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Virginia leaders across party lines are condemning a racist sign displayed Thursday outside a Northern Virginia school board meeting where gubernatorial candidate Winsome Earle-Sears was speaking.
“Hey Winsome, if trans can’t share your bathroom, then blacks can’t share my water fountain,” the sign in question read.
The incident occurred as the state is embroiled in multiple controversies related to transgender students’ access to bathrooms and locker rooms across various counties.
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The sign was held up while Earle-Sears attended an Arlington County school board meeting on Thursday evening. The press conference came days after the federal Department of Education designated five Northern Virginia schools “high-risk” and placed restrictions on their federal funding. The conference also follows the suspension of two male students in one Northern Virginia county, after they were found responsible for sexual harassment after complaining about a transgender student using their locker room.
Even Earle-Sears gubernatorial opponent, former Rep. Abigail Spanberger, called the sign “repulsive.”
“As I said yesterday, the sign displayed in Arlington last night was racist and abhorrent,” Spanberger said in response to the signage. “Many Virginians remember the segregated water fountains (and buses and schools and neighborhoods) of Virginia’s recent history. And no matter the intended purpose or tone and no matter how much one might find someone else’s beliefs objectionable, to threaten a return of Jim Crow and segregation to a Black woman is unacceptable. Full stop.”
Meanwhile, Spanberger’s running mate, current Virginia state senator and Democratic Party candidate for lieutenant governor Ghazala Hashmi called the sign “unacceptable.” She also made similar remarks about the incident hearkening back to “Jim Crow-era ugliness.”
In response to the incident, Republican political leaders also took the opportunity to slam Democrats.
“This is the climate Democrats created—smear, divide, then look away when it turns ugly,” said Earle-Sears running mate, GOP lieutenant governor candidate John Reid. “That sign is where their politics of resentment leads.”
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Earle-Sears added that she was “disgusted, but not surprised” by the racially charged sign. She also took the opportunity to call out her gubernatorial opponent.
“This is the ‘tolerant’ left Abigail Spanberger defends,” Earle-Sears said following the incident. “I’m the sitting lieutenant governor, second in command in the former Capitol of the confederate states. I’m an immigrant, a Marine, and above all, a human being. There is no place for this disgusting hatred in our Commonwealth.”
Earle-Sears added that anyone who refuses to condemn the sign “is complicit in approving it.”
The press conference that the sign was displayed at drew several other protesters, while supporters of Earle-Sears were present as well. It came just days after five Northern Virginia school districts refused to change their policies around letting students pick which bathroom or locker room they want to use based on their gender identity, as opposed to their biological sex.
It also came after one of those Northern Virginia school districts suspended two biological males for complaining out loud about a transgender male who is a biological female using the male’s only locker room. The district also held the two male students responsible for sexual harassment.
The boys have filed a Title IX appeal, which has temporarily halted their suspension for the time being.
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