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WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, America First Legal (AFL) sent a letter to the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights and the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division, urging the agencies to expand ongoing investigations and take immediate enforcement action against five Northern Virginia school districts over radical transgender bathroom policies that permit boys to be in girls’ restrooms: Alexandria City, Arlington County, Fairfax County, Loudoun County, and Prince William County.
AFL’s letter alleges these school districts have continued to enforce unlawful “transgender” bathroom and locker room policies in blatant and willful violation of the U.S. Constitution and Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972. AFL also alleges that these policies likely violate parental rights, in light of the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision in Mahmoud v. Taylor.
Specifically, these school districts allow children to claim to be the opposite sex, and use the restrooms and locker rooms of the opposite sex, all while denying parents the right to even know about it and to deny or provide consent to the school district. Given the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Mahmoud v. Taylor, where it held that Montgomery County Public Schools had violated parents’ rights by reading LGBT books to students without informing the parents and providing them the right to opt-out, the policies of these Northern Virginia school districts are unlikely to pass constitutional muster.
The letter also addresses the common refrain as to why these Northern Virginia school districts have these bathroom and locker room policies in the first place — purportedly, to comply with the Fourth Circuit’s ruling in Grimm v. Gloucester County.<> As articulated in AFL’s letter, however, the Grimm decision was limited in scope. It did not address locker rooms and it made clear that it only applied to “transgender students who ‘consistently, persistently, and insistently’ express a binary gender.” The Grimm court explicitly stated that its decision did not apply to “other gender-expansive youth who may identify as nonbinary, youth born intersex who do or do not identify with their sex-assigned-at-birth, and others whose identities belie gender norms.” Finally, that decision explicitly relied on the facts that the student’s mother was fully involved and that the student had a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria.
Noting that the Grimm decision may not survive the Supreme Court’s upcoming decision in West Virginia v. B.P.J, the letter makes clear that even if Grimm is considered the law, these five Northern Virginia school districts are not following it. They have no process in place to determine whether the student is “transgender student who ‘consistently, persistently, and insistently’ express a binary gender.” In fact, these school districts’ open bathroom and locker room policies extend to “gender expansive” students that do not express sex on a binary; this goes far beyond Grimm’s application. Further, these school districts do not require parental involvement and they do not require any kind of medical diagnosis or any other involvement from the student’s physician. In short, any claim that these policies are mandated by Grimm is false.
“It’s a slap in the face to parents and the administration that these Northern Virginia school districts would continue to so blatantly defy the United States Constitution and the Supreme Court of the United States,” said Ian Prior, Senior Counselor at America First Legal. “And parents should know that when these school districts cite Grimm v. Gloucester County School Board as the reason for these policies, they are gaslighting them. An even cursory reading of that decision, however wrongly decided it may be, makes clear that these five school districts have used a very narrow ruling as a pretext to establish a paradoxical scheme in which sex discrimination, religious discrimination, and violation of parental rights must all be sacrificed to satisfy the reality-defying perspective of a special interest group that is attempting to hijack public education and common sense.”
AFL initially filed an administrative complaint with the Department of Education on February 3, 2025, alleging that the “gender identity” policies of these five school districts violate Title IX and President Trump’s Executive Order 14190, “Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schools.” On February 14, the Department of Education notified AFL that it had opened an enforcement investigation in response to the complaint.
AFL is now calling on the Departments of Education and Justice to act swiftly to enforce federal law and protect the constitutional rights of parents and students.
Read the full letter here.
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