Va. Gubernatorial Race Candidate Abigail Spanberger Refuses To Side With Common Sense: Mary Katharine Ham

In a Northern Virginia public school district, several young male students were filmed in their locker room by a young woman who identifies as male. They complained about it. The young men were suspended for sex-based discrimination and sexual harassment. You read that right. The person filming in a locker room was deemed the victim in this exchange because the 16-year-old boys she was filming expressed their discomfort with a member of the opposite sex being in their space. Sometimes the things that happen in Northern Virginia public schools are so insane, they’re almost unbelievable. But here we are with yet another storied public school system in an affluent suburb of Washington forgoing all common sense to enforce the most ludicrous shibboleths of 2020 leftism; Parents and students be damned. 

A rash of similarly insane policies and out-of-touch school board leadership ushered in a 2021 upset in this purple state by Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin, who countered two years of school closings and rampant liberal abuse of parents during the Covid era to knock off old-guard Democrat, Terry McAulliffe. (Loudoun County is also where a father was arrested for addressing the school board angrily because the board had hidden that his daughter was sexually assaulted in a restroom and moved the offender to another school, where he assaulted someone else.) Because of a one-term limit for the popular governor in Virginia, the stage is set for another showdown in the Virginia gubernatorial race this November. 

It’s 2025. Surely Democrats learned to get on the right side of these issues. But for Democrats with national aspirations, the Be Normal Challenge remains very challenging.

Enter former Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger, who has led Republican Lt. Gov Winsome Sears by double digits throughout the year. She has been hailed as part of the great moderate hope for Democrats in the vibe shift after 2024. She is a mom who represented a swing district, and a former CIA agent. The Atlantic called her part of the Democrats’ "Patriotic Vanguard," while the Washington Post hailed her "centrist" credentials along with a handful of other up-and-coming Democrats, whose claims rest mostly on the fact that they don’t seem allergic to the American flag.

The person filming in a locker room was deemed the victim in this exchange because the 16-year-old boys she was filming expressed their discomfort with a member of the opposite sex being in their space. (Getty Images)

(Getty Images)

But how normal is the Great Normie Hope in Virginia? Spanberger has said nothing about the boys suspended in Loudoun County. She has said nothing about five Northern Virginia school districts defying both Executive Orders and Virginia civil rights rules by "allow[ing] students of the opposite sex access to intimate sex-separated facilities and allow[ing] students of the opposite sex to participate in sex-separated sports." Not just a culture-war flare-up, this is a legal issue she will have to contend with as governor, as the Trump Department of Justice will seek to pull funding for school districts that violate its Title IX rules.

It’s also not an issue that should require bravery, certainly not from an allegedly centrist leader. When polled, 70-90 percent of Americans agree that trans-identifying males should not compete in women’s sports leagues. The locker room question is less polled, but similarly lopsided.

Local ABC reporter Nick Minock asked Spanberger about locker room and sports policies, but neither she nor the campaign could muster more than this non-sequitur statement:

"Abigail is a mom of three kids in Virginia public schools — the safety of Virginia’s kids is Abigail’s top priority, and she believes that parents have the right to make decisions about what is best for their children," said Spanberger. 

Meanwhile, her competition showed up at a press conference with the parents of the suspended Loudoun County boys on Wednesday.

"Ladies and gentlemen, it is time for the insanity to stop," she said. "This is not just a wake-up call for Loudoun County, it’s a wake-up call for all of Virginia. The fact we are here tells us something has gone very wrong."

Spanberger also turned down a CNN-hosted debate with Earle-Sears, so her record will speak for her until she breaks her silence about this issue. What is that record?

In 2022, when Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin announced his model policy to block student access to locker rooms and bathrooms that don’t match their biological sex, Spanberger wrote, "Gov. Youngkin’s mandate targets vulnerable children, and it’s downright shameful to think that an elected leader would punch down at kids to score political points. This mandate rolls back the rights of kids to be themselves in schools."

In 2023, Spanberger also voted in favor of allowing biological males to compete in women’s sports.

Spanberger has a very favorable environment in an off-year election in this purple state, with plenty of federal employee voters who are mad at Trump. A Republican win is tricky in Virginia, even in good conditions, as Youngkin’s 1.5-point victory showed. But Youngkin built operational muscle in Virginia for the GOP and Trump shaved almost 10 points from Harris’ margin of victory in Loudoun County over Biden’s big win in 2020. Loudoun County’s school board showing its craziness at this inopportune moment for Spanberger cannot be comforting to Democrats. Neither can Spanberger’s inability to talk about it.

As if that weren’t enough, Arlington Public Schools’ gender policy has allowed a 58-year-old sex offender to expose himself in a local high-school dressing room because he identified as female. He has since been charged with a crime, but the school board has yet to change its policy. Sears also visited the Arlington school board meeting this week to address that problem.

The two Democratic Senators from the Commonwealth, Tim Kaine and Mark Warner, have attempted to bash Trump’s actions against five Northern Virginia counties without mentioning the gender policies that are the reason for those actions.

Perhaps this dodge is one Spanbeger will try, but it’s becoming increasingly clear the crazy school boards of Northern Virginia won’t allow her to be silent. The rise of charismatic champagne socialist Zohran Mamdani to the top of the Mayor’s race in America’s biggest city has led some to wonder if his radical brand of policies will be the new brand of the Democratic Party. If Spanberger is their big, promising attempt to counter that with normalcy, she’s being super weird about it.