SALEM, Va. (AP) – Rene Harvey and his wife arrived at the Roanoke Valley Pride celebration in October with deep-seated fears that something might go wrong.
The couple had attended the area’s annual Pride Festival before, but this year felt different. Harvey keeps up with the news and can’t get the headlines out of his head that describe political violence and hatred against LGBTQ+ people. She monitors elections across Virginia, including gubernatorial races focused on transgender youth.
“It’s scary. This is the way things are,” Harvey said, sitting in a booth at an LGBTQ-friendly parish. “I was nervous about coming here today.”
It turns out Harvey wasn’t worried about anything. The festival was peaceful, even celebratory. Her interactions with local residents were friendly. Festival attendees from all over Virginia weren’t concerned about gender identity or how it was treated in public schools.
But the topic is important to Republican gubernatorial candidate Winsome Earl Sears, who has argued on the campaign trail that transgender girls should be barred from restrooms and sports teams. Democratic candidate Abigail Spanberger largely avoided the topic, saying only that political leaders across the state should not interfere in local school matters.
The Southwest Virginia Pride celebration was held in the city on the edge of Appalachia, where President Donald Trump defeated Vice President Kamala Harris by more than 19 points and Republican candidate Hung Kao defeated Sen. Tim Kaine by 13 points in an unsuccessful campaign. Mr. Spanberger has sought to infiltrate rural Virginians.Earl Sears both appeared west of the city.
The winner of the gubernatorial race will have a lot to say about restrictions on transgender youth in schools. In October, term-limited Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin issued an executive order requiring the Virginia State Board of Health to draft guidelines to “protect the health and safety of women and girls,” and similar legislation has been sponsored by the Democratic-led Legislature, but it has failed.
Harvey can understand the nuances of this matter. She said she used to work in schools and believed children were entitled to equal opportunities to succeed, especially in sports. But she worries for the safety of her gay and transgender neighbors, who gather at brightly decorated sports complexes to celebrate this moment in which their identities are being pushed to the forefront of politics.
Instead of fear, she may attend her next Pride event carrying a concealed handgun if it is legally allowed at future celebrations.
“It’s for peace of mind,” she said.
Advertising proliferates in Roanoke Valley
Transgender youth in schools is an important topic of discussion across Virginia in the lead-up to statewide elections, and the Roanoke Valley is no exception. Earl Sears spent about $1 million on ads in the Roanoke media market addressing the issue, and Spanberger spent about $409,000, according to data from AdImpact, a nonpartisan media tracking firm.
According to AdImpact, one of the Earl Sears campaign’s top commercials airing in the area attacks Spanberger for voting for “shared locker rooms for boys and girls” and for “children being able to change their gender without telling their parents.”
Spanberger’s ad counters that she wants to “take politics out of schools and trust parents and communities.”
Advertisements reflect their battle lines. recent discussionsIn it, Earl Sears said trans students were a safety threat, and Spanberger declined to say whether he would repeal the bill signed by Youngkin that would require students to only go to the bathroom of the gender they were born with.
Jaycee Clay, a trans woman on the committee that organized the Pride celebration, said she felt the portrayal of transgender people in the gubernatorial race was out of touch with reality. Although she transitioned two years ago, she said people around her looked out for her and did not shame her.
“I’ve never had a bad experience with the people of Patrick County in the real world,” Clay said of his home in southwestern Virginia. “This fear of transgender people is only felt in online spaces.”
Clay’s habit is to ignore ads and Reddit chatrooms. In Appalachia, where you go to the bathroom isn’t a topic of discussion, she says.
Dorie Davis, a trans woman from Roanoke County, waved and hugged dozens of people who crossed her path at a Pride event. “Our community is close-knit,” she said. But she also acknowledged that “talk about crooked politicians” can sometimes be hard to ignore.
“We’re hiring them for us,” Davis said of transgender voters. “But in their line of work, they target us with political lies.”
Concerns remain in Fairfax
Approximately half of Virginia voters in the 2024 presidential election say support for transgender rights in government and society has gone “too far,” according to an AP VoteCast voter survey. This measure was broadly in line with the wishes of voters across the country. Only about a quarter of Virginia voters said the support “didn’t go far enough,” and about the same number said the support was about right.
Transgender rights were an issue the president was concerned about. donald trump Last year, an attack ad was launched prior to the victory. Harrismost notably with the punch line, “Kamala is for them/them. President Trump is for you.”
A year has passed since the Trump administration. anti-trans campaign. But conversations continue in Fairfax City, a deep blue community about 225 miles (362 kilometers) from Salem, Virginia, where Ms. Harris beat Mr. Trump by more than 34 points.
That’s where parents, students, teachers and others gathered earlier this month at Moms for Liberty City Hall to lament the local school board’s policy on how the parent committee considers the rights of transgender children.
“We have a transgender student at our school, and my daughters don’t want to use the bathroom at school,” said parent Chris Funderburg of Prince William County. Another parent said her high school son was “completely mortified” when he had to change clothes in front of a transgender boy in the locker room.
Earl Sears and Republican candidate for lieutenant governor, John Reed, also spoke at the event, pledging to address cultural issues if elected in November. At one point, Mr. Reed, who is openly gay, said to a cheering crowd: “It’s not prejudice to say that boys belong in one bathroom and locker room and girls belong in another.”
Reed’s views are in contrast to Sarah Goodman, a former Roanoke-area public high school English teacher who attended the Pride festival. She said she left the position because she felt politicians were pushing too much anti-LBGTQ politics on teachers.
“This is a story about bigoted adults,” Goodman said, standing near a rainbow-colored booth next to live performers belting out Chapel Lawn songs.
___
Associated Press writers Maya Sweedler and Lynley Sanders in Washington contributed to this report.
___
Associated Press coverage of women workers and state government receives funding from Pivotal Ventures. AP is solely responsible for all content. find AP Standards for engaging in philanthropya list of supporters and funded target areas is: AP.org.
