up to testify against this proposed bill NOT for themselves but rather “for my friend who would be kicked out of their house tonight if their parents knew they were transgender”. Schools are supposed to be a place where students not only go to learn from books but also care, respect, support and tolerance FOR & FROM others! The young people who feel it is safe to share with their parents will, those that do not should be able to have sanctuary. Our immediate neighborhood has already lost one young person to suicide due to this scenario - do we need more on our hands? PLEASE VOTE NO!

As a registered voting Virginia resident, I am writing with grave concerns about HB 1387 (Greenhalgh), an anti-transgender bill that would harm transgender youth and prevent them from participating in school athletics in K-12 schools as well as higher education club sports. I'm also concerned about HB 2432 (LaRock), as this bill would require public school personnel to contact a student's parent if they believe that the student could be transgender and/or nonbinary. When the House Education Committee meets on Wednesday, I urge you to reject these bills. We can agree that transgender youth exist and live here in Virginia and attend public schools and colleges in Virginia. Transgender students, like any other student, deserve the same chances to learn teamwork, sportsmanship, leadership and self-discipline, and to build a sense of belonging with their peers through sports. Both the Virginia High School League and the NCAA have policies that allow transgender students to play in sports, and these policies are working just fine. HB 1387 is unnecessary and would prevent trans athletes from accessing the benefits of sports. Forcibly outing transgender youth also creates a unwelcoming school environment. Trust between school staff and students is necessary to provide adequate mental-health support. If students feel that their communications are not confidential, they will be less likely to disclose important information to their school counselors and teachers. Additionally, too many LGBTQ youth still face significant challenges fighting discrimination, misconceptions, and abuse by peers, family members, and others in their communities. Up to 40% of homeless youth identify as LGBTQ. Of these, 46% ran away because of family rejection. HB 2432 would place LGBTQ+ youth at risk for housing insecurity. This is not a bill that will help LGBTQ+ youth. Transgender students already face disproportionately high rates of bullying and rejection, and the mere introduction of this legislation is making it even worse. It essentially amounts to state-sponsored bullying. The legislature should be focused on real priorities that all Virginians are facing, not manufacturing a problem where none exists. I strongly believe that every Virginian should be treated with dignity and respect, including transgender young people. Forcibly outing students will increase the strain on the current mental health provider shortage: “93 of Virginia’s 133 localities are federally-designated Mental Health Professional Shortage Areas; 37% of Virginians (3.2 million) live in them. Two localities have no licensed BH professionals; 35 have no trained BH prescriber (Psychiatrist, Psychiatric-Mental Health Nurse Practitioner). It will take a variety of short- and long-term strategies over a number of years to address Virginia’s significant shortage of licensed BH professionals." : Oswalt, 2022 Executive Director Virginia Health Care Foundation. HB 1387 and HB 2432 are wrong for Virginia. Please reject them. Thank you for your time.

I urge you to passing both HB 1526 and HB 2137. Both of these bills promote literacy programs and support desperately ended for Virginia students, especially those who struggle with reading.

As a mother to 5 children, some who are lgbtqia+ this is harmful to all of my children. My straight kids have more rights than my non straight children. How is this justifiable? At what point are all people created equal? Why am Ibfirced to have different survival conversations with each of my children because of laws like these? Why are my LGBTQIA+ kids worth less than my straight kids to my state government? At what point will you work to protect all of my children equally?

My name is Shannon Duncan and I am a founding member of Decoding Dyslexia Virginia. We can't thank you enough for coming together to pass and fully fund the Virginia Literacy Act last year. I am writing to ask for your support of: HB1526 - Delegate Carrie Coyner's Virginia Literacy Act Expansion bill will expand evidence-based literacy instruction, teacher professional development, and increase reading specialists for our 4th through 8th graders. (Mirroring bill in the Senate SB1175) HB1629 - Delegate Carrie Coyner's Parent Data Portal bill will provide parents with timely access to their children’s state-sponsored assessment data so that they can participate in data-informed decisions about their children’s education. HB2137 - Delegate Karrie Delaney's bill will empower parents with the knowledge of what core/intervention curriculum is being used by each school, in addition to the job description and contact information for reading specialists/dyslexia advisors. This data must be shared publicly on the VDOE website. We are in the midst of a literacy crisis in Virginia and we need to invest in our children's literacy by ensuring they receive a curriculum rooted in science-based reading research and evidence-based literacy instruction. We must pass HB1526/SB1175 into law and fully fund this enormous undertaking so that the children hardest hit by the pandemic (those K-2 students during the pandemic) aren't forgotten because they will be out of reach of the Virginia Literacy Act when it takes effect 2024-2025 school year. ALL children, K-8, deserve teachers who can hit the ground running and impart foundational literacy skills during their academic careers without the current wait-to-fail model that was in place for my own daughter who couldn't learn to read. Parents are their children's first and best advocate and it's important that data relating to their literacy is easily and equitably accessible no matter what district their children attend in Virginia. Reading is a right!

"I support HB 1396 as introduced, and it deserves a vote." Thank you for your hard work and dedication to the School Choice fight! Quick Links: Join the Rapid Response Team of Virginia for Educational Freedom School Choice petition to legislators Donate to Virginia for Educational Freedom For Our Children, Natassia Grover Director Virginia for Educational Freedom PS- It is vital that you sign our Petition for School Choice today. The thing politicians fear most is large numbers of angry voters, and your signature on the petition will be added to the thousands that have already signed. This Petition will be delivered to the House Educational Committee, and they will be told they must support full and complete School Choice. So click here to sign! Copyright © 2023 Acton Advocacy Group, All rights reserved. Fighting to restore freedom in education in the Commonwealth Our mailing address is: Acton Advocacy Group 11895 Folly Lane Lovettsville, VA 20180 Add us to your address book

My name is Devan Partangel. I am 18 years old, and I am attending Virginia Commonwealth University and studying Communication Arts. Although I identify as transgender, I am not here to advocate for myself. Instead, I am advocating for my awesome little sibling. My sibling's name is Dan, and they are 13 years old. I love my sibling with all my heart, and I love playing video games and hanging out with them. My sibling means the world to me. My sibling is transgender, and goes by different pronouns at school than they do at home. School is where they feel the most comfortable, as our father is not accepting of people who are transgender. The "Minor students experiencing gender incongruence; parental notification" act would take away one of my sibling's only sources of safety and security. They struggle with their mental health and suicidal thoughts, as do many transgender youth. According to The Trevor Project, LGBTQ+ youth are four times more likely to attempt suicide than their cisgender and heterosexual peers. More than half of non binary and transgender youth have considered suicide, and at least one LGBTQ+ youth attempts suicide every 45 seconds. These statistics are heartbreaking, and if this bill is passed, those numbers will only continue to rise. Although some parents may be accepting of their children being transgender, there are those who are not accepting. Forcibly outing a transgender child to their parents is child abuse. Exposing a child's identity could put them in an abusive or toxic situation, and it could even leave them homeless. Transgender children will attempt to take their own lives as a result. This bill is the opposite of suicide prevention. If this bill is passed, you will have blood on your hands. Please don't kill my sibling.

While I am temporarily not living in Virginia, I grew up in Fairfax County, did K-12 and undergrad there, and will return in the not too distant future to grow old there, so I have a vested interest in what this legislature decides. As a mental health professional who specializes in caring for LGBT+ individuals, I know the lifelong harm that can be done by efforts--by the individual or by institutions, peers, and yes, parents--who try to suppress a young person's natural gender or sexuality. And that is for the young people who survive; many, sadly, do not. And to be clear, when I say "natural gender" I am referring to a phenomenon that, with current science, we cannot determine except by the report of the person experiencing it. No one--not a doctor, not a parent, and certainly not a legislator who's never met them--can say what signals a child's nervous system is sending to the oldest and deepest parts of their brain; we can only determine it from the words and behavior of the child themselves, when they say "I am a boy," "I am a girl," "I am neither." And if modern science cannot determine it better than the child can, what can highly simplified, grade school biology based on science that was already outdated decades ago do? In short, the child is the world's top, and only, expert on their own gender. Anyone--parent, teacher, legislator, therapist--who declares otherwise is speaking about a topic on which it is impossible for them to have any knowledge; it is not a belief but pure foolishness. Worse than foolishness: we know that dismissing a transgender child's statements about their gender, trying to repress that and treat them as the gender some doctor declared after a few seconds of examination without consulting the world's only expert (who, admittedly, was probably either in the womb or crying at the time), dramatically increases that child's risk of depression, trauma- and stress-related disorders, and suicide. (The origin of that infamous "40 percent" statistic--it drops to levels comparable with the child's cisgender peers if their gender is accepted by their family and community.) Every time an institution insists on treating the child as their assumed gender rather than the one they know themselves to be--as school sports programs would be mandated to do by HB1387--is an act of harm toward that child. It is bad enough when laws allow schools to harm children; how much worse is a law that requires it? Which, like HB1387, HB2432 does as well. Again, speaking from my experience as a mental health professional who works with LGBT+ individuals, sometimes parents hurt their children. Many of my clients were mentally, emotionally, and sometimes physically harmed by parents who rejected their identities, and there is no one in a better position to gauge that risk than the child themselves. If a child feels safe revealing their identity to a teacher, counselor, or coach, and unsafe revealing it to their parent, there is very often a good reason. For the health and safety of the child--which must always take precedence over the rights of the parent, because children are people, not property--educators must be bound by confidence when the child reveals things that, if told to the parent, could bring the child to harm. In summary, please vote no on HB1387, no on HB2432, and yes on keeping trans children safe, healthy, and thriving.

Support this bill. Parents are primarily responsible for their children’s wellbeing. Adults who deliberately withholding information about a child from their parents are predators. “Misgendering” isn’t abuse.

This is a blatant human rights violation and creates an unsafe situation for minors we should be protecting. I oppose this and all other systemic measures to remove personhood.

I urge you to oppose HB2432 and HB1387! These bills are harmful to trans students. Our schools and communities should strive to nurture and support our kids, not put measures in place that will cause them harm. As a parent myself, I know how important it is to make schools safe for ALL students.

In my opinion, keeping something as critical as a students gender identity, preference, hidden from parents is a violation of the family, rights and privacy act. The constitution protects the fundamental rights of parents to direct the care, upbringing and education of their children. If there is any suspicion of child abuse teachers are mandated reporters, and are required to immediately report any suspected abuse to the proper authorities. As parents we receive information on our children through parent, teacher conferences, report cards, progress, reports, award notifications, etc.. If a child receives a failing grade, are they going to withhold sending a report card out in fear of how the parents will react? This bill is to protect the parents rights. In my opinion in order for our children to be protected, the school system should be trained to facilitate a transparent, healthy and safe communication process with the school, students and parents . The school system should not be keeping secrets and lies, causing more stress, anxiety, distrust and confusion of our children. Please vote yes for HB2432

Every student should be viewed with compassion and caring - no matter what his/her beliefs. Transgender youths do not impose their lifestyles on others, do not harm others, and should not be singled out or victimized. Their lives are difficult enough without adding more complications. Why single someone out when one IS NOT GOING TO CHANGE THEM? As a legislator, YOU should be acting in a moral and responsible manner - representing ALL of your constituents. This is NOT DOING SO!

As a Virginia resident, I am writing with grave concerns about HB 1387 (Greenhalgh), an anti-transgender bill that would harm transgender youth and prevent them from participating in school athletics in K-12 schools as well as higher education club sports. I'm also concerned about HB 2432 (LaRock), as this bill would require public school personnel to contact a student's parent if they believe that the student could be transgender and/or nonbinary. When the House Education Committee meets on Wednesday, I urge you to reject these bills. We can agree that transgender youth exist and live here in Virginia and attend public schools and colleges in Virginia. Transgender students, like any other student, deserve the same chances to learn teamwork, sportsmanship, leadership and self-discipline, and to build a sense of belonging with their peers through sports. Both the Virginia High School League and the NCAA have policies that allow transgender students to play in sports, and these policies are working just fine. HB 1387 is unnecessary and would prevent trans athletes from accessing the benefits of sports. Forcibly outing transgender youth also creates a unwelcoming school environment. Trust between school staff and students is necessary to provide adequate mental-health support. If students feel that their communications are not confidential, they will be less likely to disclose important information to their school counselors and teachers. Additionally, too many LGBTQ youth still face significant challenges fighting discrimination, misconceptions, and abuse by peers, family members, and others in their communities. Up to 40% of homeless youth identify as LGBTQ. Of these, 46% ran away because of family rejection. HB 2432 would place LGBTQ+ youth at risk for housing insecurity. This is not a bill that will help LGBTQ+ youth. Transgender students already face disproportionately high rates of bullying and rejection, and the mere introduction of this legislation is making it even worse. It essentially amounts to state-sponsored bullying. The legislature should be focused on real priorities that all Virginians are facing, not manufacturing a problem where none exists. I strongly believe that every Virginian should be treated with dignity and respect, including transgender young people. HB 1387 and HB 2432 are wrong for Virginia. Please reject them.

Please reject HB 1387. Trans young people deserve the same opportunities to play sports as everyone else. The rules for school sports are fair only when they include trans students. Please also reject HB 2432. Trans kids deserve to be treated with kindness and respect, and that means allowing them to come out to their parents when they feel ready and expect that they will be safe in doing so. Schools should not meddle in family relationships by outing children to their parents.

Please vote NO. Trans youth deserve respect and to be safe

These bills cannot be passed if Virginia wants to protect all of its children. Allowing a child to be themselves at school is essential to providing a safe and welcoming environment. Schools are one of the only places where a child is not under the direct supervision of their guardian, therefore a child gains some independence. Children spend much of their developmental years in school and often experiment with their self expression and identity in ways they can’t at home. This can be changing clothes, hairstyles, or make up. These differences of school versus home aren’t required to be reported. These are small actions yet when affirmed by trusted adults have a massive impact on a child’s mental and emotional health and self worth. Regarding larger questioning of identity such as gender, it is vital that children have a space where they can experiment without being punished. Transgender youth are at a higher risk of suicide than their cisgender peers and it is because they frequently lack support. Lacking support from parents or guardians especially is incredibly damaging to a child’s development. If support from adults at school is also taken away, transgender youth will be put in a dangerous position as they will have much less access to trusted adults. They may turn to unsafe outlets like the internet in search of connection and become victims of child predators looking to take advantage of lonely kids. Alternatively they may internalize their emotions which can lead to depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideation. These bills also specify that in addition to alerting a parent of a child self identifying as a different gender than the one assigned at birth, the school must ask if the parent is aware of the child’s mental state and whether they wish to obtain or have already obtained counseling for such student. According to the World Health Organization, “Gender interacts with but is different from sex, which refers to the different biological and physiological characteristics of females, males and intersex persons, such as chromosomes, hormones and reproductive organs. Gender and sex are related to but different from gender identity. Gender identity refers to a person’s deeply felt, internal and individual experience of gender, which may or may not correspond to the person’s physiology or designated sex at birth.” This means that there is not an inherent, unchangeable connection between a persons sex and their gender. To have a different gender than the one associated with the sex assigned at birth is completely normal. Additionally, self identifying as a different gender alone is not indicative of whether a child needs counseling. The American Psychiatric Association has explicitly stated that, “gender nonconformity is not in itself a mental disorder.” The International Classification of Diseases 11th Revision also places gender incongruence under conditions related to sexual health, not mental disorders. Price-Feeney, Myeshia, et al. “Understanding the Mental Health of Transgender and Nonbinary Youth.” Journal of Adolescent Health, Elsevier, 25 Jan. 2020, https://www.jahonline.org/article/S1054-139X(19)30922-X/fulltext. “Gender and Health.” World Health Organization, World Health Organization, https://www.who.int/health-topics/gender. Gender Dysphoria - American Psychiatric Association. 2013, https://www.psychiatry.org/File%20Library/Psychiatrists/Practice/DSM/APA_DSM-5-Gender-Dysphoria.pdf.

As a Virginia resident, a former Virginia public school board member, and the proud parent of a non-binary Virginia college student, I am writing with grave concerns about HB 1387 (Greenhalgh), an anti-transgender bill that would harm transgender youth and prevent them from participating in school athletics in K-12 schools as well as higher education club sports. I'm also concerned about HB 2432 (LaRock), as this bill would require public school personnel to contact a student's parent if they believe that the student could be transgender and/or nonbinary. When the House Education Committee meets on Wednesday, I urge you to reject these bills. <P> Thousands of transgender students live here in Virginia and attend Virginia public schools and colleges. Transgender students deserve the same chances as any other student to learn teamwork, sportsmanship, leadership and self-discipline, and to build a sense of belonging with their peers through sports. Both the Virginia High School League and the NCAA have policies that allow transgender students to play in sports, and these policies are working just fine. HB 1387 is unnecessary and would prevent trans athletes from accessing the benefits of sports. <P> Forcibly outing transgender youth also creates a unwelcoming school environment. Trust between school staff and students is necessary to provide adequate mental-health support. If students feel that their communications are not confidential, they will be less likely to disclose important information to their school counselors and teachers. Additionally, too many LGBTQ youth still face significant challenges fighting discrimination, misconceptions, and abuse by peers, family members, and others in their communities. Up to 40% of homeless youth identify as LGBTQ. Of these, 46% ran away because of family rejection. HB 2432 would place LGBTQ+ youth at risk for housing insecurity. This is not a bill that will help LGBTQ+ youth. <P> Transgender students already face disproportionately high rates of bullying and rejection, and significantly higher rates of attempted suicide compared to their cisgender peers. The mere introduction of this legislation is making things even worse. It essentially amounts to state-sponsored bullying. <P> The legislature should be focused on real priorities that all Virginians are facing, not manufacturing a problem where none exists. I strongly believe that every Virginian should be treated with dignity and respect, including transgender young people. HB 1387 and HB 2432 are wrong for Virginia. Please reject them. Thank you for your time.

