Welcome to episode 11 of The Spectrum.

This was recorded on

February 14, 2025. Most of this episode will deal with recent events in Shenandoah County, but before I get to that, I want to mention some news that came out on the afternoon of the 13th. According to the Washington Post and other news outlets, a federal judge blocked Trump's executive order banning gender-affirming care for people under 19. We looked at this ban in episode 5. This is another example of a judge saying Trump overstepped his authority. It's only a temporary restraining order, and this won't be the final word on the subject, but medical providers should be able to resume care if they had stopped.

Now let's turn to the events of the

Shenandoah County School

Board meeting from last night,

February 13. Back in episode 1, I reported that the board had unanimously voted on a change to policy INB: "Teaching about controversial issues". This policy basically made gender identity a taboo subject in the school system. It could not be taught, and no school personnel were allowed to talk about it. We wrote letters about this, and though we got no feedback, it's possible it had some impact. At the

February meeting, they introduced another proposed change to this policy. Teaching about it would still be taboo, but they want to add this paragraph. "School administrators, counselors, student support specialists, social workers, and psychologists may respond to student inquiries about gender and gender identity in an age-appropriate, factual, and neutral manner.

Staff members should provide information without promoting personal beliefs or advocating for any particular viewpoint.

Discussion should remain within the scope of professional responsibilities and align with the school's curriculum and policies." Overall, this is an improvement. It allows for a student to reach out for help, and it appears to be phrased in a way to allow a student to receive that help. I do wish that it included teachers in that list. At the

February meeting, I and many others spoke about this. We do think that the January changes should be removed entirely, especially since they mis-defined gender identity. But this proposed change is a meaningful improvement. Not an ideal one, but a meaningful one. The board did discuss and vote on the proposed change to policy

GBAB/JFHAB, Privacy,

Dignity, and Respect for all students and parents in Shenandoah

County Public Schools.

The change, proposed by board member

Gloria Carlineo, would have removed the sections describing how a parent could inform the school of the name and pronouns for their children.

Ten people, including me, spoke out against this change. One of the people who spoke was an unexpected ally in this. Only one person spoke in favor of the change. He spoke an overtly Christian rhetoric. Not sure why people like to cherry pick sentences from the Bible, take them out of context, and then expect other people to agree with them. Now, he's entitled to his view, but he's not entitled to force that view on other people. Gloria stated justification for this was court cases in other jurisdictions and

Donald Trump's executive orders. She claimed that removing the policy would somehow make the policy more clear, something which even her own colleagues seemed to find incredulous.

She claimed it would still let parents notify the school, but the new policy would only allow students to be referred to by the name on official records if it had been implemented.

She appeared to be lying to the board when she said this. In the end, the vote went against her three to two. Voting no were chairman Dennis Barlow, along with Larry Vance and Kyle

Gutshall. Gloria Carlineo and Mike Rickard were the yes votes. I am, and other members of the PFLAG Woodstock group who spoke out against this change are extremely grateful that this change was not implemented.

Actually, when the board entered the room at the start of the meeting,

Carlinio had a very unhappy look on her face, so it seems likely she knew she was going to lose this vote. One school board member was not present. I'm not clear on what would have happened if he had been there and voted yes, making it a three to three tie. Does the superintendent break ties, or is a tie a failure? I've no idea, and thankfully we didn't have to find out.

It isn't all clear sailing, though. The chairman seemed to only be a no vote because he didn't want the school system to be, quote, "leading the train" in an apparent reference to complying with Trump's executive orders. He seems to think that events in Washington will shake out in such a way that in the not too distant future the school board could more safely revisit this. Carlineo definitely indicated that the issue would be back. So it's clear that while we had a victory yesterday, the school board will probably be revisiting this again. This will depend on what happens with the courts and Trump's transgender bans. If he wins, it is likely that the board will move quickly.

This is an issue that is both very local and very national at the same time. We must keep our focus on both. Still, any victory is a reason to celebrate, and we had two.

Yesterday was more validation that the Project 2025 agenda can be thwarted. We have a long haul ahead of us, but let's let events like this motivate us to keep working to protect all of us, whatever letters we use to describe ourselves. If you have an experience of LGBT life you would like to share, you can contact me at spectrumpodcasthost.gmail.com.

Take care, and stay safe.