7News asks Spanberger if she’ll keep Youngkin’s trans locker room, sports ban in Virginia

took in schools and keeping biological males out of women’s sports this week, ordering the Virginia Board of Health to ban biological males from competing in girls’ sports and using girls’ locker rooms and bathrooms.
“Let’s stop the biological mixing of boys in girls’ locker rooms or girls in boys’ locker rooms, and let’s make sure we’re protecting girl sports, and not allowing biological males to play sports with biological females,” Youngkin told 7News Reporter Nick Minock in a recent interview.
The directive comes weeks after the Board had already started a lengthy rulemaking process to ban men who identify as female from women’s locker rooms, bathrooms and girls’ sports.
That process started after a petition was filed by a group of female college athletes,
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“It should not be happening to any girls anywhere,” said Carter, a college athlete. “No one should feel unsafe in their sport, in their locker room.”
“I don’t know how many people know it, but changing into a [swim] competition suit can take up to like, 20-25, minutes,” said Réka György, a recent college athlete who competed against a male student and shared a locker room with biological males due to policies allowing males in female locker rooms. “So, it’s a very long time to be exposed to somebody who you didn’t want to expose yourself, and your privacy is just being ripped away from you because somebody who has the power let another gender into your locker room.”
Because this is an executive directive, when Youngkin leaves office in January, it will be up to the next governor to decide whether to keep it in place.
Virginia Republican gubernatorial candidate Winsome Earle-Sears supports Youngkin’s executive directive.
On Friday morning, 7News emailed questions to Democratic gubernatorial candidate Abigail Spanberger’s staff, asking about her stance on the issue. As of this moment, they have not responded.
The questions 7News sent to Spanberger’s campaign staff include:
Does Spanberger support Gov. Youngkin’s new executive directive and would she continue the order if elected governor? Why or why not?
Does Spanberger support banning biological males in girls/women’s sports and banning biological males in girls/women’s locker rooms and bathrooms in Virginia?
Two weeks ago, Minock asked Spanberger about the issue at a news conference in Fairfax County.
Nick Minock: “As you know, there’s a battle playing out between the Trump administration’s U.S. Department of Education and five Northern Virginia school systems. The Trump administration is taking aim at their locker room and bathroom policies. They [the Trump administration] say those school systems are violating Title IX by having policies that allow students to use bathrooms and locker rooms based on their gender identity, not biological sex. So can you tell us directly, do you support biological males, who say they’re women, using women’s locker rooms and bathrooms and competing in women’s sports?”
Democratic candidate Abigail Spanberger: “The circumstance as this legal case plays out is really one of we’ve had court cases settled or judged here in Virginia in the fourth district, the former Gavin Grimm case related to bathroom usage. And in fact, the argument is the assessment is there needs to be much clearer guidance in terms of what is an executive order’s binding assessment of Title IX versus what has been a decision of a court. But ultimately, the real impact here is, once again, it is the Trump administration taking dollars away from Virginia. Threatening education dollars to our public schools is an attack on Virginia’s kids. It’s an attack on our economy. It’s an attack on Virginians. And as governor, the important thing is, as a candidate for governor, the important thing, the important priority for me is to ensure that we have the best public schools in the entire country. And the reality is, when we have a president who is coming after Virginia, our education system, whether it’s K-12 or whether it is our public universities that is harmful to Virginia, our ability to educate our kids and ultimately our economy.”
. When Minock tried again, Spanberger walked away from our camera.
As far as Spanberger’s record on this topic, in 2023, Spanberger voted in favor of allowing biological males to compete in women’s sports when she was in Congress.
And last week, she told our sister station WSET that she supported a process that allowed transgender people to compete in the sport that matched their chosen gender identity on a case-by-case basis.
“I think that the process that was in place for ten years was one that was working,” Spanberger said.
György told 7News she hopes that if Spanberger happens to win the gubernatorial election this year that Spanberger won’t allow biological males in female locker rooms, bathrooms and sports.