Welcome to episode #2 of The Spectrum. This was recorded on January 27th, 2025. The topic of today’s podcast is still an ongoing process and today’s podcast will not be the final word on this. The topic is one change and one proposed change to the how transgender students and issues are handled in the school system.

In December 2024, Shenandoah County School Board member Gloria Carlineo submitted two proposed changes to school policy. At the December school board meeting, I spoke to the school board about these proposed changes. At the end of December, I spoke in person to my school board representative, Larry Vance. We spent more than an hour going over why these policies would be harmful to students. Larry listened respectfully and asked good questions. Unfortunately, at the January meeting he, along with the rest of the board voted to implement the first of these policies. The second has not yet been voted on.

On January 23rd I wrote to all of the school board members along with the superintendent. It was a very detailed letter explaining the harm these policies would do and the improper foundation that tried to justify them. Unfortunately, I have not received a response from any of them.

I’ll have links to these policies and any supplemental material in the show notes.

The change is in Policy INB: Teaching About Controversial  Issues. On January 9, 2025 the board voted to add a section to this policy with the heading “Gender Identity”. It contains two paragraphs: 

“Gender Identity” shall mean or refer to an individual’s self-conception as a male, female, a blend of both or neither. Without limitation, Gender Identity shall be interpreted to mean the teaching of more than two genders or the ability to identify as a gender other than one’s actual biological sex at birth.

Shenandoah County Public Schools shall not provide or allow any employee or third party to provide instruction, guidance, activities, or programming regarding Gender Identity to students enrolled in prekindergarten through 12th Grade. 

We’ll get into the details and implications of that in a moment, but first let’s look a bit earlier on the same page:

In teaching about controversial issues, teachers are expected to:

• Establish a learning environment where each student can study the issues within a curriculum that is appropriate to the student’s knowledge and maturity; and

• Provide instruction in an atmosphere that is free from bias, prejudice, or coercion.

Although the instructional program includes the study of the political party system in the United States, the School Board does not endorse any political party, or candidate, or position on controversial matters outside the approved curriculum.

Yes, you heard that correctly. The teachers are expected to provide an environment where students can study the issues free from bias, prejudice or coercion. Except for this topic which is completely forbidden to even mention. The two halves of this page are at complete odds with each other. 

I also like that little “outside the approved curriculum” part. It gives them an out to teach things the policy would otherwise prohibit fi they want it taught.

This is now school policy in Shenandoah County.

First off, the policy misdefines “gender identity”. Everyone has one. It’s just that for most people their gender identity and their physical sex happen to align. What they really described was an approximate definition of “transgender”.

What are the implications of this policy?

1. Students will get no education at all on a topic that affects the world around them. This is bad enough but there are plenty of things that schools don’t teach. There are only so many hours in the day and a school can’t teach everything. However, given how much in the news transgender issues are, it would be reasonable to talk about this at the high school level and perhaps even in later middle school grades. Now, they can’t.
2. A student thinks they might be transgender but doesn’t know where to turn. Perhaps there is a trusted teacher or guidance counselor to turn to who might be able to help the student find help. Nope. Not in Shenandoah County. The school system has turned its back on this student.
3. A student transitions and the other students have questions. Can the teacher help the other students understand what is happening? Not one bit.

What is the motivation for this policy? The policy itself does not say. However, an earlier draft of the policy referred to this new addendum as the “Prohibition on the teaching of the Disinformation of Gender Identity.” I called out this phrasing at the December school board meeting and that language didn’t make it into the policy it but the policy itself remained. 

Given that was what it was called initially, I think it send a pretty clear message that the school board doesn’t believe the very concept of “gender identity” is real. They misdefine it and they don’t understand it and so they make it a forbidden topic.

