Virginia School District Ends Forced Pronoun Policy After Parent Pushback

The Chesapeake School Board in Virginia has taken a decisive stand against compelled speech, voting 7-2 on December 15 to prohibit employees from forcing teachers and students to use preferred pronouns that contradict biological reality.

Let’s be clear about what happened here: a school district finally recognized that compelling speech violates the First Amendment. The updated professional conduct policy explicitly states that employees must refrain from forcing other staff or students to address anyone in a manner that violates their constitutionally protected rights. This is not complicated. The Constitution does not contain a pronoun exception.

The policy goes further, instructing employees to avoid providing students with preferred pronouns or titles that do not correspond to their biological sex. This represents a fundamental shift away from the so-called “affirmative care” model that has dominated public education’s approach to gender dysphoria, a model that prioritizes ideological conformity over parental rights and biological facts.

The decision came after nearly an hour of public comment, during which several pro-LGBTQ activists voiced predictable opposition. But Angela Swygert, chair of the Chesapeake Public Schools Board of Education, stood firm. She correctly identified the use of alternative pronouns and titles as a “controversial and complex issue” that belongs with families, not in classrooms.

“A person who does not fundamentally agree with the use of alternative pronouns and titles cannot be compelled to use them,” Swygert stated at the meeting. This is the correct position, both legally and morally.

The backstory here matters. Tammy Fournier and her husband faced this exact scenario when their local school district embraced the affirmative care model. Rather than submit to an educational system that would undermine their parental authority and potentially harm their daughter, they removed her from the district entirely. Their daughter later desisted from her gender dysphoria, a outcome that occurs in the majority of cases when children are not socially transitioned and are instead allowed to mature naturally.

This case illustrates the core problem with gender ideology in schools: it treats a psychological condition as an identity to be affirmed rather than a disorder requiring careful, individualized treatment. The affirmative care model assumes that adults know better than parents, that ideology trumps biology, and that compelled speech is acceptable if it serves progressive ends.

The Chesapeake School Board’s decision represents a return to sanity. Mutual respect, as Swygert noted, cannot exist when one party is forced to deny observable reality or violate their conscience. True respect means acknowledging that reasonable people can disagree on controversial issues without one side wielding institutional power to compel conformity.

The implications extend beyond pronouns. This decision establishes that schools cannot force employees to participate in ideological frameworks that contradict their beliefs or the Constitution. It recognizes parental authority over complex medical and psychological issues affecting their children. And it acknowledges that biological sex is not a matter of personal preference but an objective reality.

Other school districts should follow Chesapeake’s example. The Constitution protects free speech, including the right not to speak. Parents, not school administrators, have primary authority over their children’s upbringing. And facts do not care about feelings, regardless of how many activists show up to public comment periods demanding otherwise.

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