Transgender Issues — Whose “Centerpiece,” Youngkin’s or the Post’s?

by James A. Bacon

The latest Washington Post spin on its recent public-opinion poll about transgender issues in Virginia schools is a window into the unconscious biases of WaPo reporters and editors.

Here’s the lead (my emphasis):

Education is an important factor for many Virginia voters this fall, but transgender issues, one of Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s most controversial education cornerstones, is a low priority for voters, according to a Washington Post-Schar School poll.”

A 70 percent majority of registered voters say that education is a “very important” factor in their vote for the Virginia legislature this year, whereas about half as many (34 percent) say transgender issues are very important to their vote.

The message: Youngkin has made transgender policies a “cornerstone” of his education policy, but Virginians aren’t going along.

“More voters disapprove of Youngkin’s handling of transgender issues than approve, 43 percent to 37 percent,” writes the Post. “And asked which party they trust more to handle transgender issues, 50 percent choose Democrats while 33 percent choose Republicans.”

So, where’s the bias?

Transgender issues emerged from the cultural ether in Virginia only a few years ago, and “progressive” school boards began adopting policies and practices that had never been seen before. Former Governor Ralph Northam codified the first set of state guidelines. Youngkin rolled out new rules, most notable for protecting the rights of parents, and numerous school boards promptly rejected them.

The Post could have framed the story this way: Education is an important factor for many Virginia voters this fall, but transgender rights, a cornerstone issue of the Democratic Party and progressive school boards, is a low priority for voters.

That would have been just as accurate.

By the way, according to the Post’s own poll, 39% of Virginia voters say that public schools are “doing too much to accommodate trans students,” while 25% say schools are handling things about right and 21% say they are not doing enough. That sounds to me as if a plurality believes schools are too accommodating. I’m not sure how that squares with the assertion that the public doesn’t support Youngkin’s transgender guidelines.

As for the guidelines constituting the “centerpiece” of Youngkin’s educational policy, I would take issue with that characterization. The dominant focus of the Youngkin administration by far is reversing the collapse in educational achievement among Virginia’s public-school kids.

Team Youngkin has consistently drawn attention to declining performance in standardized tests and the need to raise standards after years of lowering them. The administration has focused on reversing the slide in reading, addressing the teacher shortage, and countering the surge in absenteeism.

So, yes, the public is absolutely right that Virginia has bigger public-school fish to fry. I expect that Youngkin would fully agree. Why doesn’t the Post explore the issues that the public does think are important? Like learning loss. Perhaps because delving into the causes of learning loss would expose the monumental failure of progressive K-12 policies, which have turned schools into incubators for social change. Sticking to peripheral issues like transgender rights creates less cognitive dissonance for WaPo reporters.

The Post’ s appetite for the transgender issue seems boundless. The newspaper delves deep into the nuances of public attitudes. Should trans students compete in girls’ sports? Whose bathrooms should they use? Who decides which pronouns to use? The latest poll went so far as to use a “randomized question wording experiment” to see if support for policies varied when framed differently.

Has the Post ever polled parents about the breakdown of discipline in schools? About grade inflation and the erosion of standards? About cell phones in the classroom? About the rise in absenteeism? About the role of classroom disorder in demoralizing teachers? About the emergence of a generation increasingly unprepared to thrive in the knowledge economy?

Not that I recall. If anyone is making transgender issues the “centerpiece” of anything, it’s the Post with its selection of educational topics. Team Youngkin has plenty of other ongoing initiatives. It would be interesting to know if Virginians support those. Don’t count on the Post to find out.