(Headline USA) Students at a Virginia high school reportedly staged a walkout this week over the district’s policy that allows transgender students to use whichever bathroom and locker room they want based on their “gender identity.”
According to local reports, nearly 100 students at Woodgrove High School in Loudoun County walked out of class in protest of Policy 8040, which the Loudoun County School Board implemented in 2021. The students said they want the school district to return to a girls-only, boys-only bathroom policy.
“In the locker rooms in the morning it’s an invasion of privacy, as I said because when men and natural-born males are in our locker rooms, and they are showering in the morning, natural-born females can walk in there as they please,” one male high school student told local outlet WJLA. “And that is not OK. And it goes against what we believe in.”
A female student said she doesn’t feel safe using the restroom at school, calling the school’s pro-transgender policies a “massive safety risk.” She also accused school district officials of failing to take her concerns seriously.
“We express these concerns and they ignore us and write us off as right-wing crazies,” she said. “We’re not crazy. We just don’t want to be in danger on a daily basis in this building … We’re sick of being here and just being completely ignored.”
The student added that “half the women in this building feel the same way.”
“We don’t use the bathrooms,” she explained. “We hold our pee until we can’t. I mean, there are girls in PE [Physical Education class] who still get changed in the bathroom stalls in there because they’re afraid of who might waltz in.”
Loudoun County was at the center of controversy in the run-up to the 2021 election, when Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin won his race in Virginia. Normally a Democratic county, Loudoun flipped for Youngkin due to parental concerns over public schools’ liberal policies on race and sex.
Virginia’s next elections will be held on Tuesday, Nov. 7.