As a Professional Registered Nurse for 28 years I am deeply concerned for the well-being and mental health for all minor children and teenagers. I am outraged at those who consider themselves Educators and having knowledge of the developing brain along with stages of growth and development who are creating chaos within the public education system. As a Crisis Management and Trauma Educator I have seen and continue to witness students who come to school with great physical, mental and emotional needs that are not being met at home. Students need mature and wise Educators and Counselors who can advocate for them individually and also by NOT turning students against their parents. Our current education system is causing great harm by feeding into the gender ideology and not seeking the best interests of minors. The developing brain needs sound instruction in the classroom and much needed outdoor activity. The developing brain working through puberty needs a classroom setting in which teenagers can channel their energy and emotions. Virginia needs trauma informed schools with curriculums that teach students to be resilient, to learn how to manage their emotions as well as seek out their identity in a safe and respectful manner. Parents also have many unresolved traumas in their life which many times creates generational trauma. Community resources along with resources within our public schools need to be focused on meeting needs and promoting healing not tearing families apart by keeping secrets regarding gender crises. Our very humanity is at stake and I strongly believe in human rights for every individual. I strongly believe every human needs a voice and to be heard. I am the voice for many parents that I personally know along with many students in my community. I listen as they share with me the daily struggles in their lives, the ongoing bullying and confusion regarding gender ideology. I mentor teen girls in my community and I am also SAGE’s mentor, the young lady for whom this bill was written. I know Sage’s story inside and out. I have walked in great darkness fighting for this young lady. I have stood up against those who should have been seeking the best for Sage. I am appalled at the lack of judgment and wisdom within our education system. I have studied Biology and Science in high school and Anatomy and Physiology all throughout my Nursing Courses. We need to empower our youth to embrace their gender and identity not go against the very science that makes us who we are. For many who are struggling they need a safe environment to discuss their feelings but their parents and caregivers need to be part of that as well. I urge you to consider the depth of what is happening and pass this bill to avoid further tragedies such as what Sage had to endure along with Sage’s parents. Sincerely, Jennifer Farney RN, BSN 434-258-9570

To the Education Committee, Please vote NO on all four bills --- to support the young people who would be affected. To protect their privacy .,respect their dignity and defend their rights. Barbara Morris Falls C hurch, Va.

Hb1387 no Hb1707 no Hb2137 no HB2432 yes

I oppose these bills as they will hurt trans youth. Being a transgender person myself I know the struggles that the youth will have in life if either of these bills r passed. Transgender youth r more likely to turn to suicide, or become addicted to drugs and alcohol due to the shame the they feel because they have to hide who they r . I encourage you to vote NO Thanks u for u time Emily Potts

I oppose these bills as they will hurt trans youth. Being a transgender person myself I know the struggles that the youth will have in life if either of these bills r passed. Transgender youth r more likely to turn to suicide, or become addicted to drugs and alcohol due to the shame the they feel because they have to hide who they r . I encourage you to vote NO Thanks u for u time Emily Potts

I oppose these bills as they will hurt trans youth. Being a transgender person myself I know the struggles that the youth will have in life if either of these bills r passed. Transgender youth r more likely to turn to suicide, or become addicted to drugs and alcohol due to the shame the they feel because they have to hide who they r . I encourage you to vote NO Thanks u for u time Emily Potts

I oppose these bills as they will hurt trans youth. Being a transgender person myself I know the struggles that the youth will have in life if either of these bills r passed. Transgender youth r more likely to turn to suicide, or become addicted to drugs and alcohol due to the shame the they feel because they have to hide who they r . I encourage you to vote NO Thanks u for u time Emily Potts

I oppose these bills as they will hurt trans youth. Being a transgender person myself I know the struggles that the youth will have in life if either of these bills r passed. Transgender youth r more likely to turn to suicide, or become addicted to drugs and alcohol due to the shame the they feel because they have to hide who they r . I encourage you to vote NO Thanks u for u time Emily Potts

I oppose these bills as they will hurt trans youth. Being a transgender person myself I know the struggles that the youth will have in life if either of these bills r passed. Transgender youth r more likely to turn to suicide, or become addicted to drugs and alcohol due to the shame the they feel because they have to hide who they r . I encourage you to vote NO Thanks u for u time Emily Potts

As a mother of a transgender child, I urge you to allow trans athletes to participate in sports that align with their gender identify. Sports have been life-saving for my child. There was a time when my child was so depressed that he could not get out of bed. Participating in physical activity is so wonderful for our physical and mental wellbeing and allowing children to be themselves and participate helps foster healthy lifestyle choices and promotes positive self image and mental health. Sports helped my child feel comfortable and accepted, and participating on a sports team has improved his mental health considerably. Good mental health has contributed to his excellent engagement in school and improved wellbeing in general. If he is no longer allowed to participate, I am concerned about the impacts on his mental and physical well-being. He now feels seen and accepted. Being excluded will be devastating and the effects will run much deeper and wider than the sports field. How would you feel being excluded from a beloved sport? Plead choose to include those in our society that are already feeling marginalized. Thank you.

I strongly oppose all of these bills. Transgender rights are human rights. Any regulations imposed by the government is government overreach. These bills do not put the mental health and well being of youth first. Did you know that on average 40% of trans youth die by suicide. These bills threaten to drive that frightening statistic higher. Please don't threaten the lives of transgender youth in our state!

I urge you to vote NO on HB 1387 & HB 2432. Both bills are fueled by hate and ignorance. Stop dividing all of us with dirty boots on the ground. NO on HB 1387 & HB 2432

Dear Board Members and Staff, I write to you as a resident of Virginia, a former teacher and a parent. I write to you as a firm believer in personal freedoms for all regardless of a person's age, race, color, ethnicity, political affiliation or economic status. By personal freedoms I mean the right to safely going about one's life without targeted harassment, without being labeled; to be able to feel save with one's identity. These proposed bills serve not to protect individual rights but to limit the rights of a group of children and adolescents who are in the process of discovering who they are and building their character. By limiting their ability to participate in school activities such as sport teams or by forcing them to share their most personal feelings about their identity and gender these bills, the actions that school staff, teachers and administrators will be forced to take will serve only to make them targets of discrimination and ostracism. Life is difficult enough for any teen or preteen trying to figure out where they fit in this world; they are all under such intense pressures to meet standards of academic performance, to have the "right" clothes, to have the latest tech item, to stave off peer pressure to experiment with drugs and alcohol and sex -- to add to all of that the fear of being called out, of being "outed" before the child is really ready to share that part of themselves with their peers or members of their family for fear of being rejected is just untenable; it's cruel and absolutely unnecessary. Then, for those students who have found the courage to share with the world their gender identity, to tell them that they cannot participate in school sports in a way that is in line with that gender identity is, essentially, telling them that they do not matter, that they do not have a place in the community, that they are unwelcome and less than human. To rob those students of the many life lessons and chances to build character and leadership skills and make what can be lifelong friends through sports on teams that match their gender identity is simply cruel and unnecessary. Transgender kids competing on teams that match their gender identity do not present threats to the potential achievements of their peers any more than non transgender teammates and opponents. We want all students to learn to respect themselves and to respect others, even others who look different, act differently and think differently. It is in learning how to interact respectfully with people who are different from us that we learn the important lessons that help us be good citizens of our local communities and the world. It opens so many doors of opportunity to explore different careers, different ways of serving our community and country. These bills will serve to teach kids that they do not have to be respectful of others who have gender identities that differ from their assigned sex at birth. What's next-- people who have different accents? different skin tones? from different neighborhoods? different wealth brackets? I implore you to think beyond the politically motivated sound bites and think of the mental, emotional and physical welfare of all students, trans, binary, nonbinary, -- all of them and vote NO on these bills. Thank you. JCMC

Dear Members of the Virginia House Committee on Education: I am a graduate of 2 Virginia public universities (B.S.Ed. UVa 2007, M.S. JMU 2016) and a mother of 2 young children whom I hope will attend Virginia public schools in a few years. Given this context, I write to express my strong opposition to the 2 anti-transgender bills up for vote during your meeting on Feb 1, 2023. The diverse student bodies of my undergraduate and graduate experiences were important components of the world-class education I received at UVa & JMU, and sexual orientation and gender identity are important components of this diversity. This diversity enriched my life and helped prepare me for my careers as a research administrator at UVa and now a speech-language pathologist serving adult rehabilitation inpatients. Furthermore, my children (3 years and 9 weeks old) are too young to have concepts of sexual orientation or gender identity, and they may grow up to be LGBTQ+. If my children identify as transgender or non-binary when they are older, my husband and I will fully support them. This will include ensuring they are educated in a safe and supportive environment. The anti-transgender bills I write to oppose [HB 1387 (Greenhalgh) and HB 2432 (LaRock)] would make public school inherently unsafe and unsupportive for my (and many other Virginia) children if they grow into trans or non-binary youth. This would force my husband and I to seriously consider not sending our children to Virginia public schools, which would make me a *very unhappy constituent.* I urge you to focus on important educational issues facing Virginians, such as improving compensation, morale, recruitment, and retention of teachers, bus drivers, and other staff; increasing mental health supports for students; and reforming our educational system to refocus away from success on standardized testing and toward training children for a creativity- and skills-based economy rather than manufactured issues around LGBTQ+ children and youth. Sincerely yours, Janice Dean

Children should not be pawns in your political agenda! Every child deserves an environment of encouragement, respect and opportunity. Our schools should not foster hatred and fear.

I am writing to oppose HB 1387 and HB 2432 and any anti Trans legislation that might come before the education committee. Access to athletics is important for all children and access to clubs is also important. Trans girls should have equal protection and be able to participate in the team building and leadership lessons that come with being on a sports team. And likewise kids should not be threatened with being outed in order to participate in any club. Stop targeting trans kids. All Kids need to be protected. Trans kids deserve equal treatment. Vote NO on HB 1387 and HB 2432 and all anti Trans and anti LGBTQ+ legislation. Support ALL Children and ALL families.

I urge your to vote NO to both of these bills As a parent, grandparent, and former educator in the US and abroad and in secular and religious education programs, I want to live in a state whose education system supports ALL of our students as they grow and evolve into the people they are born to be. That's the point : they are still growing and becoming. Adolescence is already a difficult time for them. Sexuality is complex, making it highly questionable to force students to identify in a rigid manner. They need understanding and support, not rigid, punishing laws. Let's be open and reasonable, treating all students with respect, and trusting that with wise adults watching over them, they will in time come to a good place regarding their self-confidence, sexual identity, and competence. Please vote NO to these two bills.

I oppose HB 1387 and HB 2432. They harm our youth and our communities. I ask that you oppose them as well, Marit Simenson

I oppose all four of the above bills that will hurt our trans youth, who are already one of the most at-risk groups in our state for mental health problems and attempting suicide. I am a Licensed Clinical Social Worker in Virginia, a small business owner in Herndon, and the parent of two children in Fairfax County Public Schools, one of whom is non-binary. As a therapist, I also regularly work with trans and non-binary students who fear for the safety at school and sometimes at home. Why is our state legislature trying to make the state LESS safe for our most vulnerable youth? As both an expert professional and a mother, I urge you to vote NO to all four of the proposed laws that would hurt our children.

Reject these horrible bills!! These are clear transphobia. This is putting trans youth in harm's way. All this bullying has to STOP!! Seriously. Stop hurting kids and actually do some good for a change. You have better things to do. Trans rights are human rights!

I OPPOSE HB2432. This puts a lot of unnecessary stress on LGBTQ+ youth, especially those in conservative and religious families who put their faith before accepting their children for what they identify as. This can easily lead to conflicts in family at home, the kid being kicked out, or the kid being pushed to seeing suicide as the only option. This is very dark, but this is what would most likely come from this. The reason some parents are kept in the dark about this is because they want to change the kid to what they think they should be instead of being supportive and acceptive. Ideally, the parents are open minded and supportive, but not all of them. Hence, this bill will lead to a worse home life and possibly tragic outcomes.

I am a native of Virginia and currently live in Arlington. I am appalled that the House of Delegates is actually considering adopting either HB 1387 (Greenhalgh) or HB 2432 (LaRock). I beg you to please reject both of these bills on Wednesday when the House Education Committee meets. My transgender son would be directly impacted by these bills. His ability to play sports would be imperiled by HB 1387, which unnecessarily and unfairly prevents all trans kids from being able to participate in sports. The VA HSL and NCAA have policies that allow transgender athletes to play sports. Please let those policies stand and reject HB 1387! HB 2432 needs to also be rejected. Many transgender students do not have the supportive home environment which my son enjoys. This bill will hurt kids and hurt supportive school communities. It will fuel violence against transgender kids and further divide families. Please reject this bill! Thank you.

As a Virginia resident, parent and educator, I am writing with grave concerns about HB 1387 (Greenhalgh), an anti-transgender bill that would harm transgender youth and prevent them from participating in school athletics in K-12 schools as well as higher education club sports. I'm also concerned about HB 2432 (LaRock), as this bill would require public school personnel to contact a student's parent if they believe that the student could be transgender and/or nonbinary. When the House Education Committee meets on Wednesday, I urge you to reject these bills. Transgender youth exist and live in Virginia and attend public schools and colleges in Virginia. Transgender students, like any other student, deserve the same chances to learn teamwork, sportsmanship, leadership and self-discipline, and to build a sense of belonging with their peers through sports. Both the Virginia High School League and the NCAA have policies that allow transgender students to play in sports, and these policies are working. HB 1387 is unnecessary and would prevent trans athletes from accessing the benefits of sports. Forcibly outing transgender and nonbinary youth also creates a unwelcoming school environment. Trust between school staff and students is necessary to provide adequate mental-health support. If students feel that their communications are not confidential, they will be less likely to disclose important information to their school counselors and teachers. Additionally, too many LGBTQ youth still face significant challenges fighting discrimination, misconceptions, and abuse by peers, family members, and others in their communities. Up to 40% of homeless youth identify as LGBTQ. Of these, 46% ran away because of family rejection. HB 2432 would place LGBTQ+ youth at risk for housing insecurity. This is not a bill that will help LGBTQ+ youth in fact it will put many of these youth in grave danger. Transgender students already face disproportionately high rates of bullying and rejection, and the mere introduction of this legislation is making it even worse. It essentially amounts to state-sponsored bullying. The legislature should be focused on real priorities that all Virginians are facing, not manufacturing a problem where none exists. I strongly believe that every Virginian should be treated with dignity and respect, including transgender young people. HB 1387 and HB 2432 are wrong for Virginia. Please reject them. Thank you for your time.

Honorable members of the House of Delegates, Jesus Loves the Little Children and so do I! Please vote no against these ugly, disgusting anti-children bills! Thank you!

This is the time to provide an inclusive environment for our youth. All young people deserve to feel safe, respected and included. LBGTQ+ youth are especially vulnerable and the one place they can feel accepted is in a school setting. Please don't take this away and make life more difficult. Sports provide so many skills that all kids deserve. There is no threat. Instead it is an opportunity for the Commonwealth of VA to continue to shine. We should not be taking away the rights of people or "outing" students to their parents. I am a long time VA resident (and Voter) and grew up in Northern VA in the 70's. I am contacting you now because I am very concerned about Human Rights in VA including LBGTQ+ and Women's Rights. I want to continue to be proud to live in Virginia. Please do the right thing and welcome all types of people in the education system. Provide a safe and inclusive environment for all. Respectfully, Cassandra Kudej

Before voting on HB1387 and 2432 I would insist that you visit with at least 20 transgender youth and ask them how they feel about these bills. My guess is you are carrying a bill you know nothing about and care little about but to score political points with a certain group. Virginia has real issues like housing and food insecurity and that is where the focus should be put. I oppose both of these bills as a resident and taxpayer of Virginia.

Trans youth (and all youth) deserve equal access to activities (including sports) and deserve to have their privacy rights respected. Legislators need to focus on protecting trans youth and on educating all youth to understand and respect peoples of different gender identities and sexual orientations, not on banning some students from sports and not on outing students to potentially transphobic guardians.

As an educator with over 35 years of teaching experience & of working with LGBTQ youth of all ages, I urge you to reject these bills that will only harm trans kids. Trans kids already face innumerable challenges at school & there is no valid reason that sports has to be yet another one. Please let these kids be themselves. Let them play for their respective teams. Allow trans kids to live their lives to the fullest. When we support trans kids, we support all kids .

