Fairfax County’s board of supervisors mocks Christians by designating Easter as Transgender Visibility Day
Stephanie Lundquist-Arora is a contributor for the Washington Examiner, a mother in Fairfax County, Virginia, an author, a member of the Coalition for TJ, and the Fairfax chapter leader of the Independent Women’s Network. This piece originally appeared on Washington Examiner.
Last week, Democrats on Fairfax County‘s board of supervisors voted to designate Easter Sunday as Transgender Visibility Day. The proclamation goes far beyond the supposed intent of making transgender people and gender ideology activists feel seen. Members of the board are also sending a message to Christians that they do not matter as they turn one of their holiest days into a celebration of an ideology that undermines the church’s core convictions.
Ironically, Chairman Jeff McKay, a Democrat, paid lip service to the importance of advocating all constituents when the board passed the resolution. He said, “As an elected official, it should be our moral responsibility to stand up for all people that we represent, not just the people we like or the people we agree with.”
If McKay and other members of the board were serious about their stated commitment to representing constituents, there are many other days they could have designated as Transgender Visibility Day.
Members of the board also used their illogical decision to hijack Easter as an opportunity to celebrate the governing body’s ideological homogeneity. The nine Democrats present at the meeting all voted in favor of the measure, but they lamented that there was one member of the board who was not present for the vote. Pat Herrity, a Republican, likely did not want to antagonize Christians who feel that their holy day is being desecrated.
Herrity’s absence appears to have been unacceptable to James Walkinshaw, a Democrat. Walkinshaw advocated complete groupthink on the board of supervisors when he said, “I’m looking forward to the day when we have a full dais for this proclamation, and that day will come. One way or the other, that day will come.”
Aside from the inappropriateness of Transgender Visibility Day being on Easter this year, the resolution seems unnecessary in Fairfax County. The transgender activist community does not have a visibility problem in northern Virginia. But it does appear to have a narcissism problem. Fairfax County School Board, for example, has designated June as LGBT Pride Month and October as LGBT History Month. The community gets two full months of celebration in our district’s schools. Apparently, that just wasn’t enough.
Fairfax County Public Schools’ policies align with the board’s resolutions. For the last few years, Fairfax County’s students have been inundated with surveys at the beginning of the school year questioning them about their pronouns and gender identity. Many of the county’s classrooms are decorated with transgender flags. After mandating preferred pronouns, district officials are also pushing to include gender identity lessons in the family life education curriculum beginning in fourth grade. How much more “visible” does a group need to be?
One can’t help but feel that Fairfax County officials’ timing was deliberate. In fact, this is not the first time that Democratic-endorsed local officials have attacked Easter in Fairfax County. In past years, Fairfax County Public Schools’ spring break has traditionally coincided with the Easter holiday. But in 2021, the school board made many politically loaded changes to the district’s calendar that included the intentional “decoupling” of spring break from Easter. It was not only inappropriate but logistically problematic for many reasons, and it had to reverse the decision.
I agree with McKay that elected officials should do their best to advocate “all people [they] represent, not just the people [they] like or the people that [they] agree with.” Hopefully, McKay and others on the board of supervisors and the district’s school board will try harder moving forward to represent the Christians in their community.