The great irony of this is that Policy AC on nondiscrimination says: 

The Shenandoah County School Board is committed to nondiscrimination with regard to sex, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, race, color, ethnic or national origin, disability, religion, ancestry, age, marital status, pregnancy, childbirth or related medical conditions, military status, genetic information or any other characteristic protected by law. This commitment prevails in all of its policies and practices concerning staff, students, educational programs and services, and individuals and entities with whom the Board does business.

How long do you think it will take be before they remove gender identity from their nondiscrimination policy?

There is also another proposed policy change that has not yet been enacted. This one is to Policy JFHAB/GBAB: Privacy, Dignity, and Respect for All Students and Parents In Shenandoah County Public Schools. The text here is wordy so I won’t read the whole thing but the current policy allows the parent of transgender student to inform the school by what name and pronouns their own child should be addressed. Carlineo wants to remove this section.

Why?

Her reasoning is that a court has ruled that this violates the first amendment rights of a teacher to avoid using the new name and pronouns. This is another case of someone using religion to justify discrimination. Even if she’s right about this court case it was in a different federal court district than Virginia so it wouldn’t apply here. And it would never apply here unless it was appealed the the Supreme Court and was upheld there. She is using this case as an excuse to eliminate a policy she doesn’t like. She doesn’t agree with the choice that the parent and child made and she wants to make sure the school is as uncomfortable a place as possible. That’s my take on her position. We’ll get into that in more detail in a bit.

Returning to the stated justification for this policy change: Even if she is correct then the obvious right answer is to amend the policy to say that a teacher can opt out. Of course the teacher should have to put this in writing just as the parent did. But, instead, Carlineo wants to just remove the policy in its entirety rather than amending it to handle a specific situation.

What will this do? Create ambiguity. Now a school has no guidance on how to handle these students. Anything could happen. What is most likely to happen is a lack of accommodation. That seems to be her intent.

What can we take away from the actual policy change and the other proposed change?

It sends a very clear message to the students. As I said in my statement to the school board in December, the message it sends to transgender students is:

We don’t believe you. We don’t respect you. We don’t care about you.

There isn’t any other way to interpret these changes. They were not needed and they serve no educational purpose. Indeed they forbid education and they do everything they can to make transgender students effectively invisible to the school system.

The potential harm to a transgender student in this environment is huge. When society makes life feel like an impossible burden then a student might take his or her own life. That’s not being sensational. These children are at risk from these policies. The flip side of that coin is that helping a student figure out what is the right path for their own life can have just as huge an impact on the positive side.

The good news is that this can be fixed as easily as it was broken. The school board can undo it as easily as they did it. There is a link to the web page for the members of the school board in the show notes. If you live in Shenandoah County, write to them. Call them. Let them know why these are bad policies. Be polite but firm. Explain that they have a basic misunderstanding of biology and psychology. Let them know the harm they are doing. Let them know these policies directly contradict other existing policies.

There is a lot I could say about Carlineo’s motives and her goals. I’ll let her own words speak for her. She published a commentary in the Northern Virginia Daily newspaper. A link is in the show notes. In it she displays a lack of understanding of the subject. She invoked Donald Trump’s agenda. She also displays an animus towards transgender people by referring to a “demonic ideology” and a “vile ideology”. There is no attempt to understand the lives of transgender people. Instead, she comes in with pre-conceived notions and attempts to force them on the entire county. 

Susie Wilburn, president of the Woodstock PFLAG chapter wrote to her in an attempt to correct her misconceptions. Carlineo responded with a bunch of falsehoods. She again invoked Trump and said it is the official policy of the United States government that there are only two genders and they are fixed at birth. We’re going to do an episode on that soon but the execute order she is referring to…well let’s just say it would fail a basic biology test. It has more holes in it’s foundation than a house made of Swiss cheese.