As a resident of Virginia, and a proud parent of both a transgender child and a nonbinary child, I urge the committee to reject HB1387 and HB2432. These bills are attacks on an already marginalized community of Virginia youth. HB1387 would place barriers in the way for student athletes who happen to be transgender, prohibiting them from obtaining the benefits of playing sports with their peers. The VHSL already has procedures in place to allow transgender athletes to play sports fairly; these existing VHSL procedures work well, making this proposed bill a solution looking for a problem. HB 2432 would place transgender youth in possible danger; outing youth to parents who may be unsupportive could lead to homelessness and an increase in mental health crises. Additionally, it could prevent youth from feeling safe at school and stop them from reaching out for help from school counselors and staff. This bill would harm, not help, an already marginalized community. Virginia schools should make the safety and well-being of all students the top priority; these two bills would do the opposite, by making life harder and more dangerous for youth who identify as LGBTQ+.

As a Virginia resident and parent of a transgender child, I strongly oppose HB1387 and HB2432 in the interest of keeping my child and all the Commonwealth’s children safe from discrimination and harm.

My name is Nancy Kunkel. I am mother to four graduates of Virginia public schools: Three daughters and one son. One of my daughters is Transgender. Like probably many of you, I never imagined I would have a transgender child, but I am grateful for her courage, and that she is still alive. I live with the constant fear of losing my trans daughter to violence. She lives in fear she will be shamed, denied health care; physically attacked; or murdered just for being herself. Trans kids have the same inalienable rights as everyone, including the right to privacy. I want to see all children have the same chance to thrive, and that requires treating all children with dignity and respect. In addition, if we accept oppression of trans kids, we also open the door to oppression of many kinds of people who can be scapegoated in a similar fashion. As a Christian, I believe we are all members of the same human family. I pray that our shared humanity spurs the Virginia House of Delegates to show empathy and compassion, as well as follow best practices in the treatment of transgender children, by voting NO to the anti-trans bills HB 1387 and HB 2432. Thank you.

As a resident of Henrico, parent of two teenagers in public school, and Licensed Professional Counselor, I oppose the following harmful bills: HB 1387 (Greenhalgh), HB 1399 (March), HB 1707 (Durant), and HB 2432 (LaRock). Please join me in protecting trans rights.

I implore the House Education Committee to vote NO on HB-1387 and HB-2432. My children are not trans, but a small number of their friends are, and they are not publicly out to their parents yet, so these bills affect our lives in substantive ways. There is NO REASON for the state to interfere in a child or family's affairs in this way. It's biological fact that gender identity doesn't always align with biological sex. These bills would out children to potentially hostile parents which has real-world consequences in terms of mental health and physical safety. This is unnecessary and harmful interference in childrens' lives, and also puts teachers in situations they shouldn't be involved in. The party of "small government" has no right to demand these things be legislated and controlled by the state.

These proposed bills are transphobic, prejudicial and just plain harmful to transgender and/or non-binary youth of Virginia. While debate may ensue about transgender athletes leave it up to the individual schools. Regarding forced “outing” of students to parents by teachers and school staff this is an absolutely horrendous and potentially very harmful proposal! Earlier this year I went to a Fairfax County School Board meeting re this very topic. It was so sad and scary and absolutely heart wrenching to see young people who got up to testify against this proposed bill NOT for themselves but rather “for my friend who would be kicked out of their house tonight if their parents knew they were transgender”. Schools are supposed to be a place where students not only go to learn from books but also care, respect, support and tolerance FOR & FROM others! The young people who feel it is safe to share with their parents will, those that do not should be able to have sanctuary. Our immediate neighborhood has already lost one young person to suicide due to this scenario - do we need more on our hands? PLEASE VOTE NO!

I’m writing in opposition of HB 1387 (Greenhalgh) and HB 2432 (LaRock), both of which target transgender youth and make our schools less accepting. As a gay man who grew up in Southwest Virginia, I know how hard it can be to navigate understanding your identity and place when those around you aren’t always accepting of those identities. Schools should support all LGBTQ youth and create welcoming environments, especially for trans kids who already face hurdles and hate outside of school. Both of these bills punish trans youth who wish to have a normal school experience learning, playing sports, and connecting with peers. HB 2432 in particular also places new burdens on parents, teachers, school personnel, and students, while also forcing the government into the private lives of Virginians. I urge the committee to reject both of these hateful, divisive, and unneeded bills which create new problems and burdens instead of solving issues facing Virginians.

I am writing as the parent of a trans young adult. I fully understand the reasoning behind these bills but those who support them don’t fully understand and appreciate the results we will see. According to the NIH 82% of trans young people consider suicide and 40% have attempted suicide. These numbers VASTLY outpace the general population. The leading reasons for these increased statistics is rejection and mistreatment from friends, family and community. Coming out is a deeply personal and emotional time for the vast majority of trans people. Uncertainties around who will accept them and the danger they are in from those who do not can not be understated. Providing confidentiality with teachers or other school staff gives the students a trusted adult to help them navigate this freighting and uncertain time and the support to maintain their mental health. Of course the goal of these adult will be for the young person to talk to their parents but many times this disclosure is dangerous for the trans person and having outside support is imperative to keeping these kids healthy and safe. Children do not belong to their parents. They are autonomous individuals who are allowed to disagree with their parents beliefs. I have been through this coming out as a parent and can promise you how one reacts from the jump is VITAL to the wellbeing of the child. It’s not an easy time by any stretch, but forcing a student out and not giving them time to process and talk through this period with a trusted adult who is not their parent only does harm to the child. The sports ban is just simple window dressing. You are playing politics with kids for show as none of the science backs any kind of advantage for trans people in athletics. Firstly it is a TINY, minuscule percent of the population that this subject is even applicable to. Second, the point of youth sports is to build sportsmanship, team building, camaraderie, and healthy outlets for physical exercise. I promise you no boy is going to go through the incredibly emotionally difficult transition to fake being a trans girl. It completely defies logic. Thank you for your time and please consider that fear mongering around an already very vulnerable group is truly distasteful and abhorrent.

As a public school parent in Virginia, I urge you to oppose HB 1387 and HB 2432. Please let Virginia students be themselves in a safe space, which may be school and not home. Let them participate in sports just like every other student. Gender diverse kids like mine just want to have a normal school experience like everyone else. I strongly oppose these bills and hope you will do the right thing in voting against them.

As a registered voting Virginia resident, I am writing with grave concerns about HB 1387 (Greenhalgh), an anti-transgender bill that would harm transgender youth and prevent them from participating in school athletics in K-12 schools as well as higher education club sports. I'm also concerned about HB 2432 (LaRock), as this bill would require public school personnel to contact a student's parent if they believe that the student could be transgender and/or nonbinary. When the House Education Committee meets on Wednesday, I urge you to reject these bills. We can agree that transgender youth exist and live here in Virginia and attend public schools and colleges in Virginia. Transgender students, like any other student, deserve the same chances to learn teamwork, sportsmanship, leadership and self-discipline, and to build a sense of belonging with their peers through sports. Both the Virginia High School League and the NCAA have policies that allow transgender students to play in sports, and these policies are working just fine. HB 1387 is unnecessary and would prevent trans athletes from accessing the benefits of sports. Forcibly outing transgender youth also creates a unwelcoming school environment. Trust between school staff and students is necessary to provide adequate mental-health support. If students feel that their communications are not confidential, they will be less likely to disclose important information to their school counselors and teachers. Additionally, too many LGBTQ youth still face significant challenges fighting discrimination, misconceptions, and abuse by peers, family members, and others in their communities. Up to 40% of homeless youth identify as LGBTQ. Of these, 46% ran away because of family rejection. HB 2432 would place LGBTQ+ youth at risk for housing insecurity. This is not a bill that will help LGBTQ+ youth. Transgender students already face disproportionately high rates of bullying and rejection, and the mere introduction of this legislation is making it even worse. It essentially amounts to state-sponsored bullying. The legislature should be focused on real priorities that all Virginians are facing, not manufacturing a problem where none exists. I strongly believe that every Virginian should be treated with dignity and respect, including transgender young people. Forcibly outing students will increase the strain on the current mental health provider shortage: “93 of Virginia’s 133 localities are federally-designated Mental Health Professional Shortage Areas; 37% of Virginians (3.2 million) live in them. Two localities have no licensed BH professionals; 35 have no trained BH prescriber (Psychiatrist, Psychiatric-Mental Health Nurse Practitioner). It will take a variety of short- and long-term strategies over a number of years to address Virginia’s significant shortage of licensed BH professionals." : Oswalt, 2022 Executive Director Virginia Health Care Foundation. HB 1387 and HB 2432 are wrong for Virginia. Please reject them. Thank you for your time.

I strongly oppose the above listed anti trans Bils which encourage discrimination and hatred of those who happen to be different. We should be accepting and supportive and ashamed to be devaluing our fellow human beings , especially our pr.ecious children

I am writing to ask that you No on these bills. They are squarely in opposition to Virginia's values. If we cannot abide by Patrick Henry's cry of "give me liberty or give me death," then what good are we. Not allowing our trans youth to live authentically and privately is tyrannical and dangerous.

Comments Document

STRONGLY OPPOSED to the language added to HB2432. School counselors recognize the responsibility for determining a student’s gender identity rests with the student rather than outside confirmation from medical practitioners, mental health professionals or documentation of legal changes. School counselors collaborate with other school personnel to address district operations, programs, policies and activities that may put the well-being of transgender and nonbinary youth at risk. Each student’s unique situation should be addressed on a case-by-case basis, using a student-centered approach that includes ongoing student and parent/guardian engagement (as appropriate) and school personnel with a legitimate educational interest per the Family Education Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA). Title IX guidance and legal briefs issued by the Office of Civil Rights (OCR) have defined fair and equal treatment for transgender and nonbinary students in relation to student names and pronouns, student records, privacy, restrooms, student safety and dress codes (OCR, 2021). School counselors promote the use of best practices to inform their support of transgender and nonbinary students, such as the following recommendations offered by the National Center for Transgender Equality (2021): Privacy and confidentiality regarding disclosures: Transgender and nonbinary students have a FERPA-protected right to privacy; this extends to students’ gender identity, birth name, sex assigned at birth and medical history. Schools must make every effort to only reveal information about students’ gender identity when others have a legitimate educational purpose, which does not include mitigating possible discomfort of others. This right to privacy and prohibition of disclosing students’ gender identity extends to students’ parents/guardians, with whom schools should work collaboratively, directed by students’ comfort about what and with whom to share their confidential information. Attached document is the American School Counselor Association's position statement on Transgender and Nonbinary Youth. It describes the organization’s position on the topic in education and defines the role of the school counselor relative to this topic.

Doing this isn’t going to help anything. It’s just going to put people down and make them realize that the country that they were supposed to love, doesn’t love them back. Right now, school sports is really unnecessary to have restrictions. We need to focus on bigger issues that will affect everyone and not just the LGBTQ+ community.

I am in OPPOSITION of HB1707 and HB2432. Forcibly outing youth creates an INCREDIBLY unsafe environment for them, considering LGBTQ youth are more likely to experience bullying, harassment, discrimination, all of which correlate to higher rates of anxiety, depression, and suicide. These are violent and hateful pieces of legislation which exist to only serve the beliefs of a small group of people. Please consider the true purpose of the bill and the evidence-based rates of poor mental health amongst LGBTQ youth, especially trans youth, when looking at this bill. If you care about children, this bill is not the solution; it is part of the problem.

I fully support these bills

Children's mind’s are not fully formed until early adulthood. This is evidenced by the fact that they choose, and then re-choose a position or status in many, or most things of life until and even through early adulthood. To allow or encourage them to make permanent choices and changes, or to do so without their parents knowledge and active participation is not only disgusting, but manipulative and perversely self serving. Let children grow up, and then make crucial, life altering decisions. Daniel Ramsey

My name is Abel Garcia and I am a detransitioner. since I was a young child, I thought that I was a woman and could from being a man to a woman. Of course, that was not true. I was vulnerable and was looking for relief from my mental distress. At my first appointment with a therapist, I was affirmed as being transgender. There were no questions about why I felt I was a woman or about my past or current situation. No questions about my mental state or family life. Since I said I was a woman, I was, and the therapist immediately offered to write the needed letter for hormones. By the way, these letters are no longer even required. I was unsure of the hormones because it all seemed rushed so I waited a bit, but after a forced sexual experience (a relative had paid for a prostitute), I decided that if having to sleep with a prostitute was what men did, I was not a man. I started hormones shortly after the trauma. After less than a year on hormones, I had an appointment with a doctor who wrote an approval letter for breast augmentation and surgery to change my penis into a fake vagina, which was odd since I only asked for breasts. I had breast surgery. Mentally I was still not well. I finally find a therapist who explored causality. As I worked through my mental issues, my gender identity returned to my biological sex. Schools have no place in pushing the gender lie. If I as an adult fell for the allure of creating a whole new self, how can a minor not fall prey? Especially, when teachers or school counselors are pushing a trans-identity or affirming it behind the student’s parents’ back. Parents need to know if their children are struggling with gender so that the parents can get them the right mental health help, with a therapist who will not take the child’s announcement at face value. Like me, if gender-confused kids get their underlying mental health issues addressed, they will grow to be comfortable with their natural bodies. I do not want to see a child go through what I went through, the drugs, the irreversible body changes, the embarrassment of being a man with fake breasts, the shame of being tricked, and the pain of knowing how I hurt my family.

I represent TReVoices; my name is Scott Newgent a 50-year-old transman. As shocking as it may be I agree with NOT allowing schools to change a child's pronouns; we are against childhood medical transition. I am happy to testify in person as to why if needed. -Scott Newgent

Trans students suffer from a higher rate of suicide than their straight peers. Providing a safe and supportive environment at school has been proven to drastically reduce that risk. These bills would remove that support and lead to more dead children. I don’t think anyone wants that.

My name is Prisha. I was 15 years old when I learned about gender ideology from the trans community. At 17, I was being medicalized with a high dose of testosterone. One year later, my healthy breasts were cut off. I had pre-existing diagnosis’s of anorexia nervosa, anxiety, panic disorder, major depression, and borderline personality disorder. I also experienced a sexual assault at 14. These other conditions and issues were all put to the side when I uttered the word “gender.” My therapist even attested that all of my other problems were caused by being born in the wrong body. This wasn’t true, but I was medicalized anyway. I was deemed “stable and well” despite multiple recent suicide attempts, active cutting, and malnutrition. During the time of my transition, I also asked my doctors for liposuction. They told me “no” because I was “too unwell to have an elective cosmetic surgery,” but decided I was healthy enough to have my breasts removed. Now at 24, I have two huge scars where my breasts should be, and no sensation but the occasional zapping pain I feel. My body is disproportionate, causing me to be clumsy and ugly – I have no hips and large shoulders. My neck, back, and shoulders constantly burn from the over-growth. My throat is sore, and I can no longer sing or raise my voice, jeopardizing my safety and taking my joy. I have suffered hair loss, as well as hair growth on my body, which I have to treat with lazer hair removal. My muscles and joints ache. I decided that I did not want to be a woman before I had ever gotten to be one. I was a little girl. Now I will never fully know what it is like. I fully support a bill that protects youth from “Gender Affirming Care.”

VPEP Opposes 1707 amd 2432 these bills Destroy the bond of trust between the faculty and the student. Trans students disproportionately suffer homelessness and abuse. They also suffer a higher rate of attempted suicide. To force a teacher to out a student puts the student in potential danger and puts the teacher in a tentative legal position.

Parents have a right to know.

I write to oppose HB2432 and HB1707 as classic examples of government overreach. The bills themselves are perfect examples of the generational divide on the gender issue. The sad fact is, not all parents are accepting or understanding of gender identification issues because the choose to be that way. There may be a perceived stigma of having a child with gender identity differences; there may be a deep-seated religious intolerance; there could be a simple inability to process the information and new ideas and concepts. Whatever the cause, the result is that children are put at risk by this legislation by forcing schools - a supposed safe space - to notify parents. If the children felt comfortable talking to their parents about this issue, they would. Sometimes the only time a child can feel safe and heard is with a teacher or counselor who is TRAINED to deal with these difficult issues and while they undoubtedly care about the student, they are not as blinded by proximity as a parent likely is. I am the parent of a trans child, a former Fairfax County public school student. Despite creating a fully open and accepting environment, our child still struggled with his feelings and emotions. I can only imagine how awful it would be for a child experiencing the same emotions in a non-caring, non-supportive environment. The legislature does not belong in the middle of this fast-developing issue. Stay out of it. Perhaps time would be better spent on issues of actual public safety, maybe in schools? Or mental health services? There are a lot of issues that actually impact, in a real way, your constituents. Work on those. Not these false issues.

