Buddy Bishop, chairman of the Goochland County Republican Party, is speaking out about Loudoun County Public Schools’ transgender policies after two male students at Stone Bridge High School were suspended in connection with an incident involving a transgender student who allegedly filmed them in the boys’ locker room.
Attorney General Jason Miyares has accused LCPS of violating Title IX and retaliating against the students, referring the matter to the U.S. Departments of Education and Justice for further investigation.
“No one should be punished for believing what is taught in biology class,” Miyares said in a press release.
Miyares described the suspensions as instances of viewpoint discrimination and unlawful retaliation.
“In the spring, Loudoun County Public Schools weaponized Title IX to punish male students for expressing discomfort at being forced to share a locker room with a female student who was filming them. Following those reports, Governor Youngkin asked my Office to investigate the facts,” he said.
He stated that an investigation revealed serious concerns, including Title IX violations, unlawful retaliation, and viewpoint discrimination.
“All tied back to Loudoun County Public Schools’ habitual misuse of authority and disregard for the law. In June, my Office referred the matter to the U.S.,” Miyares said.
Miyares emphasized that his office is actively monitoring the situation and considering legal action to ensure student rights are protected.
“Let me be clear: We aren’t going to let this go,” Miyares said. “This will not be slid under the carpet. The safety, dignity, and privacy of every student in Virginia should be non-negotiable. What Loudoun did was wrong, but it is never too late to do the right thing. I implore LCPS to do so.”
The incident at Stone Bridge High School has sparked national outrage, intensified partisan debate, and thrust the issue into the political spotlight ahead of Virginia’s 2025 gubernatorial race.
Bishop framed the controversy as part of a larger societal crisis.
“This is just an ongoing example of expected fallout from a mass psychosis,” Bishop told the Henrico Times. “The transgender issue is not an issue, but it’s been made into one. And when you tell somebody that something is one way, when it’s actually not, long enough, they’ll begin to doubt and lose confidence.”
The Loudoun incident has been widely criticized by parents and conservative groups.
According to attorneys from the Founding Freedoms Law Center, the transgender student filmed the boys who were punished in the locker room without consent.
The two boys who raised objections were suspended for “sexual harassment” and “sex-based discrimination,” required to complete corrective action plans, and subjected to no-contact orders. Families argue the suspensions represent ideologically driven retaliation and violations of privacy rights. Concerns about religious discrimination were also raised, as one Muslim student involved was cleared, while the Christian students were punished.
As the Loudoun locker room controversy continues to ripple through Virginia politics, voices like Bishop’s underscore the ideological battles shaping the Commonwealth’s future.
Bishop sees LCPS’s actions as a deliberate destabilization effort.
“The psychosis is not just some natural thing,” he said. “It was injected as a deliberate effort to destabilize society. I feel sorry for everybody caught up in it, even those who are ardent disciples of it, because they’re harming themselves. It’s not funny.”
This latest locker room incident is not isolated.
Among the most serious of LCPS’s scandals was a 2022 case involving a biological male student who was found guilty of sexually assaulting two female students in separate incidents within six months.
Around the same time, the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office was investigating multiple alleged sexual assaults at a local middle school.
The district also sparked backlash for a teacher training that called for the “dismantling of white dominant culture,” followed by the quiet rebranding of its “Culturally Responsive Framework” to the more marketable “Culturally Responsive Instruction and Practices”—a move critics called a thinly veiled continuation of divisive ideology.
Meanwhile, LCPS libraries came under fire for stocking graphic books such as All Boys Aren’t Blue, a memoir labeled “gay incest porn” by opponents, reportedly made available in 70% of district high schools.
Previously commenting about the 2025 elections, Bishop warned that Virginia’s 2025 elections could bring sweeping changes if Democrats maintain control of the state government. He emphasized the critical importance of re-electing Del. David Owen (R-Henrico) in Virginia’s closely contested 57th District, calling his seat a key battleground in the 2025 elections.
Bishop praised Owen as a thoughtful and approachable leader, capable of bridging divides and calming partisan tensions.
