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Tag: transgender students

  • Prince William schools’ transgender policy remains intact despite repeated threats from the Trump administration in 2025 – WTOP News

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    Prince William County Public Schools has maintained its regulation that allows students to use school facilities such as locker rooms and bathrooms that correspond with their gender identity rather than biological sex.

    This article was republished with permission from WTOP’s news partner InsideNoVa.com. Sign up for InsideNoVa.com’s free email subscription today.

    Despite repeated pressure from the federal Department of Education in 2025, Prince William County Public Schools has maintained its regulation that allows students to use school facilities such as locker rooms and bathrooms that correspond with their gender identity rather than biological sex.

    And the school system has no plans to change its policy despite threats of federal funding being pulled, School Board Chair Dr. Babur Lateef told InsideNoVa Monday.

    In July, the federal government claimed five Northern Virginia school divisions – Prince William, Arlington, Loudoun and Fairfax counties and the city of Alexandria – violated Title IX by maintaining policies and regulations that allow students to access intimate school facilities based on gender identity rather than sex.

    The education department issued a resolution agreement to the school divisions that included a requirement the divisions rescind the relevant policies and regulations.

    The department also placed the five school districts on “high risk” status because of the transgender regulations. That status means all federal funding for the districts is now done by reimbursement only, and the department further scrutinizes those reimbursement requests. The department has also threatened to freeze federal funding if the school divisions do not change their policies.

    According to Lateef, no federal funding has been withheld to date.

    “[The] Department of Education never cut a single dollar to us, and we still maintain our policies, as we have over the last five, six years,” Lateef told InsideNoVa Monday. “There’s been no change to any of our policies for inclusion, and we continue to do them, and they seem to be working fine … and, I guess if they do cut federal funding, then we’ll probably have to deal with that at the time, but it hasn’t happened yet.”

    Following the announcement of the divisions’ high-risk status, Arlington and Fairfax counties sued the Department of Education seeking to have the status reversed.

    Judge Rossie D. Alston Jr. ultimately dismissed that case, saying the court did not have the power to weigh in on how the federal government distributes money, but he also gave credence to the argument made by the school divisions.

    Despite dismissing the lawsuit, Aslton said Fairfax and Arlington counties’ policies comply with current legal precedent on the issue of transgender students in school facilities and are not in violation of Title IX. Prince William’s rules are similar to those of Arlington and Fairfax.

    The precedent Alston referred to was Grimm v. Gloucester, a 2020 Fourth Circuit court case in which a transgender student, Gavin Grimm, sued the Gloucester County School Board in Virginia for not allowing him to use the boys restroom as a transgender boy. The findings of that case held that prohibiting students from using facilities that correspond with their gender identity constitutes sex discrimination under Title IX and violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

    That legal precedent is what Prince William has leaned on as the basis for its regulation.

    At the time of the ruling, Lateef told InsideNoVa he felt “reassured” by the ruling because of Alston’s message that the Grimm v. Gloucester ruling is “binding law.”

    “He’s validated that for us, and so we believe that we are not breaking the law and, under that criteria, we don’t believe the federal government has any right to enforce any action against the school division,” Lateef said at the time.

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    Will Vitka

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  • Loudoun Co. students’ suspension on hold while legal action over locker room incident proceeds – WTOP News

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    A Loudoun County student’s suspension is on hold while litigation over whether the punishment was warranted moves forward, a federal judge ruled Friday.

    A Loudoun County student’s suspension is on hold while litigation over whether the punishment was warranted moves forward, a federal judge ruled Friday.

    The ruling comes after two students’ families filed a lawsuit against the Northern Virginia school district, alleging the kids were wrongfully punished for speaking out about an incident in a school locker room. During the encounter, they said a transgender student identifying as male recorded them in a locker room at Stone Bridge High School.

    The students had been suspended for 10 days for harassment. And in a new court filing this week, the school system described incidents in which the two students harassed the other student before the incident in the locker room.

    The Washington Post was first to report on the filing.

    “These boys never directly spoke with the complainant, and so our boys were merely complaining that there was a biological girl in their locker room,” said Victoria Cobb, president of the Founding Freedoms Law Center. “The school has decided to make them political pawns in a battle over ideology.”

    In court documents, the school system said witnesses describe threatening incidents or behavior in gym class and school hallways.

    In an 11-second video, a speaker is heard saying “girl boy” several times. The student who filed the complaint said the two boys said to “get out” of the locker room and was referred to as “it” during P.E. class.

