Loudoun County Defies Title IX Directive
Last week, the Loudoun County Public Schools (LCPS) board voted 6–3 to again defy a directive from the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights. The department ordered LCPS to rescind Policy 8040, Rights of Transgender and Gender Expansive Students, by August 15, 2025, or risk losing as much as $45 million in federal funding.
Policy 8040 allows students to use bathrooms and locker rooms aligned with their chosen gender identity. Federal officials determined the policy violates Title IX, the 1972 civil rights law that prohibits sex-based discrimination in federally funded schools.
The board’s decision came after a heated meeting where dozens of parents and community members voiced strong opinions. Opponents argued that Policy 8040 puts vulnerable students at risk and jeopardizes millions in funding, while supporters pressed for transgender rights and urged the board to hold firm.
Loudoun County is not alone in their far-left intransigence. Alexandria City, Arlington County, Fairfax and Prince William County school districts have also refused to rescind their transgender polices.
Dueling Interpretations of Title IX
At the heart of the dispute is how Title IX should be interpreted.
LCPS maintains that Title IX extends protections to transgender students, including access to facilities and participation in sports consistent with their gender identity. This interpretation is reinforced by precedent from the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, which has ruled in favor of transgender students on issues ranging from locker room access to athletics. The court has even recognized gender identity as a protected characteristic in broader contexts, such as healthcare.
By contrast, the Trump administration’s Department of Education insists on a biologically based definition of sex, requiring schools to restrict facilities access to sex assigned at birth. That interpretation sets federal directives at odds with Fourth Circuit precedent, placing LCPS squarely in the middle of a legal tug-of-war.
Controversial Stone Bridge Incident
The issue escalated earlier this year at Stone Bridge High School. Three male students expressed discomfort when a female student identifying as a male—entered the boys’ locker room. Instead of addressing the boys’ concerns, school officials launched a Title IX investigation.
The transgender student filmed the encounter, capturing the boys’ reactions—an act itself in violation of school policy. Nevertheless, LCPS’s Title IX office concluded the boys had committed “sexual harassment” and “sex-based discrimination.” Two of them were suspended for 10 days.
As the Founding Freedoms Law Center, which is representing the boys, put it: they were punished “simply for asking why there was a girl in their locker room.” The outcome, compounded by LCPS’s defiance of federal directives and the looming threat of $45 million in lost funding, is what many parents now describe as the breaking point—an example of political ideology overtaking common sense.
The Choice Before Virginia Voters
Republican candidate for governor, Winsome Earle-Sears, has been openly critical of policies that allow students identifying as the opposite sex to use bathrooms aligning with their identity. At an Arlington School Board meeting, Earle-Sears asserted, “There are two sexes, boys and girls … they deserve their own sports teams, their own locker rooms, their own bathrooms.”
Her Democratic opponent, Abigail Spanberger opposes restricting bathroom and locker room access, arguing in 2022 that preventing students from using facilities aligned with their gender identity “rolls back the rights of children to be themselves in school.” In Congress, Spanberger voted in favor of the Equality Act, which allows transgender participation in sports consistent with their gender identity.
Winsome Earle-Sears believes in protecting privacy, preserving fairness, and keeping schools focused on education. She offers a common-sense approach to the future of Virginia’s students.
To prevent Loudoun county’s policies from becoming Virginia’s problem, vote for Winsome Earle-Sears as governor.
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