Virginia school district lets male leer in girls' locker room, use whichever he wants: complaint

A rich suburban D.C. school district's game of chicken with the Trump administration ended with a fender bender last week, but a worse collision is on the horizon.

The U.S. Department of Education cut off Fairfax County Public Schools from the Magnet School Assistance Program over its refusal to block males from girls' restrooms, fulfilling Secretary Linda McMahon's threat a week earlier to cut it off along with resistance school districts in New York City and Chicago.

FCPS's funding is even more precarious following new allegations it repeatedly affirmed the right of a male student with "facial hair," wearing pants so tight "they clearly outlined his genitalia," to leer at girls in their locker room as they changed into gym clothes, telling girls who object to either change faster or use a single-occupancy restroom.

Gov. Glenn Youngkin also launched a probe last month following allegations FCPS officials facilitated abortions for students without parental consent and used public money for it.

The latest skirmish could strengthen GOP gubernatorial nominee Winsome Earle-Sears' position against frontrunning Democratic nominee Abigail Spanberger, having already narrowed the gap by several percentage points on the strength of parental revolts against northern Virginia school districts' gender identity policies.

"A freshman girl was told to find another place to change because she was uncomfortable that a boy was in her locker room watching her," Earle-Sears wrote on X. "Abigail Spanberger voted for that."

Wealthy northern Virginia counties are developing a national reputation for repeatedly letting a male registered sex offender who identifies as women near children in their facilities. 

This summer, WJLA obtained video showing lifetime offender Richard Kenneth Cox walking out of an FCPS water park for kids with disabilities and toward a playground. He was never charged despite his designation not letting him within 100 feet of a "child day program."

Cox appeared in Arlington County court this week on charges of exposing himself in high school girls' locker rooms, repeatedly and unsuccessfully asking the judge to stop the prosecutor from identifying him as a man, reporter Nick Minnock said.

A mother testified that Cox was "masturbating in a shower stall with the curtain open" when she and her young daughter walked into the pool women's locker room, which is open to the public outside school hours, Minnock said.

Spanberger gave a meandering response last week when a WSET reporter asked point blank if she supports males in female sports and restrooms.

She would support legislation to let localities decide case-by-case which "children" get to play what sports at what age, based on "competitiveness, fairness and safety," but appeared to ignore the restroom question entirely. Spanberger avoided gender references except to call herself "the mom of three daughters" in public schools.

Already known for alleged anti-Asian discrimination

The Department of Education put five northern Virginia districts on "high-risk status" last month following their refusal to eliminate gender identity policies for restrooms, meaning they must apply for reimbursement instead of getting federal funding up front. 

FCPS temporarily lost access to $13 million pending a federal review this summer, but Superintendent Michelle Reid expressed concern it could lose up to $167 million from the feds after a federal judge dismissed its lawsuit to stop future funding freezes.

Its nationally renowned Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, already under federal investigation for alleged discrimination against Asian-American applicants, will not get its scheduled $3.4 million Oct. 1 due to McMahon's action, a rounding error in FCPS's $4 billion annual budget but nearly 2% of federal funds in last year's annual budget.

The only letter from McMahon to the Fairfax County, New York City and Chicago districts the department has apparently made public is Chicago, though the Associated Press reported Wednesday it had seen all three and that FCPS received the fewest demands.

The feds also rejected a "small" FCPS reimbursement request separate from the magnet-school funding, WTOP reported, citing "a person familiar with the situation." A department spokesperson told the D.C. outlet that its Office for Civil Rights "cannot certify" FCPS is compliant with civil rights law, so "they will not be getting another MSAP grant."

TJ's, as it's known locally, and two other FCPS schools suffered a black eye years earlier by withholding notification of National Merit Awards from students until after early-application college deadlines, disproportionately affecting Asian-American students and sparking parental accusations of dragging down talented students to achieve equity.

Staff used male pronouns for him, then said he identifies as female

The Defense of Freedom Institute filed the Title IX complaint Wednesday against FCPS on behalf of an unidentified mother and daughter who attends West Springfield High School. (The complaint redacts which parent, but the press release says it's her mother.)

The 14-year-old freshman was walking out of the girls' locker room Sept. 2 when she saw the aforementioned male with facial hair and skintight pants "standing inside" and watching the girls "in various stages of undress" as they got ready for their physical education class. A teacher told her they couldn't stop the male from entering and leering at the girls, according to the complaint.

Her mother called the administration office, which broke its promise to call her back that day, and did not respond to her two calls the next day. By Sept. 4 other parents had called about the leering male, finally prompting a response.

An administrator that morning told the girl's mother they were "looking into the right of the boy to enter" the girls' locker room and that her daughter should "use a different facility, such as a unisex bathroom," the complaint also says. That afternoon, an administrator promised a "solution" but it didn't involve excluding the male from the girls' space.

On Sept. 10, the male watched the girls change into gym clothes again, prompting a girl to take his photo and administrators to reach out again for a meeting with the girl's mother. 

That didn't stop the male from coming in again Sept. 11. Assistant principals Shannon Matheny and Amy Tasaka and others met the same day with the girl's mother, who brought the photo of the male in the girls' locker room, whose authenticity the "school resource officer" confirmed.

Matheny and Tasaka confirmed they were looking into the male's rights and that he had been told to stop entering while they investigate, yet claimed they were powerless to stop him when the girl's mother emphasized he was in the locker room that morning. The assistant principals used male pronouns to describe him.

They reiterated that girls could change in a unisex restroom and told the girl's mother filing a Title IX complaint with FCPS would not stop the male's access. 

District policy lets him use both boys' and girls' locker rooms

On Sept. 22 ,school staff "cut short" the freshmen girls' changing time so they could be out before the male came in with the sophomore girls. Administrators called the girl's mother to confirm "the boy has a right to use the girls’ locker room because he identifies as female," despite having used male pronouns for him.

The Fairfax County Times reported that Superintendent Reid has closed the case on the basis of the male's identification as a girl. "Upon information and belief," the complaint says the male "has also used the boys’ locker room and bathrooms" despite identifying as a girl.

This reflects district policy, which gives "[g]ender-expansive and transgender students … the option of using the facilities that correspond to the student’s sex assigned at birth" in addition to facilities corresponding with their gender identity, "demonstrating the meaninglessness of any 'gender' distinctions" in district policies on "intimate facilities," DFI said.

Even without President Trump's executive orders this year, the district can't rely on Supreme Court precedent to uphold its policies, according to the complaint. It noted the unanimous court agreed a year ago to block the gender-identity provision of the Biden administration's Title IX regulation even as the justices split on striking down the full regulation.

"Ignoring the consistent rejection" of that gender identity provision, Reid claimed Sept. 16 the Department of Education is forcing it to "either break that law" — undefined — "and discriminate against our students or face the loss of up to $167 million in federal funding." 

Her Sept. 25 statement specifies she means 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals precedent, which SCOTUS tacitly rejected in agreeing to block the gender identity provision. 

"FCPS always seems to make the wrong choice in these matters," violating Title IX and choosing sanctions rather than a resolution agreement with the feds, DFI President Bob Eitel said. It must "end its massive resistance against federal civil rights enforcement."

FCPS spokesperson Kathleen Miller told Just the News on Friday it hasn't "received a complaint on this issue from the Department of Education" – two days after DFI's complaint – but "school staff are aware of the situation and have been addressing the concerns by working with the students and their respective families."

She declined to comment further "to honor our student confidentiality obligations under state and federal law" and did not answer when asked why it's citing 4th Circuit precedent when SCOTUS pulled the rug out from its position a year ago.