Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) is set to approve a new rule that would punish ‘malicious misgendering’ at the same level as assault and battery.
According to Fox News, The Fairfax County Public Schools Students Rights and Responsibilities (SRR) handbook, which will be voted on May 26, includes in its updated version rules that make “malicious deadnaming” and “malicious misgendering” of classmates a Level 4 offense, which allows for a suspension up to 5 days “if frequency and intensity are present,” according to page 19 of the document.
“Using slurs based upon the actual or perceived gender identity” is forbidden under the rules of the document, “which includes, but is not limited to, malicious deadnaming or malicious misgendering.”
The document defines “deadnaming” as “when someone, intentionally or not, refers to a person who is transgender or gender-expansive by a name other than their own chosen name.”
This is not the first time that FCPS has pushed the envelope when it comes to gender issues in its schools. According to the Federalist, as far back as 2015, they have been adding more and more gender-based resources to the curriculum. In 2015 Fairfax school board proposed moving instruction on gender fluidity and identity down to middle school from high school, as well as sweeping expansions of the sex-ed curriculum on gender and sexuality. In 2018, it voted against overwhelming community input to change the terminology of biological sex to “sex assigned at birth.”
As recently 2019, the Human Rights Campaign and the Victory Fund poured millions of dollars into local races, which resulted in further erosion of parental rights in Fairfax County. The new Transgender Policy (R2603.2) established a comprehensive, multi-disciplinary support and gender transition team for Fairfax County students, which can be formed and operate in secret, without the parents ever being made aware.
“Taken as a whole, these actions and others by the Fairfax school board over the last several years constitute an ideological and dangerous overhaul of policy, curriculum, and standards that have little to no basis in law, but threaten very real harm to children. Two pending lawsuits in Virginia defending the rights of teachers are addressing these very questions of pronoun use.”
“But in the meantime, these actions by the Fairfax School Board have set the stage for children to be encouraged to transition in secret, and for children who might persist in using biologically accurate pronouns to be dealt criminal-level penalties.”
The full document can be read here on Fox news, and will be voted for on May 26.