 Virginia's Department of Education under the guidance of their Republican Governor Glenn Yonkin is proposing sweeping new guidelines for all 133 school districts throughout the state that are going to endanger the lives of trans and non-binary students. These new guidelines include blocking students from social transition, meaning that they're not allowed to express themselves through gender. It will also stop them from using school facilities and bathrooms of their current gender and force them to use the bathrooms of the sex that they were assigned at birth. It required teachers to outqueer students to their parents and also allow teachers to purposefully misgender trans and non-binary students, even if parents give them consent to use their trans child's preferred pronouns. It's draconian, it's anti-freedom, and it's bigoted. But thankfully students across the state are fighting back hard and today they staged walkouts across the state and thousands of students made their voices heard and let it be known that this is not going to be tolerated. Let's watch. You know watching that gave me hope because it is evident that the kids are alright. They're gonna be okay and I loved hearing their stories there, explaining how articulately so at that age, you know it's not okay that their parents misgender them. This is not okay, they're being used, they know that they're being used by the governor as political bait just to score a few points among their conservative bigoted base and it's not okay and they're taking action and I love to see thousands of students in solidarity stand up for their trans and non-binary colleagues. I think that this is so important to see. Now I've got a tweet from journalist Jill Palermo who adds, Press is not allowed to cover today's walkouts against the state's anti-transgender policies at eight Prince William County high schools this morning but here's what we can see from public property. Hundreds of kids walk out at CD Hilton High School at about 9 a.m. so even when they try to hide it these kids are coming out in such large numbers that you can't not hear what they're saying here. Now what Glenn Yunkin and the Virginia Department of Education is doing it's not just immoral and unethical and bigoted it also is very likely illegal because as Brett Wilkins of Common Dreams explains legal experts say Yunkins policies likely violate federal and state laws. In an interview last week with the Washington Post, employment and civil rights attorney Joshua Ehrlich said that the governor is trying to pick a political fight by attacking trans students but his model policies are in conflict with recent court filings which have determined that discrimination against transgender individuals is illegal discrimination on the basis of sex. In Bostock v. Clayton County for example conservative US Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch in appointee of former president Donald Trump wrote for the majority that it is clear that the 1964 Civil Rights Act prohibits employer discrimination against LGBTQ plus people. In another decision the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ruled that a transgender boy could use the boy's restrooms in his school a case the Supreme Court declined to cure on appeal. So even with conservative evangelicals dominating the US court system they're still losing when it comes to this particular issue because it's so transparently bigoted and transphobic and discrimination on the basis of sex that they can't uphold these laws with a straight face and claim that they care about the Constitution. So in order to at least have this facade that they care about the Constitution and law and order judges are striking down these transphobic laws and for good reason. And another question is how do you even enforce some of these guidelines that the governor and the Department of Education in Virginia are trying to enact. Because think about this if you are requiring trans students to use the bathroom that aligns with their sex that they were assigned at birth how are you going to enforce that. Are you going to just police them every time they go to the bathroom and how do you even know what their biological sex is. You don't know who is and isn't trans. So are you going to be doing these general checks on students. I mean do you understand how this can lead to really disgusting implementations here. How do you determine who is and isn't a real girl or real boy. You can't. So these policies they're not just unethical and potentially illegal but they're also largely unenforceable. So all this is is Glenn Yonkin throwing red meat to the base ahead of an election using students using children as a political tool. And that is incredibly disgusting. Now it's not just students thankfully who are pushing back. It's the residents of Virginia in droves who are pushing back because these policies won't be implemented until after a 30 day public comment period. And within the first 24 hours you love to see it more than 20,000 comments were submitted most of them opposing the State Department of Education's new policy directives. So it seems as if in Virginia this is going to be where residents take a stand. I mean this is really disgusting for them to continuously use trans people as their target as their go to political target so they can score cheap points. Why don't these Republicans actually try doing something different perhaps rather than demonizing trans people. Maybe you appeal to them because in theory conservatism isn't inherently at least economic conservatism isn't inherently something that every single trans person is going to reject. Perhaps you have a wealthier trans person that might be receptive to you and you know the conservative ideology of trickle down economics. Like you can actually try appealing to these people rather than demonizing them but that's not what the GOP is trying to do. They don't have an economic message. They don't have a real agenda that's policy based and substantive. So they do things like this instead where they try to ban LGBTQ plus books from schools and introduce these policy directives that isolate and demonize trans and non-binary youth. But thankfully it's starting to blow up in their faces and you absolutely love to see it.