School Board Makes It a Crime to “Misgender”

Last Thursday, the school board at Fairfax County School Public Schools (FCPS) voted 8–4 to increase penalties for students who misgender or “dead-name” transgender-identifying students. This will now be classified as “discriminatory harassment,” which means offenders “could face weeks-long suspensions and referrals to local law enforcement,” according to the Washington Examiner.

The most charitable interpretation anyone could make of this move is that the school board is trying to cultivate a kinder environment by removing hateful language and attitudes from campuses. This would allow transgender students and their allies to feel safer and happier while those who oppose transgenderism have an opportunity to reflect on their intolerance and make better choices.

However, like most leftist gimmicks in education, all of this is based on false premises and will only create more dysfunction in an already dysfunctional school system. Specifically, there are three major problems with this new policy, two of them concern the idea behind it while the third has to do with its implementation.

Not an Expression of Hate

The first problem is that the school board conflates the refusal to accommodate a transgender student with an expression of hate. However, the two things are completely different. In the case of accommodating transgender classmates, a student is refusing to betra …