WATCH: Here’s What 3 Boys Said About a Girl in the Boys’ Locker Room. Does This Violate Title IX?

Virginia’s Loudoun County is once again at the center of a transgender scandal that may impact a key off-year governor’s race.

In 2021, a male student at Stone Bridge High School in Ashburn sexually assaulted a girl in a girls’ locker room, sparking outrage about the Loudoun County Public Schools policy opening sex-segregated private spaces to members of the opposite sex who claim a transgender identity. That scandal galvanized the parental rights movement, leading Republicans Glenn Youngkin and Winsome Earle-Sears to victory in the races for governor and lieutenant governor, respectively.

This year, Earle-Sears is running to take the place of the term-limited Youngkin, and Loudoun County Public Schools is again in the news over its transgender policy.

This time, however, a girl at Stone Bridge entered a boys’ private space—a locker room—and filmed the boys as they noted her presence in the room. Rather than bringing a case against the girl—whose filming violated school district policy—Loudon County Public Schools brought claims of sexual harassment and sex-based discrimination against three boys, claiming they violated Title IX, a law banning sexual harassment.

This took place in March, and the school district concluded last month that two of the boys had indeed violated Title IX.

‘Blatant Religious Discrimination’

While the district cleared one boy, who is Muslim, it found the other two boys, who are Christian, guilty of sexual harassment. One of those Christian boys moved out of the district, but the finding will remain on his permanent record.

“We think it’s blatant religious discrimination,” Josh Hetzler, the boys’ lawyer, told The Daily Signal in an interview last month.

Although the school system brought “identical facts” against all three boys, it eventually dropped the case against the Muslim boy. While the district “didn’t say Muslim,” Hetzler said “that was the only difference we could find.”

Loudoun County Public Schools delivered a punishment: 10 days of suspension, a no-contact order with the girl, and a corrective action plan to be worked out between the boys and the school district.

Hetzler announced that the school district has paused the suspension as the attorneys appeal the suspension.

“If [Loudoun County Public Schools] fails again to do the right thing, we will have no choice but to pursue swift legal action in the coming days,” the lawyer added.

The school district’s Title IX office is still adjudicating the appeal, as of Wednesday.

The Political Ramifications

Earle-Sears, a Republican, has condemned Loudon County Public Schools’ actions and urged Virginians who are outraged about this to consider supporting her campaign.

“We’re talking about three boys, three young boys, who have been punished because they were … saying they were not comfortable having to undress in front of girls,” Earle-Sears said at a press conference at Stone Bridge last month. “This school system has decided they are going to use the parents’ own tax money against them and punish these boys.”

“What are we supposed to do now?” she asked. “Well, I’ll tell you what we can do. There are things called elections.”

The Republican noted that she and Youngkin won their elections in 2021 amid a parental rights movement that grew in part in response to the Loudoun County transgender scandal that year.

“We were elected to stop the insanity, but apparently the school system has not heard that message,” she said. “Well, this year, we’ve got another election, and so, I’m asking you to continue to support me for governor of our great Commonwealth of Virginia.”

Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights found Loudoun County’s transgender policy in violation of Title IX earlier this year and revoked most federal funding from the county late last month. Two other Virginia counties filed a lawsuit last week, challenging the finding.

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