She did talk about one person she knew whom she claims committed suicide at 18. This is tragic. I’ve no reason to think she’s lying about this but there is also no reason to think that her conclusions about the causes are correct. The sad fact is transgender people commit suicide at a higher rate than other groups. It’s far more likely that someone commits suicide because of a lack of acceptance from the people around them and society at large than it is to believe Carlineo’s claim that the cause was the person was convinced he or she was transgender by family. Let’s be clear, I don’t know these people and I don’t know the person in question. It’s tragic that this young person died from suicide. But, it’s policies like Carlineo is promoting that will cause more deaths. This is what we want to prevent. 

She ends her letter with the claim that “However, rest assured that as much as I think these vile procedures should be absolutely banned and the practitioners’ medical licenses revoked, the amendment to our policy that I have proposed only guarantees a teacher’s First Amendment Constitutional Right not to be forced to use an adopted self-identification by a student. Nothing more. Who can be against Constitutional protections after all?”

We’ve already seen how there is a much simpler way to achieve this goal (if it even needs to be achieved) than completely removing the policy. We’ve shown that she doesn’t want any accommodation for transgender people in society. I think we can draw some pretty clear conclusions about her motivations and intent. And to flippantly end with saying she’s trying to protect constitutional rights. The very way she writes this indicates she realizes it’s not her real goal.

For the policy prohibiting talking about transgender issues, Carlineo invokes Donald Trump and Republican propaganda. The policy where talking about transgender people is prohibited also says that policy can’t be taught based on the views of one political party. I’m not lawyer but I think there is a pretty clear case of a political agenda here based on her public writings. Does the school board want a legal battle over an issue like this? Do they really want to waste taxpayer money on a lawsuit when it could be better spent on the teachers and facilities?

I want to be clear about my motivation here. I do not view the school board as my enemy. But they are misinformed and basing decisions that affect the welfare of students on bad information. If we assume they all truly care about the welfare of the students and they just want to protect them then they should be listening to groups that have real information on the subject. I know PFLAG has reached out to them on more than one occasion to have a seat on the Mental Health Task Force. Unfortunately, Carlineo runs this group and won’t invite a representative.

However, I want to give her a chance to come here and talk about this in her own words. I want her to say what her motivation is and why she thinks these policy changes will protect children. We’ll see how she responds. Based on her writing, I think she will decline given I’ve been vocal in opposing her policies but I think debate is good and I welcome the chance to talk with her. We both get the opportunity to learn something.

I make the same offer to anyone on the school board. Feel free to contact me. Feel free to contact the PFLAG Woodstock group. They can help you craft a policy that both follows the law and protects children.

I urge you all to follow the links in the show notes. Read the new policy. Read the policy that hasn’t been changed yet and how they want to change it. Read her words. Read her words again. They are painful to read but we need to see what people are doing to hurt transgender people. 

For now, keep looking out for the people around you. If you have a story you would like to share related to LGBT life experience whether its positive or negative, reach out to me at SpectrumPodcastHost@gmail.com.

There will be more to say on this topic. Take action and stay tuned.

Show Notes:

This episode discusses changes to Shenandoah County School policy towards transgender issues and students.

The following are links to documents referred to in the episode:

Policy INB now makes the very concept of “gender identity” a forbidden topic: https://go.boarddocs.com/vsba/shenandoah/Board.nsf/goto?open&id=DCXNPP60AC27

Shenandoah County School Nondiscrimination policy: https://go.boarddocs.com/vsba/shenandoah/Board.nsf/goto?open&id=C38QG3689399

Current Policy JFHAB/GBAB Privacy, dignity policy: https://go.boarddocs.com/vsba/shenandoah/Board.nsf/goto?open&id=D4DPL7651991

Proposed change agenda item to policy JFHAB/GBAB: https://go.boarddocs.com/vsba/shenandoah/Board.nsf/goto?open&id=DBPVSD8220F4

Carlineo’s NVDaily commentary: https://www.nvdaily.com/nvdaily/commentary-no-gender-identity-education-in-shenandoah-county/article_5960d455-fa46-5af0-8ff3-5e8b4f7c61c7.html