There is no justification for schools keeping secrets from parents, based on a concocted fear that a parent is "abusive" simply because they won't allow their child to socially transition without a psychological assessment. According to the UK's Cass Interim Report, social transition is "an active intervention because it may have significant effects on the child or young person in terms of their psychological functioning." School staff are in no way qualified to assess students to determine whether they are candidates for this treatment or to manage this treatment. Their secret participation in this intervention interferes with the ability of a parent to ensure their child receives appropriate mental health support and has significant negative impact on the child-parent relationship. I know dozens of parents of gender-confused teens and none of them are abusive. All of them are working hard to figure out how to keep their children safe from this malicious medical scandal. In every case of estrangement, just like in every other cult, it is the children who are convinced, online and in schools, that they should abandon their loving families. This is not about what kids want to wear. This is not similar to coming out as LGB. This is a social-media-fueled delusion with a dangerous, irreversible medical pathway. Schools should have no part in this but are doing tremendous harm. Schools want to believe that they are creating an inclusive community for students, but what they are doing is indoctrinating vulnerable children into a cult-like ideology. Children like mine, who are rigid-thinkers, do not hear nuance in gender messages. They hear anti-science, magical solutions to very natural adolescent distress. Three years ago my son tried cutting. When I asked him why, he said he learned it at school. His middle school had given a presentation on depression and said that kids who are depressed cut themselves. He said, "I was depressed so I figured I needed to cut." Schools are becoming an instruction manual for self-hatred and self-harm. In the words of Dr. Erica Anderson, a transwoman and prominent gender therapist: “…to deliberately deprive a child of support at a time potentially when they most need it is, I think, a serious error in judgment. … So on all accounts, I am opposed to schools depriving parents of the knowledge of what’s going on with their children.” Anderson told Fox News Digital on Nov. 28, 2022, that any policy empowering a child to keep crucial information from family “is essentially teaching children deception.” Schools have gone from safe havens to snake pits, and if I had it to do over, I would never have sent my children to a public school. Please stop enabling activist teachers who are hurting our children and destroying families, and stop policies that promote children keeping secrets from their parents and divide families.

Parents, not the government will always be financially responsible for followup costs when things go wrong.

As a Virginia Resident and recent high school graduate who is transgender, I urge you to vote NO and OPPOSE the bills HB 1707 Durant and HB 2432 LaRock. These bills would forcibly out transgender children to their parents WITHOUT their consent. Minors should have the legal right to explore their gender and expression safely at school, without extra anxiety and fear at home. Children, including transgender children, have personhood and humanity. Both of these bills pathologize being transgender as “mental illness”, implied by the text stating that a child expressing that they are transgender means they are in a bad mental state and require counseling solely because they are transgender. Transgender students do need support and mental health care to help them deal with others’ hatred around them; bullying, harassment, assault from peers and adults in and out of school, as well as the rise in propositions of anti-trans legislation nationwide and within Virginia. But the suggestion of forcing transgender students into counseling because the government, or anyone, perceives transness as a “mental illness” and that it should be fixed, is conversion therapy. Conversion therapy seeks to somehow eradicate transness (which is not possible) by gaslighting, torturing and traumatizing the people who are forced into it. Transness is not a choice, we do not choose what our gender is or how we feel. Children should NOT be forced to repress their feelings. I was able to safely explore my gender and expression at my secondary school, with the support of peers and teachers, despite not being “out” at home. If school was an unsafe and restricted space for me, I know my mental health would have declined severely. I am very lucky, as many of my transgender peers in my school and in other schools had to deal with severe harassment, bullying AND physical threats and violence, especially in other places in the Commonwealth which are significantly more unsafe than my area. Expression of self is a key and important freedom for all people, including children. Many transgender K-12 students already face harassment, bullying, and violence in their school environments. Trangender children should not have to face these anxieties at school, in addition to worrying how their parents would feel about their identity and/or personal expression. If transgender students were outed to their parents, they could potentially face abuse, emotional and physical, and even being thrown out of their home or being disowned. Restricting children’s expression of themselves IS emotional abuse. Trangender identity and gender-nonconforming expression are NOT harmful to children, unnatural, or mental illness. Please protect the safety and mental health of transgender children, the same as for any other student, by voting NO and OPPOSING HB 1707 Durant and HB 2432 LaRock. Students should NOT be outed by schools and their staff!

Please oppose HB1707 and HB2432, as they are extremely harmful to trans and nonbinary students. I am a teacher, and educators are well aware that every student needs at least one trusted adult in a school setting to feel safe and supported. This has been directly related to a student's success in school. Please do not ask teachers to betray the trust of a student who might only feel supported in their gender identity at school. These bills suggest that a student who identifies with a gender other than the one assigned to them at birth is in a mental health crisis. This idea is insulting to trans youth, but they very likely will be in a crisis if bills like this become law. Why is it the job of a legislator to decide that choosing a gender different from the one assigned at birth is a problem? What will they decide is a problem next? Sexual orientation? Interracial relationships? Religious beliefs or lack of? Please don't let these bills out of your subcommittee. Thank you for your service and time.

This is a horrendous idea, research shows that LGBTQ students being outed forcibly to their parents coincides with higher suicide rates since most students only keep it from their parents if they fear harm or harassment. Allow students to identify how they wish at school, and respect their pronouns and identity. Pretending there are only two genders doesn't stop transgender children from being transgender, it only creates a hostile and violent environment for all students.

As a student in Virginia, I strongly oppose this bill. LGTBQ+ students are not pawns in your political games. Students deserve freedom and privacy and safety and you want to take all that away. I urge you to reject HB2432.

HB1454 No HB1707 NO HB2432 NO

I am a licensed therapist and lecturer in clinical practice at the BU School of Social Work. While I am not a constituent, I specialize in the care of gender diverse individuals and have lectured internationally on the topic. This bill flies in the face of an enormous body of evidence suggesting that allowing youth to access support on their own time and at their own pace is the surest way to maintain lines of communication for youth at risk of harm. The bill, as written, would foster an adversarial environment putting children unnecessarily at risk, incentivizing them to withhold information from adults who might otherwise be in a position to help keep them safe. Do not do this. Additionally, the idea that screening questions can be developed to detect diverse gender expression and identity will likely have the adverse effect of "outing" youth improperly, as such measures do not exist in the sense as described in the proposed legislation. This is bad legislation and worse policy.

Please reject HB 1707 and HB 2432. As an educator and a former queer child, I trust LGBTQ+ kids to have important conversations with their parents when they are ready and when it is safe for them to do so. Unfortunately, it isn't always safe. Children have more information than school personnel to understand whether it is. It is not the job of schools to meddle in family relationships by outing children to their parents. It is the responsibility of schools to provide children with a safe and respectful environment that supports their learning. Forcing kids to come out to their parents before they are ready is an abdication of that responsibility. These bills would require school staff to betray trust that children already have placed in them. Just worrying about this possibility is surely, right now, already keeping kids from learning. Again, please reject HB 1707 and HB 2432. Thank you, Anna Hebner Henrico

Dear members of the K-12 Subcommittee, I’m Virginia Pannabecker and I live in Roanoke. I’m writing to oppose HB 1707 (Durant) and HB 2432 (LaRock), bills that would require public school personnel to contact a student’s parent if they believe that the student’s self-identified gender does not align with their “biological sex.” I’m writing as a parent and as a community member. Many people I care about, family, friends, colleagues, and neighbors, identify as part of the LGBTQ+ community. Every LGBTQ+ person’s journey is unique and discovering and deciding to share parts of their identity with others can be a sensitive time. There have been a few times in my life where a friend or family member has come out to me or shared a part of their identity with me, and I feel grateful that they felt safe to do so and felt they could trust that I would listen and not talk with others about what they shared without their permission. Some provisions in these bills would force school officials to betray the trust of students by demanding they “out” students to parents, even if the student is not ready. Pushing school staff to disclose deeply private information to parents without the student’s consent breaches trust and adds to the already high risk of bullying, harassment, and isolation that LGBTQ+ youth may face. Trust between school staff and students is necessary to provide adequate mental-health support. If students feel that their communications are not confidential, they will be less likely to disclose important information to their school counselors and teachers. Please oppose HB 1707 and HB 2432 and protect the safety and respect that LGBTQ+ youth need and deserve to thrive. Thank you for your time.

Not all families are created equal. There is no purpose served in ‘outing’ a child/student to an unsupportive family, unless your end-goal is to see harm to the child/student. Please consider who is harmed the most by these bills, and perhaps ask yourself why grown adults continue to target LGBTQ-identifying children.

As a parent and citizen, I'm in support of those bills.

Good Morning, My name is Alanna and I am a LCSW here in the state of Virginia with a high school age student at Albemarle County Schools. I am writing today to express my frustration with the bill that are being discussed today, introduced by the GOP delegates. My input speaks as my experience as a LCSW but more importantly a mother trying to raise my child to be a well rounded, kind, and inclusive human. HB 1707 and HB2432 are disgusting bills which label a person wanting to be comfortable and loved in their own skin for who they are as a "mental state". I know first hand providing therapy services to adolescents that some parents/guardians/grownups are just not safe to talk to. This very narrow-minded view of a bill can cause real harm for some of the minors that it is our duty to protect. They view the minors in their care as property or a reflection of who they are and not as a person with emotions, opinions, and bodily autonomy. The only "mental state" we as a society need to be concerned with those "Minors and students who self-identifying as a gender different from biological sex" or don't identify with any gender, is the depression and anxiety as a result from hearing that who they are isn't good enough for out of touch adults who expect those who aren't like who they identify as, to suffer in silence alone. It is our jobs as the "adults" to teach the younger generations to value all in our society for exactly who they are. These bills are nothing more than government overreach, exactly what the GOP says they don't want.

Dear Subcommittee Members, As a cisgender parent of a non-binary person, I am writing in opposition to HB1707 and HB2432. Based upon the wording of these bills, it is evident that these bills authors perceive atypical gender identity as a mental health issue in need of parental intervention. Medical research has established that this is simply not the case. Positive, respectful parental involvement is a necessity for happy, healthy children As a parent of a non-binary person I can assure you that mental health is a big concern of mine that arises not from my child's identity, but from society's view and treatment of atypical or non-conforming individuals. In an ideal world, young people would be able to speak freely with their parents, peers, teachers and others about any and all matters of things without fear of rejection and rebuke. Sadly, we know this is not the case. It is not the place of the legislature to force these conversations. Supportive school environments are paramount to the security and safety of all students; these bills would force parental involvement when we know parental support and care is not always guaranteed. Reject these ill-conceived bills. Thank you.

I am strongly opposed to HB 2432 as I can not emphasize strongly enough my desire that the Public Schools of Virginia and their employees STAY IN THEIR OWN LANE and OUT of minor students personal lifes. Especially with such a controversial and personal matter. Virginia public schools already have long established policies and protocols to follow up with parents, and other authorities in limited cases, on matters concerning the health and welfare of students when they believe the need is present. I say a strong NO to HB 2432.

I work with hundreds and hundreds of families across VA every year who find themselves on the gender journey. Most families have a difficult time in the beginning understanding and accepting that their child is transgender or nonbinary. With accurate information and quality trusted resources, those families are able to move forward to work with their child (of any age) and figure out the next steps that feel right for them. Sadly, there is often a parent that is NOT on board or cooperative and rejects their child's gender identity and causes harm, such as verbal or physical abuse. A disapproving parent may shave a kids hair off (without their permission) or say they cannot wear the clothes they prefer with the message...not my kid, not in my house. As a result, youth may find themselves with housing and food insecurities. Youth may search for other sources of support and that is often their friends, another family member, or a club at school. To OUT a student (tell someone about their identity before they are ready) to a parent without their permission or making a plan with them, can have a devastating impact if they are LGBTQ+. Please respect a student's right to privacy and work with them with safety in mind, just as schools do over other potentially harmful or dangerous situations. Students deserve as many spaces to feel they can explore their identities, engage socially with peers, and feel a sense of belonging. Vote NO on HB1707 and HB2432

As a parent who was kept in the dark by a public high school in 2020 for months as her daughter descended into mental health decline, for which we are still paying the price, I beg all of you to remember how important the family structure is. Parents have a constitutional right to raise and educate their children as they see fit. Public schools have no place in supplanting the familial love and support we provide to our children. Oh, and we are liberals by the way - shocked and gobsmacked at how public schools have hijacked our children.

I strongly support this bill. Gender Confusion or Gender Dysphoria (GD) of childhood is a psychological condition in which children experience a marked incongruence between their experienced gender and the gender associated with their biological sex. When this occurs in the pre-pubertal child, GD resolves in the vast majority of patients by late adolescence. Public schools should have no authority to direct children one way or another and should inform parents immediately. It is then the responsibility of the parents to seak appropriate help from licensed professionals, which school staff clearly doesn't have. Please watch this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ibq3ld087Y4

If we want students to be safe (and I think we can all agree on that goal), we cannot forcibly out them to their parents. Children should feel free enough at school to be who they are. Not all families would welcome the news that their child is gay, and the child should be allowed to tell their parents when they feel the time is right. This is a safety issue for a population that is already at high risk for self-harm.

HB1707 and HB2432 are incredibly dangerous bills that would destroy any chance of safety for many transgender Virginian students. I am a transgender woman who went through the Virginian school system not too long ago, and it was only in one of the classrooms I went to where I was able to be out and myself, without fear of violence from my parents. Unfortunately, many transgender students are at risk from abuse or violence from their parents if they were to be outed to them as transgender, and if these bills pass and require students to be outed to their parents, then it will be disastrous. Please strike down these bills, and let these students live their lives in peace, and not as tools in some political game.

Who among you remembers foolish things from your youth? Things you can look back on with embarrassment, regret and probably gratitude that you didn’t have to pay a price for them. Encouraging children down a path that can result in permanent damage and keeping that information from their parents is unconscionable! Children cannot consent to smoking a cigarette before they are 18…….why do schools feel they know what’s best for other people’s children based on that child’s’consent’!??

As a parent, I know that it is a normal part of youth development for teens to explore ideas beyond conversations with parents. I know feeling safe and respected at school is an essential part of their ability to learn. I am appalled at this forced-outing bill. Some families are violently unsafe for transgender youth. For a school employee who might suspect or misinterpret something to contact the parents is disruptive to the educational process at best, and potentially life-threatening at worst. Even when there is not a risk of a bad reaction from families, reasonable parents know there is nothing to fear from a child trying out a nickname or different pronouns at school, before discussing it at home. Please reject HB2432.

I am STRONGLY opposed to outing any non-binary or transgender student to caregivers and parents who are not supportive of their identities. I am currently a School Counselor in Virginia. Youth have a high risk of suicidality and suicide attempts and the LGBTQIA+ group has the highest risk of suicide due to unsupportive family, school systems, etc. Side by Side has been working for years to help the growing number of displaced and homeless LGBTQIA+ youth in the state of Virginia due to how high of a risk outing them too soon or to unsupportive caregivers is! UMFS now has mostly non-binary and transgender kids - kids rejected and now homeless for just being who they are. If we continue to out our youth before they or their caregivers are ready, trained, counseled, coached ... you will be overflowing our already strained systems of support! Can we really afford to lose more youth due to misinformation and fear?!

I support this proposed law fully and would like to see the same passed in my home state. Unscientific and deceptive arguments have been used to encourage schools to inculcate gender ideology in children without their parents' knowledge or consent. That must end.

It is the teacher’s job to support and nurture their students, not to serve as gender police on behalf of a Puritan hate mob. Trans and nonbinary youth need to be supported and treated with dignity and respect. I urge all members to oppose this ridiculous, pandering, anti-trans legislation.

I'm writing in support of HB2432. It seems almost ridiculous to point out that government entities should not be withholding information from parents about their children. Children do not belong to the state. Yet here we are... forced to come up with a law requiring school officials to contact parents if a child is "identifying" as a different gender at school. I hate that we need add laws to the books.... but I applaud Del. LaRock for protecting minors from activists who are using their power and influence as teachers/administrators to coach children into hiding their gender "confusion" from their parents. I urge you to pass this bill and protect our children.

As an educator and parent of a transgender child in the Virginia public schools, I write to express my opposition to yet another set of proposals that are hostile to children like mine. In what is clearly "open season" on our kids, HB 1707 and 2432 are two more badly thought-out bills with real-life consequences that need to be considered. Both claim to support parents and include them in the process of gender transition, and as such a parent I can only say that inclusion is great, but only because I came into the process from a position of supporting my child. The unintended (or perhaps intended) consequence of these bills would be to expose vulnerable students to parents whether they are supportive or not -- and we know, from alarming statistics about suicide and homelessness among trans and non-binary youth (as well as the horrific practice of conversion therapy) that may parents are not be. Instead of supporting at-risk students, these bills would make them even more vulnerable to unsupportive and potentially abusive parents, while removing the ability for schools to operate as safe spaces for them. Lastly, as an educator, it troubles me that these proposals place teachers in the position of having to police their children, putting them in an invidious position in which they cannot build relations of trust, when what transgender and non-binary students need are trusting relationships with the teachers who have ethical obligations to care for them and look out for their best interests while at school. Like similar bills before this committee targeting trans kids, these two should be tabled.

