Virginia teens plead with voters to end boys-in-girls bathrooms agenda

Teens in Loudoun County, Virginia are greeting residents as they show up to the polls for early voting and asking them to consider school board candidates that oppose allowing boys to access girls locker rooms and bathrooms.

On the ballot is Matt Malone, an independent who vows to protect women’s-only spaces, challenging incumbent April Chandler in the Algonkian District. In the Sterling District, independent Amy Riccardi is challenging incumbent Arben Istrefi for the same reason.

Chandler and Istrefi have both stood by the Loudoun County School Board (LCSB) as it remains dead set on upholding its policy allowing facility use based on “gender identity.”

“I’ve been sick of it for quite a while. I just can’t put up with it anymore,” one teen told ABC 7News. “It’s not normal. It’s not something we should be supporting.”

“Participating in lacrosse in high school, it’s very challenging when I know that there is boys in the girls’ locker rooms or even the bathrooms, which concerns me a lot, especially because there are girls that are changing, and knowing that there’s a boy in there, concerns me that there are people not willing to do anything about this policy,” a Loudoun County student told 7News.

The student said the problem is even apparent in elementary school her younger brothers attend in the district.

“I have two younger brothers, and there’s a situation that happened where a girl went in the boy’s bathroom when he was going in the bathroom and she was watching, and he felt very uncomfortable,” the student told 7News.

When asked by 7News in 2024 whether he supported boys using girls’ bathrooms, Istrefi stated “I think gender identity and gender expression is and should be protected.”

Two other school board seats in Loudoun are contested this election, and the issue of transgender bathroom use may be the deciding factor.

Sam Yan in the Broad Run District and Santos Munoz in the Dulles District are both running in opposition to gender identity bathroom policies. Yan’s opponent, Ross Svenson, previously took part in a lawsuit alongside the American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia challenging a Virginia Department of Education (VDOE) policy that suggested students use facilities based on their biological sex, claiming the policy would “harm transgender and gender non-conforming students.”

Loudoun County has become infamous for its transgender policy. In 2021, the district drew public outrage after it was exposed for allegedly attempting to cover up a sexual assault perpetrated by a male student that claimed a transgender identity that occurred in the girls’ bathroom of the same school. Recently, two boys were suspended for questioning why a female student was recording them in the boys’ locker room.

Loudoun County is the richest county in the nation, meaning it will take more than threats of losing federal funding from the Trump administration to sway the district’s position.

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