Virginia House of Delegates Passes Discriminatory Anti-LGBTQ+ Bills

HB 1387 and HB 2432 would disproportionately target trans and nonbinary students

Wednesday, Feb. 8th, 2023
Contact: Narissa Rahaman
e. [email protected]
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE            

RICHMOND, VA – Today, Equality Virginia, the Commonwealth’s leading advocacy organization for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ+) equality, condemned the Virginia House of Delegates for passing two anti-LGBTQ+ bills that callously target LGBTQ+ youth and students. The two bills, which now head to the Virginia Senate, are HB 1387 (Greenhalgh), which would prohibit transgender youth in K-12 schools from participating in sports, and impact higher education athletics and club sports, and HB 2432 (LaRock), which would require school staff to “out” transgender and nonbinary students to their parents, regardless of individual consent or consideration of circumstances such as an unsafe home environment.

In stark contrast, last week the Virginia Senate rejected six bills targeting transgender and nonbinary young people in Virginia.

“The leadership in the House of Delegates has shown, very clearly, that they care much more about political posturing and craven primary campaign pandering than they do about the health, safety and wellbeing of transgender and nonbinary youth in Virginia,” said Narissa Rahaman, executive director of Equality Virginia. “The contrast between the two chambers is stark this year, with the pro-equality Senate dismissing the baseless and unnecessary attempts to restrict LGBTQ+ Virginians’ rights while the House is focusing on bad faith arguments to jump-start their anti-equality re-election campaigns. LGBTQ+ Virginians are real people, and it’s disturbing to see our community continuously used as political pawns – especially when the targets are youth. As Virginians head to the polls this fall, rest assured: we won’t forget who stood with us and who threw us under the bus.”