I am the parent of two transgender young adults and I am writing to strongly oppose these bills that propose school officials notifying a student's parents about their gender identity without the student's consent. Telling your parents you are transgender is hard enough, even if you think you will be still be loved and supported and not kicked out, let alone having your parents informed or you telling your parents under duress before you are ready for them to know, possibly before you really have even clarified for yourself whether you are transgender or not. These bills put school officials in the middle of a decision that should be an individual's decision; students know their families best and how the family might respond. I know many teachers who want to be teachers because they care about the well-being of students and want to be positive forces in students' lives. These bills instead create situations where teachers cannot be supportive, kind, and loving, the kind of people transgender students need in their corner due to their already high levels of bullying and harassment. These bills remove potential mental health and emotional support from transgender students by forcing them to conceal their identity at school, because they are unable to ask for help for fear of being outed, or by informing students' parents long before the student is ready, creating conflict and possible abuse at home when parents are unsupportive and refuse to listen to or get help for their students. Please talk to transgender youth about how their discussions with their parents proceeded before assuming every parent has the student’s best intentions at heart, boundless love, and willingness to let students explore their gender or to be able to adjust to their child being different. Please vote NO on these bills that would prevent teachers from being kind, compassionate, and supportive to students who are struggling.

Please vote NO on HB 1707 and HB 2432. These bills require anyone working in a school or for a school board to notify parents if they believe a child might self-identify as a different gender. A child who is doing well in school, expressed no concerns to a teacher or counselor, and caused no disciplinary problems, would still be “outed” to their parents simply for being perceived as different or because a teacher believed the child thinks they may be gender non-conforming. Being transgender is not a problem. It is not a crime. It is not a threat. Yet these bills equate non-traditional gender expression with suicide, requiring urgent parental notification. In many—and hopefully most—instances parents are aware that their child is gender non-conforming, and love & support their child as best they can. However, in far too many households these children face ridicule, shame, or abuse. There are many reasons why trans youth face tragically high rates of homelessness and suicide. Lack of family support all too often plays a major role in the substantial burdens transgender children face simply trying to live their daily lives. These bills would create an instant chilling effect on the children in Virginia schools who may be struggling with gender identity. Teachers, counselors, and therapists would go from being a potential listening ear or source of support to instruments of the state, reaching into their personal lives. Both bills are deliberately vague about the very real practical challenge of teachers and administrators knowing how a child self-identifies. Both bills create a threatening environment where teachers police what clubs children join along with their appearance, speech, clothing, and social groups. Virginia is much better off when teachers, counselors, and administrators focus on educating, nurturing, and supporting every child, rather than forcibly outing children on vague notions of who may, or may not, be gender non-conforming.

Our country was built on freedoms so stop trying to take away the rights of our teenagers and children. It is not the right of anyone to forcibly out LGBTQ+ students to anyone without the students consent or knowledge. Stop playing politics by destroying the rights of others. These children already have enough to deal with in their lives without the intervention of destructive laws aimed to harm them further.

Without exaggeration this will lead to children getting disowned, abused, or killed. I'm lucky to come from an accepting family but I've known many peers who are not as fortunate. A student should be able to express themselves amongst their peers at school or in clubs and the teachers should not be forced to inform their guardians about anything the children would not want them knowing so long as it is not harmful. (ie bullying) A GSA club can be an important formative experience for both queer and cishet students to form a community together.

Stop these horrific bills! These bills do nothing but put trans youth in harm's way!! And I also strongly oppose HB1387 and HB1399, the transphobic sports bills. Let trans kids play and as who they are. These bills are about erasing trans youth socially. These hateful transphobic attacks need to stop. Trans rights are human rights, period!

Schools' primary responsibility is to students. Students are not property of parents or guardians, and students have rights, including privacy rights. If students don't want to disclose information about their pronouns, nicknames, relationships, gender identity, or sexual orientation to parents, that is the students' right. Schools are not surveillance apparatuses for parents or guardians and should not violate students' trust.

It’s common sense that pushing gender ideology and radical sex Ed (e.g. pornography) and keeping this dialogue a secret from the parents is the very definition of recruiting, destabilizing kids from their families, and grooming them into sex trafficking, as seen with what happened to Sage. See Abigail Shrier’s most recent article: https://abigailshrier.substack.com/p/a-predators-paradise. Furthermore as a lifelong liberal parent in the Bay Area with first hand experience of having a teenage daughter go through the gender journey with the public school district, I can tell you the dynamics of schools demonizing and driving a wedge between the child and family is very real. When my daughter decided to detransition, the school called the child protective services on us even though we’d been forthcoming and tried to collaborate with the school as a team from the beginning to help our daughter get better. We are way beyond common sense. What happened to Sage could have just as well happened to my daughter or anyone for that matter. Please take this bill very seriously and consider what you are doing to families and more importantly the long term well being of a child. As a parent of a teenage detransitioner, the stats are very real in 90% of kids outgrowing gender confusion if society leaves these kids alone, there are 10’s of thousands of detransitioners growing at a expedient rate along side the explosive 4000% increase in teenage girls declaring they are gender deviant, being 19 times more likely to commit suicide after transgender medical transition, and lastly following the money. It’s become a multi billion dollar industry for Big Pharma similar to the opioid scandal because patients must stay on hormones for the rest of their lives to maintain their appearance + recurring plastic surgery to maintain the appearance of the gonads.

Already provided on Website.

As an attorney on the front lines representing parents whose lives have been devastated by being kept in the dark about their child's gender identity at school, I write in support of Del. LaRock's common sense bill. We receive calls from parents all over the country every day who were denied the opportunity to come alongside their children and guide them through the very consequential issue of their gender identity. Tragically, in some cases like Sage's, denying the parents information leads to horrific circumstances. In all cases, it damages the parent-child relationship and destroys trust. When children are experiencing illness or emotional distress, parents are the ones counted on and who have the duty to help their children. We saw this most recently with the COVID-19 pandemic when schools sent the children home to their parents for care. This is not about "outing" LGBT youth or opposing LGBT rights, but about providing parents with information critical to their children's well-being. Parents should not be deprived of information regarding their children's gender identity until they are called to school after their child's suicide attempt, discover that their child has run away or, like Sage's mom, have to rescue their child from traffickers. Educators like to say that they partner with parents in educating their children. If that is the case, then there should be no opposition to this bill. Partners work together for the common good. This bill ensures that parents are viewed as partners, not adversaries when their child says he or she identifies as another gender. Darkness is not conducive to growth.

My experience as a trans identified child who got mental health support from my school.

I am an attorney, a life-long Democrat who voted for same-sex marriage and a mother of two. I am a co-lead of Our Duty, an international group of parents from various political backgrounds and religious or agnostic backgrounds I am the parent of daughter who at age 13 was convinced that she was a trans boy. She did not come by this belief organically. She was indoctrinated by her public school, an older trans-identifying girl and people she met online. She was influenced by TikTok, Youtube, Instagram and Twitter. She came to her identity after spending hours online during the COVID lockdown. Her public high school decided to change her name and pronouns without speaking to us as her parents. I found out because it was Covid-lockdown. When I expressed my anger to the school, only to be met with Child Protective Services and the police showing up at my home. As soon as she announced her trans identity, her mental health plummeted. She barely got out of bed. Brushing her teeth was a feat. She copied her older trans-identified friend and limited her calorie intake. She imitated this girl and others online – cutting her hair, dying it different colors, donning binders, piercing her nose, decorating her room in a goth motif. She started failing her classes at school. She was diagnosed with severe depression and anxiety. She was taught how to dissociate from her body and that all of her pain would disappear if she just transitioned to a boy. She was enticed by the “internet” glitter families to runaway, emancipate and most cruely to refer to me as her birth mother, and to only use my first name. I was no longer mom, but enemy number one. I confiscated her phone and computer. I spent a week looking at incoming and outcoming communications from strangers, purporting to be her friends. There were older trans-identifying females telling her to find a “sugar daddy” by posting pictures. There were older men knowing that a FTM (female to male) designation on Instagram is easy pickings. Sage’s story could have been my daughter’s. My daughter ran away too. My daughter was being tracked by older men. My daughter too was tricked that her depression would go away if she transitioned and got away from her hateful, transphobic mother. Luckily, I was able to bring her back to realty, and she is now a well-adjusted healthy teenager, happy in her female body. I am back to being mom, with a daily “I love you” from her. Support LaRock 2432. Respectfully, Erin Friday, Esq. Our Duty - USA

Re: Oppose House Bill 2432 – a bill to narrow the legal definition of "abuse and neglect" as applied to transgender minors and to forcibly out transgender youth without their consent Dear Chair Avoli and members of the K-12 Subcommittee: The ACLU of Virginia strongly opposes House Bill 2432 (HB2432), which would encourage Virginia educators to attempt to identify nonbinary and transgender students and then disclose that information without their consent and before they and their families may be ready. HB2432 would also narrow the definition of “abuse and neglect” solely as applied to transgender and nonbinary minors. This bill targets vulnerable Virginia youth and makes them less safe both at school and at home. We urge you to reject this bill. Best, Wyatt S.M. Rolla Senior Transgender Rights Attorney ACLU of Virginia

HB 1707 and 2170 - This is discrimination and harming students of being involved in sports, and their identity to be who they are as they participate. Putting this pressure on teachers and coaches is outside their job roles. A child’s identity is nobody’s business but their own. I do not support this bill. HB - 2432: As a resident in counseling, it is my duty to cause no harm to my clients and to keep confidentiality, even with minors. The only time we, as counseling professionals, break confidentiality is if they are a threat to themselves or others. If we suspect parents are non-affirming, this is a risk to our client’s safety and psychological health. I do not support this bill.

How dare you put this burden on teachers? It’s not in their Motis to be determinants of someone’s sexual presentation. Frankly, you were trying to have the teacher be aware of some thing that soon themselves may not even be aware of yet. This is not something the state should be taking on. Let the kids be who they are.

Outing anyone, regardless of age, is potentially lethal, one that tends to bring violence to those who are LGBTQ. It is not something that anyone should redisclose without permission, and with you it runs the risk of causing abuse, neglect, homelessness, or suicide, and we should not be changing our laws to risk a youth’s physical or mental health. As a mental health provider specialized in this area, it is the ultimate risk and one that I cannot ethically or morally take. We need to be acting in concert with what mental and medical health experts recommend, affirming care, which means not redisclosing someone’s identity to others, especially without permission. Allowing youth to participate in clubs, sports, and performing arts without explicit permission from parents is also essential to character formation, gives them control, of which they have little as minors, and may, in fact, help save their lives. Please allow youth to participate in school-sanctioned groups and activities without the burden of denial of participation by parents.

Hateful, unfounded in fact or any intelligible sense, dangerous. This kind of disgusting oversight into LGBTQ+ students' identities has no place in any modern society, and certainly doesn't belong in Virginia. It's extremely embarrassing to have neighbors so ignorant that bills like these could even make it onto paper, let alone to committee. Why not try reading some of the scientific and social literature instead of making up reasons to spew hate onto your neighbors? Seriously, get a life.

I oppose these bills as they purposely are designed to intimidate, coerce, and out all students who identify as LGBTQIA and also any student who is an ally to LGBTQIA students. As a lifelong resident of Virginia, I have first-hand and personal knowledge of how difficult it is to being in a school setting as a Queer individual without these measures. So, I feel especially confident that making these bills law in the state of Virginia will absolutely cause irreparable harm to incredibly vulnerable students. Further, these bills are framed as parental rights issues, but in truth, they are designed to discriminate based on personal religious beliefs, which is unconstitutional due to the First Amendment and the Establishment Clause. You should remember that suicide rates amount LGBTQIA children are not due to them identifying as LGBTQIA, its due to how they are treated. It is the second leading cause of suicides in young people....45% of these youths have seriously considered suicide per the Trevor Projects 2022 survey. Why would you want to increase that? Why would you want to even add a tiny bit of influence in that regard? These bills are cruel and the students that will be affected will be put in seriously dangerous situations. There are many, many, many parents that would intentionally harm their children to "remove the sin of homosexuality", whether it be physical abuse, emotional abuse, or spiritual abuse - this is proven to cause lifelong damage. These bills are not for parental rights. They are to shame students who do not identify or present as straight, period. They would remove any sense of safety for those who find it in the school setting, destroy trust between school staff and students and impose an unconstitutional discriminatory law to the very place that students are sent to not only be educated, but to find out who they are. You need to remember that these students grow up to become adults who contribute to our society. That will pay taxes, buy homes and, yes, in some cases, have children of their own. Do you think that they will forget these actions? That there was a concerted effort to intentionally harm them? I don't and history will not be kind.

HBs 1707, 2170, 2432 would force school districts to “out” students to their parents. Every LGBTQ person’s journey is unique, and for many, their discovery of self can be a sensitive time. A child’s decision to disclose parts of their identity should remain solely in their hands. Some provisions in these bills would force school officials to betray the trust of students by demanding they “out” students to parents, even if the student is not ready. Pushing school staff to disclose deeply private information to parents breaches trust and creates an uncomfortable school environment for LGBTQ+ youth. This effort to “out” children is unethical and unenforceable. The adults that work in schools are there to educate and protect children, not police their identities and serve as agents for a discriminatory political agenda. These bills would destroy trust between students and school staff. While we agree that important information about a child’s welfare should not be withheld from their parental guardians, we are suspicious of provisions that do not consider the consent of the minor in question. Trust between school staff and students is necessary to provide adequate mental-health support. If students feel that their communications are not confidential, they will be less likely to disclose important information to their school counselors and teachers. This legislation endangers LGBTQ+ students, who already face high rates of bullying, harassment, and isolation. LGBTQ students who lack support and face harassment and discrimination at school experience increased isolation, depression, and risk of suicide and are more likely than their peers to miss school, often in an effort to avoid abuse. These negative experiences can have serious long-term negative impacts on these students’ health, education, and well-being.

I oppose the above bills regarding informing parents of a child's LGBTQ status for the following reasons: • These bills would force school districts to “out” students to their parents. o Every LGBTQ person’s journey is unique, and for many, their discovery of self can be a sensitive time. A child’s decision to disclose parts of their identity should remain solely in their hands. o Some provisions in these bills would force school officials to betray the trust of students by demanding they “out” students to parents, even if the student is not ready. Pushing school staff to disclose deeply private information to parents breaches trust and creates an uncomfortable school environment for LGBTQ+ youth. o This effort to “out” children is unethical and unenforceable. The adults that work in schools are there to educate and protect children, not police their identities and serve as agents for a discriminatory political agenda. • These bills would destroy trust between students and school staff. o While we agree that important information about a child’s welfare should not be withheld from their parental guardians, we are suspicious of provisions that do not consider the consent of the minor in question. o Trust between school staff and students is necessary to provide adequate mental-health support. If students feel that their communications are not confidential, they will be less likely to disclose important information to their school counselors and teachers. • This legislation endangers LGBTQ+ students, who already face high rates of bullying, harassment, and isolation. o LGBTQ students who lack support and face harassment and discrimination at school experience increased isolation, depression, and risk of suicide and are more likely than their peers to miss school, often in an effort to avoid abuse. o These negative experiences can have serious long-term negative impacts on these students’ health, education, and well-being. As the parents of a recently graduated high school student who has many LGBTQ friends, I can tell you what havoc implementation of these harmful practices would have on children and educators. None of you are experts in child health, child psychology or education and you should not be promoting these types of harmful and destructive practices. If you were experts in these areas, you would know what you are proposing in these bills is wrong and bad for kids.

I strenuously OPPOSE all of these bills. They impose value judgements on students, teachers and administrators that are not the purview of the state but of youth and their families.

What happened to the American ideal of privacy? What gives school personnel the right to betray that ideal? What happens when school personnel "out" a person who is in fact not gay? How will that affect that child? Can the janitor or lunch lady now decide who is gay or not? Teachers are there to teach, not get involved in the intimate privacy of students. Being LGBTQ is not a crime so don't try to make it one. Stop the politics with our children. Instead worry about making sure our students are safe from gun violence in their schools. Allow our students to learn in a safe environment without bullying.

Stop attacking these families and their kids. Gender dysphoria is real, and these children need to be accepted and supported. Their classmates need to learn to accept and be kind to those who are not exactly like they are (so when they grow up, we don't continue to have to deal with the ignorance and cruelty we see here today). Everyone deserves to be who they want to be, this is America, right?

These are harmful to children. And should absolutely not be passed. Do your jobs instead of trying to discriminate against kids.

Please vote NO on these bills.

I oppose these bills. Please scrap them.

I strongly oppose HB 1707, HB 2170, and HB 2432. They limit the freedoms and liberties of students, taking away their support from educated adults. As a senior at Langley High School, as a student speaking for students, we do not want these bills in our schools!

HB 1707 (Durant)- Oppose. HB 2432 (LaRock)- Oppose. Some children share things at school that they are afraid to say at home for fear of mental or physical abuse from their parents or guardians, Strongly oppose.

