America First Legal Targets Virginia Schools for Pro-Trans Policies
A Right-wing legal firm demands investigation of 5 Northern Virginia school districts with gender-affirming restroom policies.
America First Legal Foundation, a right-wing legal group, has called on the U.S. Department of Education to investigate whether five Northern Virginia school districts — Arlington, Alexandria, Fairfax, Loudoun, and Prince William County — are violating Title IX by allowing transgender individuals to use restrooms that match their gender identity.
Title IX prohibits sex-based discrimination in educational institutions that receive federal funds.
Most conservatives argue that the statute should only protect individuals who are discriminated against based on their assigned sex at birth.
However, in Virginia, which falls under the jurisdiction of the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, the legal precedent is that Title IX’s protections extend to instances where transgender students are discriminated against based on their gender identity.
America First Legal claims the five school districts are violating President Donald Trump’s recent executive order preventing schools that receive federal funds from affirming trans students’ gender identities.
The group says that if all five jurisdictions are found to have violated Title IX and still refuse to end their gender-affirming policies, then those school districts should be stripped of all federal funds.
“In each of those school districts, a ‘gender expansive or transgender student’ has access to the sex-segregated common restrooms and locker rooms of the opposite sex because it is consistent with their ability to be safe and comfortable in their subjective sense of ‘gender identity,'” the complaint reads.
“But when other students whose ‘gender identity’ is the same as their biological sex object on the grounds that they now feel unsafe and uncomfortable in the common sex-segregated restrooms and locker rooms that have traditionally been designated exclusively for their sex, those students’ only option is to use a private restroom or an alternative that ‘minimize[s] the loss of instructional time.’
“In other words, the relevant policies provide greater rights to students whose ‘gender identity’ does not match their biological sex than it does to students whose ‘gender identity’ matches their biological sex. Thus, these policies erase the very concept of biological sex in favor of ‘gender identity’ and codify discrimination ‘on the basis of sex.'”
“If sex is biological sex for the purposes of Title IX and you treat, you know, for example, a male that wants to use a female restroom, and you require the female who’s uncomfortable with that to go then use the private restroom, well, then, you are, by definition, discriminating on the basis of biological sex,” Ian Prior, senior advisor to America First Legal, told D.C.’s FOX 5.
Fairfax County Public Schools — Virginia’s largest school district — told FOX 5 that it is in compliance with federal and state laws.
“FCPS remains committed to fostering a safe, supportive, welcoming, and inclusive school environment for all students and staff, including our transgender and gender-expansive students and staff,” the district said in a statement. “We know that students can only learn effectively when they feel safe, supported, and accepted for who they are.”
Alexandria City and Prince William County officials told FOX 5 that they would cooperate with any federal investigation but have not been contacted by the Department of Education. The department has not yet announced whether it will investigate the districts in response to America First Legal’s complaint.
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