Lawmaker faces backlash for proposed bill to protect LGBTQ children from abusive parents

A Virginia lawmaker is facing backlash for suggesting she would re-introduce a bill aimed at protecting LGBTQ children from abuse.

In an interview with Washington ABC affiliate WJLA last week, Virginia state Delegate Elizabeth Guzman (D) said she planned to reintroduce H.B. 580, which she originally introduced in 2020, in response to Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s recently proposed model education policy that would roll back protections for transgender students in schools.

“The day that Gov. Youngkin wanted to implement this policy, I immediately texted the policy lead of that committee and said, this is how we’re going to push back,” Guzman said.

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The legislation, Guzman said, would expand the state’s definition of child abuse to include inflicting “physical or mental injury on the basis of the child’s gender identity or sexual orientation.”

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But the report by the Sinclair Broadcast Group-owned WJLA characterized the bill as criminalizing “parents who do not affirm their child’s gender identity or sexual orientation.”

In a tweet thread posted after the WJLA report aired, Guzman said the station had mischaracterized the bill. As The Washington Post notes, the word “affirm” is nowhere in H.B. 580.

“The 2020 bill was a child safety bill that would have simply protected children from ‘physical or mental injury on the basis of the child’s gender identity or sexual orientation,’” Guzman tweeted. “The way the bill was presented in the article was patently wrong.”