Welcome to Breakpoint, a daily look at an ever-changing culture through the lens of unchanging

truth.

For the Colson Center, I'm John Stone Street.

Of the many debates that are raging across the United States right now, none is more important

nor consequential than the question over to whom children belong, parents or the state.

For example, should schools and educators intervene between children and their parents even

hide from parents what they're teaching and counseling when it comes to sexuality and

gender, states across the country have adopted different and contradictory policies on these

questions, some reversing them back and forth as elections bring different world views

and power.

For example, last year, former Virginia governor Ralph Northam instituted a policy designed

to, quote, accommodate transgender students by allowing them to use their preferred bathrooms,

locker rooms, and to adopt their preferred pronouns, not to mention to play on their preferred

sports teams and to receive care and counseling to affirm their identity, all without parental

consent.

This year, Virginia's new governor, Glenn Youngkins Department of Education, reversed

those interventions with a new model policy that restores parental rights, too, and I

quote, make decisions with respect to their children's upbringing.

And quote, specifically, the new policy mandates that students must use school restrooms

and participate on school sports teams that match their biological sex, and that parental

approval is required to change a student's name or pronouns or to receive gender related

treatments.

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