My name is Robert Luong. I grew up in Centreville, Virginia. I attended Liberty Middle School & Centreville High School. I graduated from Centreville Highschool in 2012. Sometime between the ages of 12-14 years old. I remembered I had gone to a school counselor speaking on the issue of my mother experiencing mental illness and the fact I had felt unsafe in my home. I also stated that I was a homosexual while crying in fear. I told my high school counselor in confidence. That then resulted in a call home to my mother. Telling her I was a homosexual. Which then resulted in an argument with her. Then her calling the local police department over the issue of my sexuality, not my mother's mental illness. When I left the house in order to attempt to run away in broad daylight after the result of the argument. I had the great opportunity of meeting a police officer. Who had attempted to offer to quote "save my soul" with prayer. Which then resulted in me calling the local police department requesting an atheist police officer due to violations of my first amendment rights. I was lucky the 911 operator had empathized with my situation. Then a second police officer arrived on the scene in an attempt to diffuse the situation without religious intervention and spiritual counsel. There were many instances I felt unsafe. My mother had been threatening me with homelessness since I was 8 years old. There were many where I feared for my physical safety. My mother never hurt me but she would break into my room and enter my personal space to scream at me with hostility and aggressiveness close to my face, and person. For those of you who do not know Casa Ruby did not exist until 2012. My mother believes that the government was stalking her, tapping her phone, the internet, and her car. I was also physically assaulted while attending school by other students which would lead me to get into physical altercations as a means of self-defense. he educators often looked the other way as did the administrators because there were no protections for LGBTQ+ students in the student handbook. If students can not trust their peers, their educators, or their local police department. Who can they trust? The school did not bother to call home because my mother became difficult to deal with. I truly struggled. Between my home life, and physical altercations within the school. My grades suffered tremendously. School should not be treated like a prison. Please protect LGBTQ+ students. LGBTQ+ youth deserve housing, affirmation, respect, and understanding. When we take away their safety we are endangering their lives.

I write to urge you and your colleagues to vote down HB 1707, 2432, and 2170. HB 1707 and 2432 will, in no uncertain terms, cause greater abuse, neglect, and mistreatment of queer youth in Virginia. These two bills require teachers--some of the most important people in children's lives--to "out" them to their parents if they suspect a schoolchild is trans or otherwise gender nonconforming. Whatever your politics and perceptions of queer people, surely we can agree our schools are a sacred place where children should feel safe and included; there will be plenty of time for division and prejudice once they grow up. These two bills are plainly an attack on our Commonwealth's children, driven by a political extremism that is willing to drag our children into a national circus of fearmongering and hate. The bills' sponsors may make contrived arguments about "protecting" children against some formless danger; they know they are arguing in bad faith. You all know it. I trust that you ran for office and came to Richmond because you all genuinely want to improve our Commonwealth. I implore you to see that these bills do the opposite, and hurt the children most in need of our help. Work today to protect them: End these bills. HB 2170 is subtler than the first two. It uses a process requirement to hide its true purpose and effect. On the surface, requiring parents to agree to their child participating in extracurricular activities does not seem so onerous or unreasonable. And yet, it would have the effect of ensuring no students could attend a meeting of a gay-straight alliance or similar group without fear of a teacher reporting it to their parents. Even for students from loving homes, such an implicit threat could easily scare them off and prevent them from seeking out important help and education as they try to learn more about who they are. For students from abusive homes, reporting on their attendance would be a very real threat to their physical safety. Please, do not weaponize our schools and harm our children's education and wellbeing to serve a political agenda. This is not the work you were sent to Richmond to do. It is, simply put, bullying. It is behavior we should have outgrown when we were schoolchildren ourselves.

Sharing private or personal information about a person without their consent is not something anyone should have to experience, especially LGBTQ students whose wellness and safety could be compromised by the actions of teachers, staff, or administrators. How a person feels about themselves or the way they identify should not be subject to a form of harassment known as outing. When a person is outed, personal or private information is shared with their control or consent. When straight people have autonomy over their own identities, and LGBTQ don’t, this is discrimination. Targeting one group of people specifically for their identity is discrimination. Outing children without consent is putting minors at risk for harmful repercussions. Gender policing by teachers breaks trust between students and educators. LGBTQ students deserve to feel safe at school and at home. LGBTQ students deserve to have their privacy and personal information respected and protected by adults in school. I am the parent of an LGBTQ student, and if a school administrator felt the need to out my child to me, I would have serious questions about why that adult was discussing my child’s personal information without my child’s consent or mine. Neither my child’s teachers, school administrators, or the VDOE or the state of VA have the right to publicly communicate personal or private information about my child without my child’s consent or mine. If the governing bodies of the state of VA believe that there is something wrong with my healthy, happy, and much loved LGBTQ child, then I ask the governing bodies to carefully examine their own beliefs and harmful prejudice and biases. I would hope that my child might be offered a safe and supportive environment in Virginia schools rather than one that demeans and undermines the wellbeing of my young student by outing them, which is targeted harassment and discrimination. If my child can experience a safe learning environment, then my child can accomplish the work all students are in school to do, which is to learn and grow. Please treat our amazing, wonderful, and loved, LGBTQ kids with respect and dignity. Let them pursue their educational goals without fear and harassment. Let them thrive. Please stop scaring me, as a parent, with the intention to harm my LGBTQ student. I deserve to know my LGBTQ child is safe in Virginia schools. Thank you, Cate Tillack

As the parent of a graduate of Virginia public schools and a current student, I'm asking you to vote against HB1707, HB2170 and HB2432. All students should feel safe as themselves at school.

As a Virginia resident, I urge you to oppose HB1707 (Durant) and HB2432 (LaRock). These bills are dangerous attacks on gender-nonconforming youth, especially transgender, nonbinary, and intersex children. The bills imply that not identifying as your assigned gender at birth (referred to incorrectly in the bills as "biological sex") is akin to committing suicide by giving it the same attention as "risk of suicide" in parental notification laws. Gender nonconformity is not itself harmful to mental health; in fact, it can help mental health by not hiding an essential part of yourself. The discriminatory treatment of these individuals by society -- such as considering and passing bills like these -- is what causes harm to mental health. When children (and adults) are shown that people in their communities think they don't belong or have a right to be themselves, that causes low self-esteem, depression, and anxiety. When their gender identities are welcomed, it can improve mental health. According to The Trevor Project’s 2022 National Survey on LGBTQ Youth Mental Health ("the Survey"), LGBTQ youth who live in communities and attend schools that were LGBTQ-affirming reported lower rates of suicide attempts than those who did not have that acceptance. These bills also ignore the harm that parents and guardians who don't accept their child's gender identity can do. The notification laws on suicide risk carve out exceptions for if the risk is related to parental abuse or neglect. But these bills wouldn't make exceptions to the gender identity notification requirement if the educator has reason to believe the child may experience abuse or neglect by revealing their gender identity. In fact, HB2432 ensures that gender identity won't be protected in those cases by saying, "in no event shall referring to and raising the child in a manner consistent with the child's biological sex, including related mental health or medical decisions, be considered abuse or neglect." But gender nonconforming kids often experience abuse and neglect because they are transgender, nonbinary, or otherwise gender nonconforming and have parents who are transphobic. According to the Survey, more than 2/3 of transgender and nonbinary youth felt their homes were not gender affirming. If educators and counselors are forced to tell parents of students' gender identities regardless of the realities at home, it will likely put many of them at risk. These bills would also reduce the trust students have in educators and school counselors. If they know these professionals could reveal their gender identity to their parents, they are more likely to hide any feelings related to that identity. They would be less likely to seek help in understanding what it means to be transgender, nonbinary, or intersex and instead feel confused and like an outsider. And they would be more likely to hide any self-harm thoughts or threats from others that stem from the transphobia in society or their home. According to the Survey, 45% of LGBTQ youth who wanted mental health care didn't get it because of concerns with obtaining caregiver permission and 29% didn't get it for fear of being outed. The Survey also says 37% of transgender and nonbinary youth reported that they have been physically threatened or harmed due to their gender identity. These bills would actively put them at risk of not getting help they may want or need. Please vote no on HB1707 and HB2432. Thank you.

As an actual parent (not an activist) I am appalled that this even needs to be said. School staff should not withhold ANY information from parents. If a child is at an increased risk for self-harm, running away or suicide the parents need to be informed of the situation. It also should not be assumed that a student is reluctant to tell their parents because the parents are abusive. Using a child’s birth name and biological gender should never be considered abuse. It is also completely normal for teens to withdrawal from their parents. Rather than encouraging students to lie, schools should be facilitating dialogue. As mandated reporters, school officials who see “misgendering” as abuse need an updated training on how to properly identify child abuse.

Teachers are often the only adults in whom students can trust to share their true authentic selves. Passing these bills will directly and negatively impact the bonds of trust between students and teachers. As a former teacher, I valued the honestly and trust my students put in me. These bills will harm our young adults when they are most vulnerable and need support, not outing.

Hello I am a Trans/Gender Non-Conforming student in Montgomery County, and I am opposed to these bills (1707, 2170, and 2432) These bills will harm me, my friends, and every trans student in the Virginia Public School System Thanks for taking time out of your day to read this, A Transgender Student

HB 1707 & HB 2432 -- When home isn't safe, school should be. For their own survival, there must be safe places for LGBT kids to exist freely as themselves and that should be the public schools. When LGBT kids choose not to tell their parents of their journey, they do so for a reason. Outing any LGBT person is a terrible practice. But for kids, it's life threatening. That 1707 is proposing an amendment that will increase youth suicides, to a law that aims to PREVENT suicide, is a gross misunderstanding of how all of this works. HB 2170 - There already exists a process to give parent permission for school sports (in the physical forms each year). School activities are a great place for students to explore all sorts of interests -- even interests parent don't approve of -- poetry, arts, different political party clubs, and even LGBT clubs. This is what school is for, for students to discover who they are. Students must be able to freely explore a variety of school activities without worries about parents. Also, why all of this extra administrative tedium for our already under resources schools?? How do you envision they would add on this responsibility? The party of small government? Not really.

I’m an LBGTQ+ youth, and I OPPOSE HB1707, HB 2170, and HB2432. Education should preach safety and acceptance, and I should not have to worry about laying trust in people that will be required to out me to my parents. This will cause real harm to people who come from homophobic and transphobic households, who look to school as their one safe zone to be who they are and find a community in which they are accepted. These bills stomp on safety, and on the autonomy we are told we get when we enter the public school system. I urge you to take a closer look into these bills, and to get rid of them.

I oppose these bills because they would force school districts to “out” students to their parents. o Every LGBTQ person’s journey is unique, and for many, their discovery of self can be a sensitive time. A child’s decision to disclose parts of their identity should remain solely in their hands. o Some provisions in these bills would force school officials to betray the trust of students by demanding they “out” students to parents, even if the student is not ready. Pushing school staff to disclose deeply private information to parents breaches trust and creates an uncomfortable school environment for LGBTQ+ youth. o This effort to “out” children is unethical and unenforceable. The adults that work in schools are there to educate and protect children, not police their identities and serve as agents for a discriminatory political agenda. · These bills would destroy trust between students and school staff. o While we agree that important information about a child’s welfare should not be withheld from their parental guardians, we are suspicious of provisions that do not consider the consent of the minor in question. o Trust between school staff and students is necessary to provide adequate mental-health support. If students feel that their communications are not confidential, they will be less likely to disclose important information to their school counselors and teachers. · This legislation endangers LGBTQ+ students, who already face high rates of bullying, harassment, and isolation. o LGBTQ students who lack support and face harassment and discrimination at school experience increased isolation, depression, and risk of suicide and are more likely than their peers to miss school, often in an effort to avoid abuse. o These negative experiences can have serious long-term negative impacts on these students’ health, education, and well-being.

Myself and my friends would all be harmed because of these bills. I plead to the members of the committee not to let HB2432, HB2170, and HB1707 pass. It targets us directly. Our humanity is in question here, and I don't want to have to go into hiding and pretend to be someone I'm not. School is the one place where I feel really at home and respected, and to tear that away is ruthless and completely amoral. Please don't let them pass. For your future, and ours, and for everyone else writing here.

I am the mother of two children in Virginia public schools and I am writing to OPPOSE HB 1707 and HB 2432. The bills are government overreach - they seek to regulate decisions best left to schools and parents. They are harmful because they make it unnecessarily difficult for school personnel to create safe and supportive educational environments for all students. These bills also single out LGBTQ+ students, who are already at high risk of being harassed and bullied in school. As a mother, I want my children to be able to explore their identity in school without feeling like teachers and administrators and watching and judging them. Instead of judging how my children express their gender, I want teachers to be paying attention to whether they are suicidal, being bullied, struggling with learning, or don’t have enough to eat. Those issues are directly related to student safety, not any adult’s judgment about the way they express their gender.

I strongly oppose 2432. There is nothing pathological about being trans. Transness is not some kind of decay to be exposed. Trans kids are not weeds to be plucked. Trans kids are not impure. Trans kids affect nobody but themselves. Trans kids cannot help being trans. And also, a tiny percentage of people are trans. So the fact that there are three bills an the floor that specifically target this group is an alarming waste of time. Stop fear-mongering and actually get to work fixing the real problems that the working people of Virginia face.

I urge you to please reject all legislation that would force school districts to out trans children to their parents. As an educator and as someone who was once a queer kid, I trust trans children to have important conversations with their parents when they should. Children are the ones who have the information to determine whether it's safe for them to come out at home. It is not the job of schools to intervene in family relationships by outing children who have not made their own decision to come out to their parents. However, it is the job of schools to provide children with a safe and respectful environment that supports their learning. These bills would prevent teachers and other school staff from doing that part of their jobs. Unconscionably, these bills would force schools to betray the trust of children who have been out at school because they thought it was safe. Just the introduction of legislation like this hurts vulnerable young people. These bills should be rejected as promptly and completely as possible.

Strongly oppose these bills. These bills would forcibly out LGBTQ+ students which puts them in danger. They already face high rates of bullying, harassment, and isolation. STOP this madness against trans children.

I’m a Virginian, a former School Board member, and the proud parent of a nonbinary Virginia college student. I write to oppose HB 1707, HB 2432, and HB 2170 and urge you to vote against them. HB 2170 is unnecessary for students overall, and harmful for our most vulnerable students. Students already have to get parental permission for school-recognized activities including sports, academic teams, field trips, and more. School-sponsored clubs already have adult supervision by qualified teachers and school staff, so students should be safe. School clubs are often comforting spaces for students who are exploring their artistic, athletic, mathematical, and musical selves. This is even more true for clubs such as Gay-Straight Alliances that provide a refuge for some of our most vulnerable students: those who are understanding their identity, gender, and/or sexuality. Barring those students from GSAs and similar clubs because their parents are unsupportive or because the students aren't yet ready to discuss their gender or sexual identities with their parents puts those children at greater risk. HB 1707 and HB 2432 would harm LGBTQ+ students. They would force school officials to betray the trust of students by demanding they “out” students to parents, even if the student is not ready or sharing that information with parents would put the child at risk. Forcing school staff to disclose deeply private information to parents puts our educators in a terrible position: breaching trust with their LGBTQ+ students, and eliminating what is often the only refuge for those students. The adults that work in schools are there to educate and protect children, not police their identities and be forced to act as agents to serve someone's political agenda. Vote no on all these discriminatory and harmful bills.

Education must be focused on the goal of autonomy and thoughtful decision making. This bill is unnecessarily invasive and creates problems that do not exist by requiring excessive parental oversight. LGBTQ students who lack support and face harassment and discrimination at school experience increased isolation, depression, and risk of suicide and are more likely than their peers to miss school, often in an effort to avoid abuse. Protect our kids by keeping schools safe spaces rather than political battlegrounds.

I am a true ally to members of the LBGTQIA+ community and strongly object to HB1707 and HB2432. because it infringes on the freedom of any individual to go by the pronouns and names THEY choose for themselves. Also, it could make a great divide between students and teachers/school staff and turn a place they go to for learning and support into one of alienation and betrayal. VOTE NO on both please - for the good of the many LGBTQIA+ youth of America.

As an Ally of Transgender Youth in VA I STRONGLY oppose proposed HB1707 and HB2432 as they are both punitive, potentially dangerous and considerable overreach on the part of the state and its oversite of schools and its teachers and staff. Some provisions in these bills would force school officials to betray the trust of students by demanding they “out” students to parents, even if the student is not ready. Pushing school staff to disclose deeply private information to parents breaches trust and creates an uncomfortable school environment for LGBTQ+ youth. This effort to “out” children is unethical and unenforceable. The adults that work in schools are there to educate and protect children, not police their identities and serve as agents for a discriminatory political agenda. Very sadly, our family is very versed on what can happen if a family, community, etc does not support a young person in what they feel is their own needed identity in the fact that a young friend of ours committed suicide by hanging in the basement of the very home she was not supported in. Does the state legislature want this type of horrid happening/statistics on their hands? VOTE NO!!!!

HB 1707, HB 2432, and HB 2170 are anti-freedom pieces of legislation aimed at hurting LGBTQ+ students, specifically trans and gender non-binary students. They create new and extra regulations that don’t solve any problems and just create new ones for students, parents, and school administration. LGBTQ+ young people have unique journeys and for many disclosing their gender identity against their will can cause harm and far reaching repercussions. I urge the committee to reject all three of these bills.

