This supportive dad slammed a school board for voting for a discriminatory policy

A video of a dad giving a passionate speech denouncing Moms for Liberty and standing up for LGBTQ+ kids is going viral.

Cody Conner, 42, spoke at a Virginia Beach City Public Schools meeting about implementing policies set forth by Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s (R) Department of Education. The model policies created by the department would have schools force trans students to use the wrong restroom and not participate in school sports as their gender. The state also wants school districts to make teachers only refer to students by the names on their official records and only use pronouns associated with their sex assigned at birth unless they get parental permission.

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Students rally against Virginia’s anti-trans education policies

“We will be bullied and dead-named, as is promoted in these policies.”

Virginia Beach City Public Schools was voting on its version of policies that would align with the state directive when Conner spoke up. He has three kids, one of whom is transgender. He recently moved to Virginia Beach, Virginia’s largest city, right before the state Department of Education released its model policies.

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“No matter how hard you try to implement these discriminatory policies in the ‘right way,’ you are never going to find a right way to do the wrong thing,” Conner said.

Then he dug into Moms for Liberty, a right-wing group that opposes even mentioning LGBTQ+ people in schools.

“Never in history have the good guys been the segregationist group pushing to legislate identity,” Conner said. “Never in history have the good guys been closely connected with and supported by hate groups like the Proud Boys. And the good guys don’t put Hitler quotes for inspiration on the front of their newsletters. News flash: They’re the bad guys. They’re the bad guys supporting bad policy. And if you support the same bad policy, guess what? You’re one of the bad guys, too.”

“When you look around and see only the wrong people supporting what you’re doing, you’re doing the wrong thing,” he continued.

“Now you’ve heard some speakers come up here and say how they love these kids but won’t accept them. I’m here to tell you that if your love makes somebody not want to be alive, it’s not love. That’s not love.”

The board voted 9-1 to implement the transphobic policies. In Virginia Beach City Public Schools’ new policy, students have to use restrooms that correspond to their sex assigned at birth, trans students can’t participate in school sports as their gender, and teachers have to use a student’s name on their official record or nicknames closely associated with that name.