Friday was the first day of early voting in Virginia. A top issue in the statewide races is education and the battle playing out between the Trump administration and five Northern Virginia school districts over the school systems’ transgender bathroom and locker room policies.
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Republican Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears has made it clear she’s opposed to biologically male students using female private spaces at school and competing in women’s sports.
But Democratic candidate Abigail Spanberger has not made it clear where she stands on these two controversial issues.
7News has been trying for months to get her to clearly answer where she stands on the bathroom and locker room issue, which has divided school communities across Northern Virginia. 7News’ reporter Nick Minock asked Spanberger on Friday during her media availability at an event in Fairfax County.
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Nick Minock: “As you know, there’s a battle playing out between the Trump administration’s U.S. Department of Education and five Northern Virginia school systems. The Trump administration is taking aim at their locker room and bathroom policies. They [the Trump administration] say those school systems are violating Title IX by having policies that allow students to use bathrooms and locker rooms based on their gender identity, not biological sex. So can you tell us directly, do you support biological males, who say they’re women, using women’s locker rooms and bathrooms and competing in women’s sports?”
Democratic candidate Abigail Spanberger: “The circumstance as this legal case plays out is really one of we’ve had court cases settled or judged here in Virginia in the Fourth District, the former Gavin Grimm case related to bathroom usage. And in fact, the argument is the assessment is there needs to be much clearer guidance in terms of what is an executive order’s binding assessment of Title IX versus what has been a decision of a court. But ultimately, the real impact here is, once again, it is the Trump administration taking dollars away from Virginia. Threatening education dollars to our public schools is an attack on Virginia’s kids. It’s an attack on our economy. It’s an attack on Virginians. And as governor, the important thing is, as a candidate for governor, the important thing, the important priority for me is to ensure that we have the best public schools in the entire country. And the reality is, when we have a president who is coming after Virginia, our education system, whether it’s K-12 or whether it is our public universities that is harmful to Virginia, our ability to educate our kids and ultimately our economy.”
Nick Minock: “But do you personally support these policies?”
Spanberger’s staff stopped 7News from asking a follow-up question and moved on.
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7News tried asking the locker room and bathroom question again later on, but Spanberger walked away. And when 7News Reporter Nick Minock caught up with Spanberger and asked the question again, Spanberger refused to answer and went into her car.