Every LGBTQ person’s journey is unique, and for many, their discovery of self can be a sensitive time. A child’s decision to disclose parts of their identity should remain solely in their hands. Some provisions in these bills would force school officials to betray the trust of students by demanding they “out” students to parents, even if the student is not ready. Pushing school staff to disclose deeply private information to parents breaches trust and creates an uncomfortable school environment for LGBTQ+ youth. This effort to “out” children is unethical and unenforceable. The adults that work in schools are there to educate and protect children, not police their identities and serve as agents for a discriminatory political agenda. These bills would destroy trust between students and school staff. While we agree that important information about a child’s welfare should not be withheld from their parental guardians, we are suspicious of provisions that do not consider the consent of the minor in question. Trust between school staff and students is necessary to provide adequate mental-health support. If students feel that their communications are not confidential, they will be less likely to disclose important information to their school counselors and teachers. This legislation endangers LGBTQ+ students, who already face high rates of bullying, harassment, and isolation. LGBTQ students who lack support and face harassment and discrimination at school experience increased isolation, depression, and risk of suicide and are more likely than their peers to miss school, often in an effort to avoid abuse. These negative experiences can have serious long-term negative impacts on these students’ health, education, and well-being. We acknowledge that these bills are moving quickly, which can be overwhelming and stressful for those who are directly impacted or have loved ones who are. Please keep checking in with yourself, and take breaks as you need. We’re all in this fight together, and we appreciate your dedication to protecting transgender and nonbinary youth.

We oppose HB 1707 and HB 2432 as unconscionably intrusive to the inherent worth, dignity, and personal agency of students. It is quite chilling indeed to empower the state to determine ones personal identity and to implement punitive measures if one does not conform to the state's determination. This idea is particularly reprehensible and abusive when applied to children who often are still forming language to describe their felt identity. Schools have managed to deal successfully with family dysfunction brought into the school environment for a very long time. Using the legislature to unfairly mediate family dysfunction to the detriment of the vulnerable party is entirely inappropriate. These attacks on vulnerable children must cease.

My name is Felicity, and I’m a non-binary queer student in Loudoun County. I highly oppose HB 2170 because LGBTQIA+ students need to be protected and deserve safety. This bill would put many students in danger. I oppose HB 2432 because it endangers queer and trans students. LGBTQIA+ students need protection and the government trying to pass these bills puts all of us in harm's way. I oppose HB 1707 because trans students need to be protected and this bill is dangerous. It is disgusting how the government is using their power so they can bully queer and trans students. In conclusion, I highly oppose bills HB 1707, HB 2170, and HB 2432.

My name is Heather Massey and I’m a resident of Glen Allen, VA 23060. Thank you for this opportunity to share my thoughts. As the parent of a K-12 public school student, I vigorously oppose HB 2432 for several reasons. This bill would force school districts to “out” students to their parents even if the student isn’t ready. Pushing school staff to disclose deeply private information to parents breaches trust and creates an uncomfortable school environment for LGBTQ+ youth. That’s not the type of academic environment I want for my child. Furthermore, this effort to “out” children is unethical and unenforceable. School staff are responsible to educate and protect children, not police their identities and serve as agents for a discriminatory political agenda. I’m a parent, so I understand that information about a child’s welfare should not be withheld from their parental guardians; at the same time, I’m suspicious of provisions that do not consider the consent of the minor in question. This legislation endangers LGBTQ+ students, who already face high rates of bullying, harassment, and isolation. Outing them without their consent would result in a negative experience that will have serious long-term negative impacts on their health, education, and well-being. Therefore, I must once again voice my opposition to HB 2432.

Please do not implement or support policies or legislation requiring outing of LGBT youth to parents without those children’s consent, as this opens them to abuse and torture by those parents inclined to forcibly repress their own children.

Dear subcommittee members, I am writing as a resident of Virginia since 2004 with the strongest objections to HB 2432, Minors & students self-identifying as a gender different from biological sex; parental notification. As a faculty member at James Madison University, I see firsthand how college students who have had support for identity exploration and identity development during K-12 years are able to lead with more confidence, succeed academically, and flourish as human beings. This bill offers no support for the students who would be faced with the outcomes of being “outed” to their parents and in their schools. Regardless of how people feel about gender non-conforming identities, gender exploration is a part of every kid’s development, and they need to be able to access counselors and teachers with confidence and trust. This bill violates that rust, and disregards the professional knowledge and discretion of teachers and counselors. This bill additionally interferes with parent-child communications by having public officials intervene or initiate discussions between parents and children. Most importantly, this bill would do harm to all children who are learning about their gender, from those who are experimenting with different clothes and behaviors to those who are confident that their gender does not match that which was assigned to them at birth. All children need a safe environment in which to learn, one where they can flourish and be themselves. In the schools, that environment is enriched by professional personnel such as teachers and counselors. The environment proposed by this bill is instead one of decreased safety, where school staff cannot be trusted and children are at increased risk both at school (increased bullying, harassment, and isolation). LGBTQ kids are especially at risk: the Trevor Project’s 2022 survey found that 45% of LGBTQ youth seriously considered attempting suicide in the past year. However, youth who found their school to be supportive of LGBTQ+ youth reported lower rates of attempted suicide. For that reason alone, it is crucial to find policies supportive of LGBTQ+ youth. I urge you to review and follow the recommendations of the Virginia LGBTQ+ Advisory Board Annual Report (October 2022, p. 7-8) to “Create Educational Environments Where Students are Empowered to Live and Learn Authentically” by supporting model policies for transgender students as directed by HB145 and SB 161, and to create or firm up anti-bullying policies that mention LGBTQ+ students specifically. Thank you for your service to the Commonwealth. Jody Fagan 333 Copper Drive Broadway, Virginia

Please do not endanger gender nonconforming (GNC) youth more than they already are by legitimizing these bills (HB1707, HB2170, and HB2432), all of which relate to forcing school staff to "out" these children to their parents. The justifications of these bills appear to be either predicated on the idea that the parents of GNC youth always have the best interests of their child in mind, or on the unspoken premise that GNC youth should face more bullying, harassment, and isolation than they already do. The first option is demonstrably false (see: rates of abuse of queer youth compared to their peers), the second option is shockingly hateful and cruel. GNC children need a safe environment in which to learn, one where they can flourish and be themselves. The environment proposed by these bills is instead one of decreased safety, where school staff cannot be trusted and GNC children are at increased risk both at school (increased bullying, harassment, and isolation) and at home (being abused, disowned, and/or forced to leave). The most charitable read of this bill I can fathom is that it comes from a place of profound ignorance about the lived experiences of GNC youth and the statistical risks they face. It's difficult not to also see genuine malicious intent toward, and craven political targeting of one of our most vulnerable groups of Virginians.

Please vote No on this bill. We need to leave these trans kids alone. They have enough problems without government bullies piling on.

These are incredible dangerous, irresponsible bills that will unnecessarily endanger children. You are opening Virginia schools up to lawsuits and will waste taxpayer money. Shame on you for using your power to harass children.

My name is Carla Pratt Keyes. I am the pastor of Ginter Park Presbyterian Church here in Richmond. I am writing in opposition to HB 1707 (Durant) and HB 2432 (LaRock), which would require public school personnel to contact a student's parent if they believe that the student's self-identified gender does not align with their "biological sex." I believe this requirement would inadvertently undermine and endanger children who understand themselves to be non-binary or transgender. One of the things I've had to come to terms with during my ministry is how much harm the Christian Church has done to the queer community. It was in church I learned that homosexuality was a sin. It was in church I learned that God created humans male and female (different as night and day, right?... without all the complexity of dawn and twilight and dusk). So clear was my belief in the perversion of homosexuality and the distinctness of gender: if I’d felt attracted to other women as a teenager … or if I’d wanted to wear men’s clothing or something, I would never have told a soul! I knew such yearnings were wrong. I believed such behavior was shameful. That’s the problem with the beliefs so many churches have taught through the years: those beliefs can lead to judgment and shame and hiding. I have learned to see differently – learned it in the church, actually! I have come to believe, as many Christians believe, in God’s unswerving, unconditional love for all kinds of people. I have come to believe, as many Christians believe, that the beauty and complexity of God is reflected in the full spectrum of humanity, including the spectrum of queerness. I have learned to celebrate a world in which children can explore their identities, express themselves, ask for what they need, and be appreciated for who they are – even when what they’re feeling and wanting does not conform to our expectations around gender or sexuality. As a parent and as a pastor, I want our schools to be those kinds of safe, celebratory places. Of course, I also want every home and every family to be that safe and celebratory. I feel certain that’s what we all want for ourselves and for our children. The tragic reality with this (as with so many things) is that we are not there yet. Too many people have been shaped as I was shaped; there is still too much judgment and shame, especially around all it means to be transgender and non-binary. If children have not spoken with their parents about their nonconforming gender, they probably have good reasons for having avoided that conversation … and for the government and school system to force that conversation may endanger the child. One day (I have faith!) things will be different. Until then, we must do what we can to keep our children safe. So I urge you to reject these proposed requirements.

Hb1707/2432 - Trans and Gender nonconforming children deserve safety and respect. By outing them to their parents you are putting them at greater risk of abuse at home, and suicidal ideation. This is not in the best interest of the child in any way. HB2502 School time is for school not for religious activities. If this exception is made, then I assume that it will be made for a Muslim class or a Satanic Club as well.

LGBTQIA+ students deserve safety, privacy, and respect for their chosen identities. I strongly oppose these bills.

These bills infringe on the rights of our children to live their lives with free expression of who they are. No one has the right to express their implicit bias by informing their parent guardian. It is very difficult to be born in a body that does not match your gender identity. Their schools should not have any rights to communicate choices children make while away from their families. It’s very important that children have an environment outside of the home to be safe and free without being “told on”. Every LGBTQ person’s journey is unique, and for many, their discovery of self can be a sensitive time. A child’s decision to disclose parts of their identity should remain solely in their hands. This effort to “out” children is unethical and unenforceable. The adults that work in schools are there to educate and protect children, not police their identities and serve as agents for a discriminatory political agenda. School is difficult for students that express their true self and having the school staff reporting to their parents makes everyday harder. If the children are comfortable with having their parents aware of their choices then they will tell them when they are ready. These bills will cause hardships in the students and their families lives. Let people be and stop applying your limited view and acceptance of people who don’t act like you. By defeating these bills we will support our children who need adults to respect them.

I am a student in Virginia and I oppose bills 2432, 2170, and 1707 on the reasoning that it would lead to an increase in discrimination within school systems, negatively affecting the right to free public education to which all US students are entitled, as stated within the Constitution. These bills would negatively affect the safety of thousands of students should they be passed. Discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity is prohibited under Title IX, as enforced by the US Department of Education, so it is within the best interests of the law that these bills not be passed.

Please protect LGBTQ children and teenagers. Do not pass a forced outing bill. Protect their access to medical care and allow them to transition with the help and advice of medical professionals. These bills show that ignorance and hate and political stunts are more important to these legislators than the health and well-being of transgender children. We cannot accept legislation that is based on lies and hate and not on medical science.

I will be graduating from Fairfax County this coming June. However, I worry how these bills will affect future / current students who are queer. When I came out to my mom for the first time, she yelled and screamed at me how it was a sin and that I “don’t make sense.” I don’t want any other student to face that, and I worry that such things will happen more frequently if these bills are passed. I don’t want future students to be forcibly outed to parents who may yell, scream, make fun of, or even beat their own child for their own identity. As a closing note, if these bills are passed and teen suicide rates go up, do not be surprised. You brought this upon yourselves.

I oppose these three bills. These bills erode the trust kids have in their counselors and teachers, and forced outing places some children in danger.

I am speechlessly angry that you would assault the children of Virginia in this way. You have NO business deciding what gender my child should be. Are you going to say that my son must be gay if he wears pink? I bet none of you even knew that pink was an exclusively male colour until Mimi Eisenhower. Gender is a social construct and even biological sex is not as binary as penis or no penis. Your God or mine has NO place in the law of the land. These bills come from a place of religious intolerance and fear. Is that what Virginia should be knonw for?

I am writing to oppose the bills proposed which would force schools and staff to out students who are questioning their gender identity or using a gender identity at school that is not their gender assigned at birth. These bills degrade trust between students and school staff and potentially endanger children whose families are not accepting. This is an unnecessary and purely harmful policy that targets trans and non-binary kids. Kids should be able to express themselves and be safe in school.

Imagine wanting to cause further pain and undue suffering on a child who, through literally no fault of their own, is different from your status quo. I am a transgender adult, but I was once a transgender kid. It was scary and upsetting enough then trying to come to terms with myself without being vilified by a political party for political points, while they rally their base to increase hatred and vitriol. Trans kids these days don't get that luxury. They know that there is a nationwide spotlight on them when there shouldn't be. It is unconscionable to want to further perpetuate burdens and pain on any minority group of people, including kids. If these bills pass you will only be doing further harm on trans kids--you won't be getting rid of them like you want. They'll still be here. Trans people have always, and will always, be here. And we will stand with each other against archaic bigoted legislation brought forth by ignorant and out of touch representatives. Have the day that you all deserve.

HB1707: This bill will remove important protections for trans, non-binary, and gender non-conforming students and will affect their safety, autonomy, and sense of belonging. By forcibly outing students, you are potentially putting them in danger, as well as taking away the safe space they have tried to create. HB2170: While this bill may seem simple, it will infringe upon students' rights to join any teams or committees without fear of being outed or facing retaliation from their family. Kids who may want to join a Gender Sexuality Alliance/Gay Straight Alliance will have to choose between finding a supportive and healthy community and being outed to their family who may not be supportive of their identity. HB2432: The fact that this bill would force Therapists and counselors to out their clients to potentially unsupportive family members is horrible. This opens kids up to dangerous situations at home, by outing them without their consent. This also would protect families who deny their child's gender identity, which again, puts kids into dangerous situations. Affirming a child's gender identity can be life saving! A study from the Trevor Project found that "LGBTQ youth who found their school to be LGBTQ-affirming reported lower rates of attempting suicide." By removing these safe places and actively not supporting youth's gender identities, you are putting thousands of lives at risk. Trans youth are not going away, but if bills like these pass, they will be put at risk. All children deserve to be treated with respect, and for their whole identity to be supported and affirmed.

I oppose both bills HB 1707 and HB 2432. These bills are attempts to destroy young lives. If the student trusted the parent they would have a conversation with them. It is not the school place to report if the THINK a student may be transgender or non-binary. There are positive merits to bill 1707 but until it is re-written to remove the language surrounding reporting transgender students I cannot support it.

I OPPOSE these bills for the following reasons: These bills would force school districts to “out” students to their parents. -Every LGBTQ person’s journey is unique, and for many, their discovery of self can be a sensitive time. A child’s decision to disclose parts of their identity should remain solely in their hands. -Some provisions in these bills would force school officials to betray the trust of students by demanding they “out” students to parents, even if the student is not ready. Pushing school staff to disclose deeply private information to parents breaches trust and creates an uncomfortable school environment for LGBTQ+ youth. -This effort to “out” children is unethical and unenforceable. The adults that work in schools are there to educate and protect children, not police their identities and serve as agents for a discriminatory political agenda. These bills would destroy trust between students and school staff. -While we agree that important information about a child’s welfare should not be withheld from their parental guardians, we are suspicious of provisions that do not consider the consent of the minor in question. -Trust between school staff and students is necessary to provide adequate mental-health support. If students feel that their communications are not confidential, they will be less likely to disclose important information to their school counselors and teachers. This legislation endangers LGBTQ+ students, who already face high rates of bullying, harassment, and isolation. -LGBTQ students who lack support and face harassment and discrimination at school experience increased isolation, depression, and risk of suicide and are more likely than their peers to miss school, often in an effort to avoid abuse. -These negative experiences can have serious long-term negative impacts on these students’ health, education, and well-being.

These bills would force school districts to “out” students to their parents and destroy trust between students and school staff. They endanger LGBTQ+ students, who already face high rates of bullying, harassment, and isolation. As the mother of a gay child and a long time PFLAG facilitator, I oppose these bills and urge their defeat.

These bills would force school districts to “out” students to their parents. - Every LGBTQ person’s journey is unique, and for many, their discovery of self can be a sensitive time. A child’s decision to disclose parts of their identity should remain solely in their hands. - Some provisions in these bills would force school officials to betray the trust of students by demanding they “out” students to parents, even if the student is not ready. Pushing school staff to disclose deeply private information to parents breaches trust and creates an uncomfortable school environment for LGBTQ+ youth. - This effort to “out” children is unethical and unenforceable. The adults that work in schools are there to educate and protect children, not police their identities and serve as agents for a discriminatory political agenda. These bills would destroy trust between students and school staff. - While we agree that important information about a child’s welfare should not be withheld from their parental guardians, we are suspicious of provisions that do not consider the consent of the minor in question. - Trust between school staff and students is necessary to provide adequate mental-health support. If students feel that their communications are not confidential, they will be less likely to disclose important information to their school counselors and teachers. This legislation endangers LGBTQ+ students, who already face high rates of bullying, harassment, and isolation. - LGBTQ students who lack support and face harassment and discrimination at school experience increased isolation, depression, and risk of suicide and are more likely than their peers to miss school, often in an effort to avoid abuse. - These negative experiences can have serious long-term negative impacts on these students’ health, education, and well-being.

We oppose these bills. While we agree that important information about a child’s welfare should not be withheld from their parental guardians, these bills would destroy trust between students and school staff. Trust between school staff and students is necessary to provide adequate mental-health support. If students feel that their communications with school staff are not confidential, they will be less likely to disclose important information to their school counselors and teachers. The bills should include provisions to consider consent of the minor in question for this reason. These bills also endanger LGBTQ+ students, who already face high rates of bullying, harassment, and isolation. LGBTQ students who face harassment and discrimination at school and do not trust school staff experience increased isolation, depression, and risk of suicide and are more likely than their peers to miss school, often in an effort to avoid abuse. This can have serious long-term negative impacts on these students’ health, education, and well-being. Thank you for your service to our Commonwealth and for the opportunity to provide feedback.