    According to the court files, investigators spoke to Loudoun County Public School staff members and a variety of student witnesses.

    The locker room incident prompted some community members to speak out, and resulted in a federal Department of Education investigation. The agency found Loudoun County violated Title IX and retaliated against the boys, who expressed concern about being recorded by a transgender boy in the boys’ locker room.

    The incident has also been referenced as the Education Department found bathroom policies at five Northern Virginia school districts violate Title IX. The agency said policies that allow students to use facilities based on their gender identity rather than biological sex violate the law. The families’ lawsuit seeks to end that school system policy in Loudoun County.

    A recording of the locker room incident, documents said, reveals a series of comments the two boys made, including things such as “there’s a girl,” “why is there a girl?”

    Reviewers described in documents as “independent decision makers” ruled that the two boys had sexually harassed the student.

    “Our clients never spoke to the female student,” Cobb, the boys’ attorney, said. “They only expressed confusion and discomfort about having a girl in the boys locker room.”

    After Friday’s ruling, Cobb said one of the two students can remain in school while the case progresses. The other moved away from the area, but Cobb said it’s “about their student record more than a suspension.”

    In a statement on Friday, a spokesman for Loudoun County schools said the division acknowledges “the court’s decision today and will prepare for the next steps in this matter. We remain committed to fostering a safe, inclusive, and respectful learning environment for all students.”

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    © 2025 WTOP. All Rights Reserved. This website is not intended for users located within the European Economic Area.

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    Scott Gelman

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  • Arlington, Fairfax school systems sue Education Department over funding freeze tied to gender policies – WTOP News

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    The lawsuits come after the Education Department requested Arlington Public Schools, Fairfax County Public Schools, and three other Northern Virginia school districts to change their policies that allow transgender students to use bathrooms and locker rooms that align with their gender identity, rather than their biological sex.

    Arlington and Fairfax counties’ public school districts are suing the Department of Education in an effort to protect their federal funding from being frozen in retaliation for the school systems’ gender policies surrounding the use of bathrooms and locker rooms.

    The lawsuits come after the Education Department requested Arlington Public Schools, Fairfax County Public Schools, and three other Northern Virginia school districts to change their policies that allow transgender students to use bathrooms and locker rooms that align with their gender identity, rather than their biological sex.

    The school systems refused, and the Education Department responded by placing them on “high-risk” status, meaning the department will scrutinize their federal reimbursement requests.

    In their complaints, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Arlington and Fairfax county schools are seeking to have that status reversed. The school districts say tens of millions of dollars for critical services for students are on the line.

    “These federal funds are not abstract numbers on a spreadsheet; they represent vital support for our most vulnerable children. This funding supports our food and nutrition services, services for our students with disabilities, students from low-income families, and programs that promote teacher development and student achievement across the division,” Fairfax County Public Schools Superintendent Michelle Reid said in a letter addressed to staff and families.

    “The DOE’s ‘high-risk’ designation unfairly harms tens of thousands of our students by threatening these essential services,” Reid continued.

    FCPS said in a statement up to $167 million in federal funding has been essentially frozen.

    In his letter to the Arlington Public Schools community, Superintendent Francisco Durán said the Education Department’s “high-risk” designation effectively halts $23 million in funding that the school district relies on.

    That funding, Durán said, is mainly used to provide more than 8,000 low-income students with free meals and thousands of special needs students with counseling and other educational support.

    In its complaint filed Friday, Arlington Public Schools asserts the Education Department’s funding freeze violates Title IX, the Administrative Procedures Act and the Spending Clause of the U.S. Constitution. The school system also said the department is incorrectly interpreting Title IX.

    Fairfax County schools state, in its complaint also filed Friday, that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit’s ruling in Grimm v. Gloucester County School board binds the school system. In that decision, FCPS wrote, the Fourth Circuit ruled that the Equal Protection Clause and Title IX compel local school boards to provide students with access to facilities that correspond with their gender identity.

    This week, Reid said in her letter that her school system reached out to the Education Department, “to address the impossible position that the DOE has placed on our school division — whether to violate a federal court ruling regarding the support of our transgender students or risk this critical funding. The DOE did not respond.”

    Durán said he expects a judge to hear the case quickly and issue an order that will preserve federal funding.

    WTOP has reached out to the Department of Education for comment.

    The Washington Post first reported the lawsuit.

    WTOP’s Scott Gelman contributed to this report.

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    © 2025 WTOP. All Rights Reserved. This website is not intended for users located within the European Economic Area.

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    Thomas Robertson

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