On Thursday, Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin (R) signed Executive Directive 14, set to take effect immediately, barring biological male students from female sports and private spaces.

The directive mandates that the Virginia Board of Health develop regulations explicitly barring transgender-identifying males from these female-only environments and competitions. This isn’t Youngkin’s first foray into addressing transgender participation in sports, but a recent controversy in Loudoun County, Virginia, appears to have accelerated his decisive action.

Just one day prior, on Wednesday, the Loudoun County Public Schools (LCPS) board voted to recognize October as LGBTQ+ History Month. As Fox News reported, “at least one elementary school reportedly encouraged students to observe ‘National Coming Out Day’ on Oct. 11.” During the board meeting, a letter from Henrietta Lacks Elementary was read aloud, stating that so-called “National Coming Out Day” is “a special day … to celebrate being yourself.” The move drew a sharp rebuke from John Reid, the Republican nominee for lieutenant governor.

“The vast majority of normal people would agree that conversations about sexuality have absolutely no place in elementary schools,” Reid said, noting that the district has a tendency of being “run by politics instead of putting kids first.”

In his executive order, Youngkin emphasized, “Since day one, this administration has worked to protect the fundamental rights of all Virginians.” He continued, “These fundamental rights intrinsically require the assurance of health and safety for all individuals. Through collaboration with our federal partners, this administration is fighting tirelessly to prevent discrimination on the basis of sex and to protect the civil rights of our citizens under the constitutions of our commonwealth and nation. … This protection from incursions on the health and safety of Virginians is necessary in legally permissible sex separated and sex specific spaces and activities.”

Youngkin further underscored the urgency by citing real-world harms, observing how “students of both sexes have made high profile complaints about both harassment from students of the opposite sex within intimate spaces such as locker rooms, which threatens the health and safety of students, and the inclusion of biological males in girls’ athletic competitions, which is a clear violation of Title IX.” He continued, “It is an embarrassment and a tragedy that certain individuals continue to turn a blind eye to these clear violations of the law and of the health, safety, privacy, dignity, and respect of these students. This must stop.”

To illustrate the directive's necessity, Youngkin referenced specific incidents, including “a complaint sent to USED [U.S. Education Department] alleges that on September 2, 2025, a biological male was watching girls change in a Fairfax County Public Schools girls’ locker room.” He also highlighted a disturbing case in which “more than a dozen witnesses have testified in a case involving a male Tier III sex offender who exposed and sexually gratified himself in front of female children in female locker rooms within schools and fitness centers in Northern Virginia.”

Advocacy groups have celebrated the measure as a significant step forward. Many, including The Family Foundation — a public policy organization affiliated with Focus on the Family — consider this Directive “a major victory for women and girls across the Commonwealth.” And as Youngkin affirmed in the document, “women deserve an equal opportunity to participate in competitive sports, and those opportunities must be safe, fair, and in compliance with federal law. … With this Directive, Virginians can once again have confidence in the fairness and integrity of women’s and girls’ sports.”