I Oppose These Bills: These bills would force school districts to “out” students to their parents. Every LGBTQ person’s journey is unique, and for many, their discovery of self can be a sensitive time. A child’s decision to disclose parts of their identity should remain solely in their hands. Some provisions in these bills would force school officials to betray the trust of students by demanding they “out” students to parents, even if the student is not ready. Pushing school staff to disclose deeply private information to parents breaches trust and creates an uncomfortable school environment for LGBTQ+ youth. This effort to “out” children is unethical and unenforceable. The adults that work in schools are there to educate and protect children, not police their identities and serve as agents for a discriminatory political agenda. These bills would destroy trust between students and school staff. While we agree that important information about a child’s welfare should not be withheld from their parental guardians, we are suspicious of provisions that do not consider the consent of the minor in question. Trust between school staff and students is necessary to provide adequate mental-health support. If students feel that their communications are not confidential, they will be less likely to disclose important information to their school counselors and teachers. This legislation endangers LGBTQ+ students, who already face high rates of bullying, harassment, and isolation. LGBTQ students who lack support and face harassment and discrimination at school experience increased isolation, depression, and risk of suicide and are more likely than their peers to miss school, often in an effort to avoid abuse. These negative experiences can have serious long-term negative impacts on these students’ health, education, and well-being. Dusty Sabourin Virginia State Director American Atheists

As an LGBTQ Virginian, I am opposed to HB1707, HB2170 and HB2432 because they will harm LGBTQ kids under the guise of "protecting" them or by seeming to favor parental authority. If a trans kid wants to be a different gender at school, who does this harm? And why make teachers the bad guys by requiring them to become informants to parents who may not have child's best interests at heart. The truth is that not all parents are good parents. HB2170 is clearly designed to prevent LGBTQ kids in need of friends and support from joining a LGBTQ club unless their parents approve. That club could be the one safe place for that child. As far as HB2432, what happened to "Sage" was tragic, but I disagree with those who link the child sex trafficking to the state's decision to remove Sage from the grandparents' home. To the contrary, I feel lawmakers are exploiting Sage all over again but for their own personal political agendas. LGBTQ kids face enough struggles in a society where they are bullied, slandered and are the targets of hateful legislation that seeks to impose others' opinions on their lives. I was a lucky kid in that my parents supported me, but not all parents are as wonderful as mine were. Let these LGBTQ kids find their way, give them a supportive space in which to do so, and quit trying to legislate how others live their lives.

My name is L.F. Brown and I write in OPPOSITION to House Bill 1707 (Durant) and HB 2432 (LaRock) which seeks to force school districts to “out” students to their parents. These bills infringe on the unique self-discovery of gender expansive, non-binary, and transgender youth whose decision to disclose parts of their identity to a trusted teacher, counselor, or other school official is a sacred experience. Requiring school staff to disclose a student’s personal and private information to their parents, breaches trust and creates an uncomfortable school environment for LGBTQIA+ youth. As teachers, counselors and other school officials are strategically positioned to support the educational pursuits of EVERY student under their supervision, school staff do not serve to police gender identities or act as agents for a discriminatory political agenda. In my opinion, House Bill 1707 (Durant) and HB 2432 (LaRock) are attempts at a solution in search of a problem. I strongly OPPOSE these bills.

The anti-Trans bills you’re all pushing are abhorrent and give a green light to further marginalization and bullying against Trans students in the Commonwealth of VA. As a Trans woman myself, I know firsthand what an oppressive educational environment does to marginalized students. The 3 bills (HB 1707 / HB 2170 / HB 2432 respectively) being heard are performative and unfathomably cruel, attacking a marginalized group of students that already deal with a high degree of bullying / harassment by adults as well as their cis-hetero peers. Do the right thing and withdrawal this cynical and heinous legislation.

I've chosen to write together to these three bills because they seem to me to limit the freedom of students to learn and explore. My middle-schooler tells me of many students who are using different gender identities at school with friends and perhaps staff than they are at home. I don't see any need for parents to know this from the schools - the parents who are already inclusive and welcoming know these gender identities, and there may be good reasons why the other parents do not. Students may not feel safe at home, or may want to keep this exploration private until they are ready to share outside of their chosen groups at school. The rule about clubs follows - the school hosts these clubs and activities to give the students alternate methods to learn things - maybe about the environment by picking up litter, or the government by expressing freedom of speech, or their athletic ability with a running club. I believe that the schools are child development professionals and I respect their judgement on whether these clubs are worthwhile. Please do not legislate on top of them.

These bills would force school districts to “out” students to their parents. Every LGBTQ person’s journey is unique, and for many, their discovery of self can be a sensitive time. A child’s decision to disclose parts of their identity should remain solely in their hands. Some provisions in these bills would force school officials to betray the trust of students by demanding they “out” students to parents, even if the student is not ready. Pushing school staff to disclose deeply private information to parents breaches trust and creates an uncomfortable school environment for LGBTQ+ youth. This effort to “out” children is unethical and unenforceable. The adults that work in schools are there to educate and protect children, not police their identities and serve as agents for a discriminatory political agenda. These bills would destroy trust between students and school staff. While we agree that important information about a child’s welfare should not be withheld from their parental guardians, we are suspicious of provisions that do not consider the consent of the minor in question. Trust between school staff and students is necessary to provide adequate mental-health support. If students feel that their communications are not confidential, they will be less likely to disclose important information to their school counselors and teachers. This legislation endangers LGBTQ+ students, who already face high rates of bullying, harassment, and isolation. LGBTQ students who lack support and face harassment and discrimination at school experience increased isolation, depression, and risk of suicide and are more likely than their peers to miss school, often in an effort to avoid abuse. These negative experiences can have serious long-term negative impacts on these students’ health, education, and well-being.

Schools are not surveillance apparatuses for parents. Students have human rights and that includes the right to privacy. Parents do not own students. Schools have no business sharing information about students' gender, sexuality, relationships, or any other personal characteristic or identity against students' wishes.

These three proposed bills are incredibly transphobic and dangerous. They will do immense harm to our youth. Affirming a child's gender identity can save their life. Bills HB1707, HB2170, and HB2432 are heinous. They cannot become law.

These bills will harm trans youth. They will also harm all youth. If you increasingly make it difficult for trans youth to exist and have their right to privacy, you push them towards suicide. If a queer child feels the need to keep their queerness secret from their parents that is their right. And there is a reason for it. Some queer kids if outed would become homeless. If you are willing to pass these measures that would create homeless children then fuck you. Fuck yourself you assholes. Suck my feminine dick and literally swallow a cheese grater.

I'm writing today to oppose HB1707, HB2170, and HB2432. As a queer woman who had violently homophonic relatives, I knew growing up that my mental and physical safety depended on much of my family not knowing about my sexuality. This is sadly a common story for so many of us in the LGBTQ+ community, most especially for our trans and non-binary youth. By requiring parental notification or parental consent as laid out in these two bills, we are risking the safety of our students who are in unsupportive and potentially hostile living situations. We owe it to all LGBTQ+ Virginia students to come out on their own terms, to people who will be safe and supportive, and when they feel ready to do so. These bills would strip agency from our young people and would shatter the trust they have with faculty. At a time when trans and non-binary youth are facing alarming rates of bullying, harassment, homelessness, and abuse, these bills would have the catastrophic side effect of only adding to these numbers. I trust you will put the wellbeing of Virginia's youth ahead of personal opinions and not move forward with these three bills. Thank you for your time.

I am writing in OPPOSITION to HB1707 (Durant), HB2432 (LaRock), and HB2170 (Williams), which would require Virginia schools to inform parents whether their children are transgender or gender nonbinary (HB1707 and HB2432) and to require parental permission for children to participate in school clubs or organizations, including gay-straight alliances and other such groups (HB2170). Not all transgender students have parents who are supportive of sexual orientation and gender identity issues. Involuntarily disclosing a child's transgender status to unsupportive parents can put the child at risk of violence, rejection, and homelessness. In particular, transgender children are disproportionately represented in homeless youth populations and become vulnerable to sex trafficking. Not surprisingly, this also can put a child at risk of suicide. None of these are acceptable outcomes for a child. These bills seem to be a misguided attempt to prevent transgender children from walking down a path that leads to irreversible medical treatments. They do not take into consideration that any form of medical treatment requires parental consent, so a child would need to disclose his or her transgender status, voluntarily, with his or her parents - on the child's own terms, and at his or her own level of comfort. Lacking this parental disclosure, no irreversible medical treatments are even possible. It is also possible that these bills are a misguided attempt to prevent children from "deciding" to be transgender. Being transgender (or even gay) is not a choice. It is the result of how we develop in utero, combined with certain genetic factors. Thus transgender people cannot be prevented from being transgender. They can only be punished and humiliated and impeded from living their authentic lives. These hurdles are unnecessary and are damaging. Every child deserves a safe environment in which to interact with other children as his or her authentic self. Every child deserves the ability to talk to a teacher or school counselor without fear of being "informed on." Every child deserves the "space" to sort out complicated social and emotional issues on his or her own terms. These bills deprive children of these personal rights. A much better model of responsible and effective school intervention would be to make a school counselor available to discuss gender identity issues with any children who might seek guidance, and then to counsel the children with regard to how they might approach their parents - on their own terms and in their own time. Trusted school staff should make themselves available to mediate in safe discussions between transgender children and their parents. However, under no circumstances should children be involuntarily reported to their parents for having been born different. This requirement removes an invaluable safety net that the child needs. I urge the committee to oppose these bills. They accomplish nothing beneficial for the children they target, and in fact they would do great harm. Nothing in these bills would stop a transgender child's trajectory towards transitioning and seeking medical treatment, if that is what he or she eventually decides is appropriate. They would only make the journey more traumatic, strip the child of caring resources, and place the child in danger of violence, rejection, homelessness, sex trafficking, and/or suicide. Please vote NO on HB1707, HB2170 , and HB2432.

As we grow we evolve, or at least we hope to. However, as we continue our journey we learn things about ourselves. There are times we learn them, yet are not comfortable with sharing them. Sometimes we know that if we share something about us, even with family, we know it could put us in a dangerous situation. Just because it’s your family does not mean that a child will be loved, especially if that family doesn’t agree or support you. These bills are extremely dangerous and will hurt kids, not help them. I guarantee you that passing these bills will have more harm done than any good that you possibly think can come from it. I plead with you to allow these kids to be who they are, and know that they know the situation they’re in better than us.

I am strongly opposed to HB 1707, HB 2170 and HB 2432. The notification (outing] of a student to his parents could eradicate the trust a student feels towards school staff and the ability ti share with them. Also, this could open the student to additional bullying at school and puts the student at additional risk of depression, hopelessness and suicide. Although it is preferable to have a student and their parents to communicate about these important matters, we know that not every family shares this ability to communicate. I urge you to vote against these bills which would lead to unethical and inexcusable results.

As an lgbtq person, I strongly disagree with any bill that forces the outing of transgender youth. So many youth do not have supportive adults at home and many commit suicide. Forced outing is unsafe for our youth.

I do not support these bills. Virginia schools should focus on our children’s education, not how they want to identify. The adults that work in schools are there to educate and protect children, not police their identities and serve as agents for a discriminatory political agenda.

I strongly oppose any bill that would require ANYONE to "out" an individual regarding their gender identity. This would be a harmful, psychologically damaging to a child, and could result in assault. It is appalling this id even being considered. Students should also be able to attend any after school or school related program of their choice without a guardian's permission.

These bills are heinous bills introduced solely to marginalize a community that already is at one of the highest risks of both youth suicide and homicide. Forced outing to a parent would do nothing but endanger the lives of children in our state, children who already scared and confused because they have been forced to live in a way that does truly describe who they really are. What these bills do is put these children at risk with abusive parents, some of which would either physically abuse their children if they found out their identity or at worst murder them. Please do not unnecessarily endanger the lives of our youth. Thank you.

I am writing in opposition to bills HB 1707, HB 2432, and HB 2170. These bills would force school districts to “out” students to their parents. Every LGBTQ person’s journey is unique, and for many, their discovery of self can be a sensitive time. A child’s decision to disclose parts of their identity should remain solely in their hands. Kids know who they can trust...it's our job to BE that trusted grown-up. Some provisions in these bills would force school officials to betray the trust of students by demanding they “out” students to parents, even if the student is not ready. Pushing school staff to disclose deeply private information to parents breaches trust and creates an uncomfortable school environment for LGBTQ+ youth. This effort to “out” children is unethical and unenforceable. The adults that work in schools are there to educate and protect children, not police their identities and serve as agents for a discriminatory political agenda. Trust between school staff and students is necessary to provide adequate mental-health support. If students feel that their communications are not confidential, they will be less likely to disclose important information to their school counselors and teachers. This legislation endangers LGBTQ+ students, who already face high rates of bullying, harassment, and isolation. While important information about a child’s welfare should not be withheld from their parental guardians, these bills do not consider the consent of the minor in question. LGBTQ students who lack support and face harassment and discrimination at school experience increased isolation, depression, and risk of suicide and are more likely than their peers to miss school, often in an effort to avoid abuse. These negative experiences can have serious long-term negative impacts on these students’ health, education, and well-being. If you think schools should out kids to their parents, you might ask yourself if you're the kind of parent your kid would willingly come out to: It's the parents' responsibility to create a home environment of unconditional love, trust, and support from day one and the schools' responsibility to be a safe place for all kids. I vehemently oppose these bills that put identity politics ahead of student safety and well-being.

I oppose these bills! These bills would force school districts to “out” students to their parents. Every LGBTQ person’s journey is unique, and for many, their discovery of self can be a sensitive time. A child’s decision to disclose parts of their identity should remain solely in their hands. Some provisions in these bills would force school officials to betray the trust of students by demanding they “out” students to parents, even if the student is not ready. Pushing school staff to disclose deeply private information to parents breaches trust and creates an uncomfortable school environment for LGBTQ+ youth. This effort to “out” children is unethical and unenforceable. The adults that work in schools are there to educate and protect children, not police their identities and serve as agents for a discriminatory political agenda. These bills would destroy trust between students and school staff. While we agree that important information about a child’s welfare should not be withheld from their parental guardians, we are suspicious of provisions that do not consider the consent of the minor in question. Trust between school staff and students is necessary to provide adequate mental-health support. If students feel that their communications are not confidential, they will be less likely to disclose important information to their school counselors and teachers. This legislation endangers LGBTQ+ students, who already face high rates of bullying, harassment, and isolation. LGBTQ students who lack support and face harassment and discrimination at school experience increased isolation, depression, and risk of suicide and are more likely than their peers to miss school, often in an effort to avoid abuse. These negative experiences can have serious long-term negative impacts on these students’ health, education, and well-being. Melissa

VPEP STRONGLY OPPOSES This bill would not only drive a wedge between students and educators and increase a student's risk of abuse or homelessness, but it would also put an educator at excessive legal peril as a mandatory reporter of even suspicion of trans identity. This could easily be weaponized as a bullying tool by students against other students. This law will have a body count if it is allowed to pass. This is a cynical and cruel attack on students and on teachers. The sponsor should withdraw this bill and issue an apology to students, teachers, and the Trans community for this offensive legislation.

Schools have a responsibility to care for their students' safety and well-being. Forcibly "outing" kids to parents who may not respond to that news in a kind or loving way could put those students at real risk of harm. While I sympathize with the importance of parental notification, kids' safety and health should come first. Please vote no on any bill that would require schools to "out" kids as LGBTQ+ to their parents.

Re: Oppose House Bill 2432 – a bill to narrow the legal definition of "abuse and neglect" as applied to transgender minors and to forcibly out transgender youth without their consent Dear Chair Coyner and members of the Early Childhood/Innovation subcommittee: The ACLU of Virginia strongly opposes House Bill 2432 (HB2432), which would encourage Virginia educators to attempt to identify nonbinary and transgender students and then disclose that information without their consent and before they and their families may be ready. HB2432 would also narrow the definition of “abuse and neglect” solely as applied to transgender and nonbinary minors. This bill targets vulnerable Virginia youth and makes them less safe both at school and at home. We urge you to reject this bill. Best, Wyatt S.M. Rolla Senior Transgender Rights Attorney ACLU of Virginia

1454 - are you serious? Anyone who remotely values having an educated society will oppose 1454. Good Lord. 2170 is also utterly ridiculous. I OPPOSE 2170, of course. This undermines students' ability to explore their extracurricular interests in the school setting. 1707 and 2432 - I OPPOSE these. These bills would threaten the safety of trans students. 1803 - I OPPOSE this. People need to trust educators to do their jobs, and not impose their beliefs on public schools. I SUPPORT 1497 and 1566. It is disgraceful how educators are treated in this country, and these bills would begin to rectify that. Thank you, Delegates Convirs-Fowler and Rasoul. I support 2388 and 2439. I SUPPORT 2177 as a foreign language teacher. I just wish more bills promoting foreign language education could be on the agenda.