Virginia GOP gubernatorial nominee stages comeback on Democrats' gender ideology, race gaffe

In the past month, parents rose up against a school district that let a male sex offender with a history of exposing himself to girls use their locker rooms under its gender identity policy, while another district punished boys for objecting to a gender-confused female recording them in their locker room.

Neighboring districts, meanwhile, asked students for their preferred pronouns.

And to top it all off, a white supporter of gender-identity school restroom policies told a black gubernatorial nominee her opposition was tantamount to Jim Crow, repeating a common progressive talking point used in California's defense of its coed prison law. 

For the second straight race for governor of Virginia, where off-year elections can be a bellwether for national midterms, parental outrage at school districts perceived as indoctrinating their children in cultural radicalism is upending what looked like an easy path to victory for Democrats.

The quickness of frontrunner Abigail Spanberger and other top Democrats to denounce the racially charged sign directed at Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears, who gained 10 percentage points against Spanberger between May and August in Roanoke College polling, suggests palpable fear of repeating Democrat Terry McAuliffe's 2021 mistake.

Four years ago, the former governor, running for a second term under Virginia's constitutional ban on consecutive terms, stumbled badly in a debate with GOP nominee Glenn Youngkin by saying parents should not be "telling schools what they should teach" and refusing to walk it back, forfeiting his steady lead and then the election to now-Gov. Youngkin.

The Hill quoted Republicans who were skeptical of the Earle-Sears campaign's performance changing their tune in light of her improving numbers and her taking the initiative against gender ideology in schools, a subject she has broached on X at least 20 times in a week.

President Trump's 2016 and 2020 Virginia campaign chair John Fredericks marveled at the narrowing gap for a "clown car" campaign with "no message and basically no money," $4 million cash on hand compared to Spanberger's $15 million. Veteran political analyst Bob Holsworth said news coverage of the school fight is a "free advertisement" for the whole GOP ticket.

The unified resistance of northern Virginia's five heavily Democratic school districts to the Trump administration's demands to remove their gender-identity restroom and locker room policies, or lose their funding, is "unilaterally aiding" a GOP campaign that, "to put it charitably, has struggled all summer," Cardinal News founding editor Dwayne Yancey said.

The GOP nominee joined parents outside Loudoun County Public School's Stone Bridge High School Aug. 20 to denounce the 10-day suspension for the boys who were recorded by the girl, for "sex-based discrimination and sexual harassment" against her, though the boys' lawyer at Foundation Freedoms Law Center said the suspension is paused while it appeals.

"Girls are girls and boys are boys," Earle-Sears said. "I cannot believe that we are here today, having to talk about these things that everybody understands is plain common sense." 

WJLA reported Thursday the high school has had a "male staff only" restroom since at least May, but LCPS pointed Just the News to its "misinformation and disinformation" response page, which said "separate gender specific and all-gender restrooms are available for students and staff" and it's "highly unethical and irresponsible" to portray "a double standard."

Earle-Sears spoke at the Arlington County School Board meeting Aug. 21, packed with parents outraged by the gender identity policy that let Richard Kenneth Cox, a lifetime registered sex offender, allegedly expose himself to a 9-year-old girl and her mother in the girls' locker room at Washington Liberty High School, whose pool is open to the public off-hours.

Arlington Public Schools is requiring "high school boys and girls to be together nude in the same locker room," which will give them "sexual trauma," Earle-Sears told WJLA.

Democrats rallied against the GOP nominee outside the meeting, including one now-viral sign held by an elderly white woman: "Hey Winsome, if trans can't share your bathroom then blacks can't share my water fountain." 

Arlington County Democratic Committee chair Steve Baker informed her in the meeting the sign was drawing "negative" coverage on TV, and the unidentified woman — allegedly a local party volunteer and progressive activist — later told Fox 5 DC it was "satire meant to provoke conversation around the absurdity of prejudice."

"Gender-critical women constantly get accused of racism, with activists claiming that defending sex-based rights somehow excludes black women," Genspect Ireland director Sara Morrison wrote in an "Arlington's Jim Crow Moment" essay. "But we're not the ones making slavery comparisons. Trans activists are."

"This is the 'tolerant' left Abigail Spanberger defends," Earle-Sears told the Daily Mail. "She was holding up that sign for a whole hour … and nobody said to her to take it down," she told WJLA. "I would not have been in this school board meeting had the Democrats not started this nonsensical idea that biological men can be women."

Spanberger called the sign "racist and abhorrent" on X the next morning, reiterating a shorter campaign statement the night before. "And no matter the intended purpose or tone and no matter how much one might find someone else’s beliefs objectionable, to threaten a return of Jim Crow and segregation to a Black woman is unacceptable."

"The cancer in the party is not a crazy lady with a sign- it’s no one willing to confront her about it until the press picked up on it," northern Virginia-based Democratic consultant Ben Tribbett wrote. "Hundreds of Arlington Dems there and they let all of us down by staying silent."

Not all Democrats are limiting their blame to the sign-holder. The state party's vice chair for rules Marc Broklawski blamed "the climate Winsome Sears is creating," elaborating in an essay that while the sign "targeted Sears in a way that was offensive and unacceptable … that climate is fueled by the politics of grievance Sears has chosen to run on."

He pointed to an essay in The American Conservative, which faulted Earle-Sears for botching her initial response to the sign by not including an image of it and called "Signgate" a "story without legs that had already come and gone" and "unlikely to receive even passing coverage."

With students back in northern Virginia schools this week, the districts' ongoing gender identity policies in the face of Trump administration funding threats seem likely to keep giving Earle-Sears and elected Republicans plenty of fodder.

Local radio personalities Corey Inganamort and Julie Gunlock shared screenshots of surveys allegedly given to students in Arlington Public Schools and Alexandria City Public Schools.

The APS survey, allegedly from Gunston Middle School English class, asks students for their name and preferred pronouns. "This is what the  @arlingtondems groomers at the rally on Thursday are fighting for (other than separate water fountains)," Inganamort  wrote.

The ACPS survey, allegedly given by a math teacher, asks for the name "you want me to call you in class," whether to use that name "when I contact caregivers," their preferred pronouns and whether to use them with caregivers and other teachers, and if not, what pronouns to use with others — offering to hide social transitions from parents.