Equality Arlington Expresses Concern about School Board Candidate James “Vell” Rives

Equality Arlington is concerned by recent statements from Arlington School Board candidate, James “Vell” Rives, regarding his anti-LGBTQ+ policy positions. In Rives’s responses to a questionnaire from parents of transgender, nonbinary, and gender expansive students in Arlington Public Schools (APS), Rives repeatedly states that APS should follow the Youngkin Administration’s 2023 Model Policies. The model policies, widely condemned by LGBTQ+ advocates as harmful to students and contrary to the Virginia statute which authorized their creation, would:

·       Force school employees to “out” students to their families, potentially creating unsafe environments for LGBTQ+ students and making it harder for students to be their true selves at school.

·       Allow school employees to bully students by refusing to use their correct pronouns or names.

·       Place additional burdens on parents and transgender students who want their school to recognize their correct name and gender.

Rives also states that a student’s sex, not gender identity, should solely determine participation in girls’ or boys’ sports teams. This policy would lead to exclusion and suffering for transgender, intersex, and gender expansive students. It is noteworthy that in his responses to the questionnaire’s five questions, not once does he use the term transgender even though the questionnaire is focused specifically on transgender students.

Equality Arlington also reviewed Rives’s public comment to the Arlington School Board at the April 11, 2019, meeting, where he advocated that schools should push students with gender dysphoria to conform to their birth sex, a suggestion that is at odds with best practices of the American Academy of Pediatrics, American Medical Association, American Psychiatric Association, the Endocrine Society, and the World Health Organization.

Taken together, Rives’s policy stances on LGBTQ+ students are a significant step backward from existing APS policy and betray a worldview that seeks to minimize and disappear transgender students. His policies have the potential to significantly harm LGBTQ+ students who already experience higher rates of bullying, depressive symptoms, and sexual harassment than their heterosexual or cisgender peers (2019 Community Report Card on the Status of Children, Youth, and Families).

We do agree with Rives’s statement that APS must implement more effective anti-bullying protections. Equality Arlington continues to hear reports from transgender students and parents of transgender students that their peers harass and bully them because of their gender identity and APS staff do little to nothing about it. However, refusing to recognize that a student is transgender, forcing APS to implement the Youngkin Administration’s anti-LGBTQ+ Model Policies, and making critical decisions about a student’s school experience based on political dogma instead of the medical community’s best practices will do nothing to reduce bullying and only make life worse for LGBTQ+ students. We hope that Rives will reconsider his harmful policy positions and that voters will consider these when casting their ballots in the 2024 Arlington School Board election.

Early voting began Friday, September 20th and continues through Saturday, November 2nd. Election Day is Tuesday, November 5th (polls open 6am-7pm). For more information about voting, please go to Elections – Arlington County VA Voting and Elections (arlingtonva.gov).

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