The superintendent of Virginia’s third-largest school district has issued a blistering response to the state delegate who called the district’s recognition of LGBTQ+ History Month “despicable” and “disgusting.”
In an October 12 letter to Virginia state Del. Tim Griffin (R), Loudoun County Public Schools Superintendent Aaron Spence defended his district’s decision to recognize October 2026 as LGBTQ+ History Month and blasted Griffin’s incendiary comments on social media, the Virginia Mercury reports.
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Earlier this month, Griffin, who does not even represent Loudoun County, posted a video in which he described LGBTQ+ History Month as “transing the kids month” and Loudoun County Public Schools’ proclamation as “despicable, disgusting.”
“Enough is enough,” Spence wrote in his letter to Griffin. “There is a difference between disagreement and deliberate distortion. There is a difference between questioning decisions and attacking the dignity of an entire community. And there is a difference between legitimate public discourse and spreading inflammatory claims without basis in the truth.”
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Griffin’s post, Spence wrote, “crossed those lines.”
Acknowledging the LGBTQ+ community’s contributions to American history “is not indoctrination,” Spence continued. “It is not recruitment, and it is not an attack on anyone’s religious beliefs or family values.”
He went on to compare Griffin’s “impulse to erase or diminish” LGBTQ+ people’s contributions to American history to authoritarian efforts “to control public memory by deciding whose stories may be told and whose must disappear.”
“We do not protect children by pretending that certain Americans never existed,” Spence wrote. “We do not strengthen democracy by selectively editing its history to make some people more comfortable.”
Spence also challenged Griffin to provide evidence for his accusation “that public educators are engaged in some coordinated effort to change children’s gender identities.”
“What evidence can you offer that recognizing LGBTQ+ Americans’ contributions to history causes children to become transgender, or even a part of the LGBTQ+ community?” Spence wrote, adding that anyone making such extraordinary public accusations should be prepared to prove them.
“Absent credible evidence, these accusations should stop, because words have consequences, and attempts to score political points should be weighed against that,” he continued. Spence also reminded Griffin of the “responsibility to distinguish fact from fiction, disagreement from dehumanization, and public service from political spectacle” that comes with the privilege of elected office.
Nevertheless, in a statement to the Virginia Mercury responding to Spence’s letter, Griffin said that, “Taxpayers should never fund the extreme and despicable sexualization of students in schools.”
Spence has led Loudoun County Public Schools through a series of investigations and disputes since the beginning of the second Trump administration.
In a February 2025 complaint filed with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR), America First Legal alleged that the district was one of five in Northern Virginia that had violated the administration’s interpretation of Title IX by allowing transgender students to use restrooms and locker rooms matching their gender identity. OCR opened a formal investigation, and the following July concluded that the districts – including Loudoun – were in violation of Title IX.
Loudoun County Public Schools, however, refused to rescind its trans-inclusive policies. In response, the Department of Education designated the district “high-risk” and shifted it to a reimbursement system – a first step toward withholding federal funding.
In May 2025, Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares (R), who has supported transgender sports bans and restrictions on gender-affirming care, also opened a separate inquiry into how Loudoun County Public Schools was handling its investigation of a bullying incident involving a transgender student. This past March, the district settled a lawsuit brought by Founding Freedoms Law Center and America First Legal on behalf of the two students who were suspended for sexually harassing and discriminating against their trans classmate.
In June, Spence testified before the U.S. House Committee on Education and Workforce, where Republicans questioned him about religious speech, parental curriculum access, room assignments, and transgender rights, according to the Virginia Mercury.
In his letter to Griffin, Spence wrote that while he welcomes “honest discussion about our schools,” he would not accept without challenge “the continued misrepresentation of our schools, the vilification of our educators, or the suggestion that acknowledging the existence and contributions of LGBTQ+ Americans is somehow a threat to children.”
“Our children deserve better than this,” he wrote. “Our educators deserve better than this. And frankly, our democracy deserves better than this.”
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