John Matthews
WMAL.com

MANASSAS — (WMAL) LGBT students and employees in Prince William County will now be protected against discrimination, after the county’s School Board voted 5 – 3 to include sexual orientation and gender preference in the school district’s nondiscrimination policy.

The issue, which has informally been known as a “bathroom bill” in debates over transgender policies across the country, will not ironically cover the use of bathrooms in Prince William County schools. The policy passed Wednesday night specifically instructs bathroom use rules to be handled at the school principal level on a case-by-case basis, with input from students’ families and administrators.

Wednesday’s vote came after two hours of debate, both by members of the public and school board members, over whether Prince William should implement a policy that is still being debated with a wide spectrum of opinions and interpretations in school systems across the country.

While some school board members worried about the community buying in to the LGBT protections, others argued that the county has a responsibility to protect all students from being mistreated regardless of the issues at play.

By stepping off the sidelines, Prince William leaves a large group of school systems across Virginia that have put off decisions on LGBT protections for students and staff pending legal decisions still to be made by federal courts.

One of the cases in the spotlight is that of Gavin Grimm, a Gloucester County, Virginia student who sued for the right to use the boy’s bathroom in his school rather than a gender-neutral facility. His case reached the U.S. Supreme Court, which remanded it to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit in Richmond, where it is pending.

Copyright 2017 by WMAL.com. All Rights Reserved. (PHOTO: Prince William County School Board)