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The battle between teachers and Loudoun County Schools began when teacher Tanner Cross stated that he would not comply with the school’s policy that forces teachers to use transgender students’ preferred pronouns, but now more teachers have joined his suit against the school to block the school’s coercive-speech policies.
Quick Facts
Loudoun County has adopted policies that instruct teachers to affirm a child’s preferred identity and to use a student’s preferred pronoun. Cross refused to comply, saying that he would not lie to his students by telling them that they can change their gender.
“It is not my intention to hurt anyone, but there are certain truths that we must face when ready,” Cross said. “I love all of my students, but I will never lie to them regardless of the consequences. I’m a teacher, but I serve God first, and I will not affirm that a biological boy can be a girl and vice versa because it’s against my religion, it’s lying to a child, it’s abuse to a child, and it’s sinning against our God.”
The school responded by suspending Cross. After he sued, a district court judge ordered the school to reinstate him, but the board appealed the decision. As Loudoun County pushes ahead with its now expanded transgender policies, two more teachers, Loudoun County High School history teacher Monica Gill and Smart’s Mill Middle School English teacher Kim Wright, have joined Cross in the lawsuit.
The suit, filed by their attorney Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), seeks to block the policies which requires teachers to comply regardless of their beliefs or whether the student has any substantiating documentation to show the student is undergoing transitional activities.
Tyson Langhofer, senior counsel for ADF, explained, “Public employees cannot be forced to contradict their core beliefs just to keep a job. Freedom—of speech and religious exercise—includes the freedom not to speak messages against our core beliefs.”
In a separate ADF case, Dr. Stephen B. Levine, a Distinguished Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association, wrote an expert declaration in which he stated,
“Putting a child or adolescent on a pathway towards life as a transgender person puts that individual at risk of a wide range of long-term or even life-long harms, including: sterilization (whether chemical or surgical) and associated regret and sense of loss … physical health risks associated with exposure to elevated levels of cross-sex hormones; surgical complications and life-long after-care; alienation of family relationships; inability to form healthy romantic relationships and attract a desirable mate; elevated mental health risks.”
The teachers all tried to make their concerns known to the school board, but they say they were ignored.
These teachers are not bigots nor do they wish to harm students. These are concerned teachers who will not violate their religious beliefs while perpetuating a harmful deception on vulnerable students. Using a child’s preferred pronoun isn’t kind — it’s enabling that child’s destructive delusion to grow. Children need guidance, not carte blanche permission to do whatever comes to mind.
Schools used to educate students on truth and guide them out of error, but now schools like Loudoun County are allowing students to blissfully waltz into a life of fantasy, pain, and decisions that could be tragically irreversible. Hopefully, the courts will provide some sound judgement on this matter instead of a kneejerk reaction.
