Last May, two months after Virginia Attorney General Mark R. Herring (D) issued an opinion saying they could, the Fairfax County School Board voted to approve protecting transgender students and staff.

The decision by the Fairfax County School Board to add ‘gender identity’ to our nondiscrimination policy is to provide an environment which promotes equality where every student and employee is treated with dignity and respect.

That's double-plus ungood according to conservative hate forces. So Andrea Lafferty, leader of the Traditional Values Coalition goaded a high school student into joining her in a lawsuit against the school board, arguing "that the county school board overstepped its bounds when it changed the policy to bar discrimination of students and staff based on their gender identity or sexual orientation. The suit asks for an injunction to stop the board from implementing the policy."

We have warned for months that such changes were not only jeopardizing our children but in direct contravention of long-standing Virginia statute.

--Lafferty

The lawsuit argues that the Virginia General Assembly has never given school boards the authority to bar discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity

Lafferty's lawyers claim that AG Herring's opinion is in error. The plaintiffs are being represented by the Liberty Counsel.

The Virginia legislature has already chosen a specific set of categories upon which to outlaw discrimination. Gender identity, gender expression and sexual orientation are not among those specific categories.

--Horatio Mihet, Liberty Counsel

Michael Kelly, a spokesman for Herring, said the attorney general stands by his opinion and believes “strongly for the right of every Virginian to live, learn and work without fear of discrimination.”

In the suit, the unnamed high school student, called “Jack Doe,” described being “terrified of the thought of having to share intimate spaces with students who have the physical features of a girl, seeing such conduct as an invasion of privacy.” The suit said the student is also “distressed” because the school board has not defined “gender identity” or “gender expression,” and worries that he could be disciplined for “unknowingly violating the ambiguous code of conduct.”

The student cannot regard school as a safe place where he can learn what he needs to be a productive and well-educated adult without fear of harassment, being charged with harassment and having his speech and conduct chilled by the fear of reprisals or of discipline.

--Liberty Counsel

According to Latin teacher Robert Ribgy of West Potomac High, who is faculty advisor for the school's Gay-Straight Alliance, transgender students at West Potomac are routinely harassed.

Transgender teens are not out to fight people or terrify people or confront people or flaunt anything.

--Rigby

We have not been served with the lawsuit yet, but once we are, our attorneys will review it and file the appropriate response with the court. The School Board and FCPS administration will continue to ensure that all of our students and employees are treated with dignity, respect and equality.

--Board Chair Pat Hynes

The push for transgender rights is all a part of the homosexual agenda to create sexual anarchy in order to destroy marriage, morality, and objective truth. This is not civil rights; this is the abolition of civil rights. It is the deconstruction of objective reality and natural law.

--Mat Staver, Liberty Counsel