School leaders pass transgender policy, question how it will be implemented

After a six-hour marathon meeting, the Stafford County School Board passed employee and student non-discrimination policies one year after a transgender student was barred from using a bathroom facility.

Questions remain, however, as to how these policies will be implemented, as they do not specifically address transgender bathroom usage.

An overflow crowd of nearly 400 filled the School Board Chambers to speak on the proposed non-discrimination policy and to hear elected School Board officials discuss the matter.

The most polarizing additions to the school division’s existing policy addressing nondiscrimination, equal employment were the protections on the basis of “sexual orientation” and “gender identity.”

Other added/amended protections in the policy include “pregnancy, childbirth or related medical conditions, marital status, mental or physical disability, genetic information, or any other characteristic prohibited by state and/or federal law.”

Aquia District School Board member Irene Hollerback and Rock Hill District member and Board Chairman Patricia Healy were the dissenting votes.

“When you change a policy, there’s a potential for further action and repercussions to other policies on the books,” said Hollerback.

The newly adopted policy could open up the school division to more lawsuits, Healy said.

The other school board members voted in support of the policies.

“I see good in this policy,” George Washington Supervisor Dewayne McOsker said. “I see this policy as taking care of our kids and giving direction to our staff.”

“I think that these emails indicate that there are many people in the Stafford community who are very uncomfortable with the existence of transgender children and therefore are advocating that we discriminate against these children,” said Falmouth District Supervisor Sarah Chase after reading experts from several constituent emails she had received regarding the issue.

“These groups need protection because they are vulnerable,” Garrisonville Supervisor Pamela Yeung said. “They are not predators waiting behind curtains.”

“I want to make it very clear that this conversation didn’t start because of a lockdown drill,” Griffis-Widewater Supervisor Jamie Decatur said. “This conversation has been ongoing for a very long time; however, it did become apparent when we had the lockdown drill that our staff doesn’t know what they’re supposed to do.”

Hartwood Supervisor Holly Hazard pushed for but failed to get more clarity on how this new transgender non-discrimination. She voted no. abstained from the vote.

“I have serious reservations; however, I do not have serious reservations about who we protect,” Hazard said.

Potomac Local covered the evolution of this policy in a three-part series linked below:

Part I: Eleven months ago, Stafford schools officials promised action on a new transgender policy

Part II: How Stafford’s Transgender policy took a back seat to budget, elementary school redistricting

Part III: Stafford Transgender policy: ‘If it is voted down, we can move on’

Featured photo: An overflow crowd watches a live video of the Stafford County School Board meeting