Advocate NL 8/18/26

Hello and Happy Tuesday, folks! Audience Editor Edgar Ramirez here, back in your inbox with the latest from Christopher Wiggins on the King George County, Virginia school story we've been following.

As Christopher reports, the new school year in King George County, Virginia, was one day old when a 13-year-old student asked a federal judge to order their middle school to allow an LGBTQ+ student organization to meet immediately.

The student, identified in court records as Z.J.W., is beginning eighth grade — their final year at King George Middle School. They spent much of the previous school year trying to form a Gay-Straight Alliance, only to watch administrators halt it after public opposition and the school board rewrite its policy governing student organizations.

Now, internal communications filed in federal court show how the reversal unfolded in school officials’ own words.

This story is unfolding after a new report from Glisten and The Trevor Project showed that 56 percent of transgender, nonbinary, and gender-expansive students surveyed attended schools with at least one discriminatory policy. Nearly one-third had recently missed school because they feared for their safety.

The right’s fixation on transgender people has only made matters worse, as Nancy Pelosi put it in an exclusive interview with Christopher for our September/October cover issue: “They know that there’s no argument about LGBT. So they pick trans.”

Decades of organizing, she said, made broad attacks on gay and lesbian people less useful. Republicans identified transgender people — and bathrooms, sports, and military service — as terrain where unfamiliarity could become fear.

Pelosi has a transgender grandniece whom she loves dearly, Christopher writes. She has met homeless transgender youth rejected by their relatives, and families who embraced their children “and took pride” in them.

“That’s where we want everyone to be,” she says.

Catch the full interview here if you haven't yet, and consider becoming an Advocate member by Friday, Aug. 21, to get behind-the-scenes coverage of our Pelosi interview, with exclusive quotes and photos!

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Advocate NL 8/18/26

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