(VIDEO) Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin Makes Left Turn at CNN Town Hall

At a CNN Town Hall, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin pushed for more gender-neutral bathrooms in the state’s public schools.

“Your transgender model policies require students play on the sports teams and use the restrooms that correspond with their sex assigned at birth. Look at me, I am a transgender man. Do you really think the girls in my high school would feel comfortable sharing a restroom with me? asked a high school student named Niko.

“What’s most important is that we try very hard to accommodate students. That’s why I’ve said many many times we just need extra bathrooms in schools. We need gender-neutral bathrooms. So, people can use the bathroom that they in fact are comfortable with,” Youngkin responded.

“I think sports are very clear, and I don’t think it’s controversial. I don’t think that biological boys should be playing sports with biological girls,” he added.

WATCH:

“Your transgender policies require students play on the sports teams and use the restrooms that correspond with their sex assigned at birth. . Look at me, I am a transgender man. Do you think the girls in my high school would feel comfortable sharing a restroom with me? “ pic.twitter.com/d8DST7G5tW

— Acyn (@Acyn) March 10, 2023

It appears Youngkin is trying to kowtow to both sides and appear like a moderate candidate.

If that’s his intention, then it backfired.

Because his contrasting positions are angering conservatives and leftists.

As National File noted, it’s a slap in the face to conservatives who supported Youngkin during his gubernatorial campaign.

Governor Glenn Youngkin was elected in a pro-parental rights wave that was largely spurred by the massive backlash to the trans bathroom rape of a teenage girl in a Loudoun County high school by a “gender-fluid” male in a skirt.

National File further explained Youngkin’s appeasement to the left:

In addition to Glenn Youngkin’s endorsement of gender-neutral bathrooms, the Virginia Governor boasted of his kowtowing to the left on the issue of Virginia’s Civil War history, when asked about his professed opposition to critical race theory-inspired curriculum.

Youngkin criticized Virginia history standards that weighed multiple causes of southern secession and the American Civil War, during which Richmond, Virginia served as the Capitol of the Confederate States of America.

“For the first time Virginia history standards,” Youngkin said, students, will learn that “the cause of the Civil War was slavery.”

“The teaching of that basic fact was critical,” Youngkin told the CNN town hall.

Previously, Youngkin has expressed support for the removal of Confederate monuments and memorials and has faced criticism from Virginia heritage groups for his allowing the desecration of Confederate General AP Hill’s Richmond gravesite.

Ironically, Youngkin’s comments also angered leftist groups.

Glenn Youngkin defends anti-trans legislation, says schools just need ‘gender neutral’ bathroomshttps://t.co/0O3GYmYsOU

— Rolling Stone (@RollingStone) March 10, 2023

From Rolling Stone:

Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin offered a shallow solution to the state’s divided stance on public education and transgender policies during CNN’s town hall on Thursday. The Republican governor, whose administration’s guidelines ban transgender students from using bathrooms and competing in sports teams that do not match their gender assigned at birth, attempted to minimize the controversial new policies.

As Youngkin fielded questions from CNN’s Jake Tapper, parents, and educators, a 17-year-old student who identified as a transgender man asked, “Do you really think that the girls in my high school would feel comfortable sharing a restroom with me?” The governor circled around the question, and instead insisted that school’s needed “extra bathrooms” and “gender neutral” bathrooms, before arguing that “biological boys should be playing sports with biological girls.”

Youngkin, whose issued guidelines that require students to file legal documents in order to be called by different pronouns, has received backlash from transgender and equal rights advocates who argue that his recent policies limit the rights and protections of transgender children at school.