He warned that Democrats are aggressively targeting the district, citing its recent leftward shift and growing outside influence.
Framing Owen’s race as pivotal to the future direction of the state, Bishop urged voters to engage directly with his campaign and recognize the high stakes involved.
Owen has discussed his opinion on the trans lock room issue in social media posts.
“I voted to raise teacher pay, keep men out of girls’ bathrooms, and lower the cost of living,” Owen said in an Aug. 7 Facebook post. “I am proud to be one of the most bipartisan legislators in Virginia because good policy is not about party lines. It’s about Common Sense.”
Bishop has stressed the need for stronger conservative leadership at the state level.
“I’m really counting on Governor Winsome Earle-Sears to veto nonsense that inevitably comes from the legislature,” he said. “We need [GOP lieutenant governor candidate] John Reid to cast tie-breaking votes, and we need attorneys and prosecutors to shut down leftist operations. That’s about as good as we can get until the legislature is fixed.”
Bishop praised Earle-Sears personally as “an outstanding person” and “authentic.”
“She’s doing well because of her authentic nature, not because of the campaign,” he said. “She needs to be seen more in public and to have a rapid response team hitting these issues head-on.”
These issues have made their way to debate regarding the governorship. Winsome Earle-Sears, who is currently Virginia’s lieutenant governor, has made transgender policies in schools a central theme of her gubernatorial campaign, drawing a sharp contrast with Democratic opponent Abigail Spanberger.
A recent campaign ad posted to social media with a post reading, “Think Spanberger’s a centrist? Think again. She’s all-in on boys in girls’ sports and men in women’s locker rooms.”
The one-minute video features provocative imagery, including a clip of a biologically male transgender basketball player knocking down a female athlete during a game, underscoring concerns about fairness and safety in women’s sports.
The ad quotes from a news reporter who said Spanberger’s campaign refused to answer questions about her stance on whether biological males should be allowed to compete in women’s sports or use sex-segregated facilities.
“I asked Abigail Spamberger’s campaign if she would weigh in on the bathroom locker room issue and does she support biological males competing in women’s sports?” the news reporter is heard saying in the ad. “They didn’t answer those questions.”
The ad concludes, “she is for little boys playing in girl sports and for men being in women’s locker rooms. So she’s not exactly a centrist.”
“If she cared about Virginia’s parents or daughters, she’d reject this insanity and the extremists endangering our kids,” Earle-Sears said on X.
Bishop also took aim at Spanberger, who spent eight years a CIA agent, accusing her of silence on the Loudoun controversy and of being a “very clever leftist.”
He noted a recent campaign ad that portrayed Spanberger as supporting “boys in girls’ sports and men in women’s locker rooms.”
Bishop said this silence is damaging. “If she cared about Virginia’s parents or daughters, she’d reject this insanity and the extremists endangering our kids,” he said.
Meanwhile, a sign displayed at an Arlington school board meeting targeting Earle-Sears drew swift bipartisan criticism for making a Jim Crow-era comparison between opposition to transgender bathroom access and racial segregation.
“Hey Winsome, if trans can’t share your bathroom then blacks can’t share my water fountain,” the sign read.
Earle-Sears called the sign “disgusting” and accused her opponents of fostering a divisive political climate.
“We were told forever that we were racists, which wasn’t true,” Bishop said. “It’s about ideology, not race. Using those labels is a tactic to isolate and control.”
On the policy front, Bishop raised alarms about pending constitutional amendments in Virginia, including repealing the same-sex marriage ban and restoring voting rights to felons.
He also criticized Spanberger’s support for sanctuary state policies and expanded abortion access, calling the latter “abortion on demand” and expressing sorrow for unborn children. “What type of mindset does society end up with when there’s no accountability?” Bishop said.
Bishop levied a somber assessment of Virginia’s political landscape. “If the legislature goes blue this November, it’s East California for the foreseeable future. Unless some great savior on a white horse comes in, things won’t change,” he said.
