Good morning, RVA: Anti-trans policies, summer gardening, and you can still weigh in on zoning changes

It's hot. I'm ready for it to be slightly less hot.

Good morning, RVA! It's 75 °F, and we made it to the beginning of the end of this hot streak! Today you can look forward to the final gasp of this hot, humid weather (for a bit at least). Storms will roll though late afternoon or evening, bringing with them three days of cooler temperatures and less oppressive humidity. There's a lot going on weatherwise today, so listen to NBC12's Andrew Freiden when he says that you need to watch out for heat, the humidity, and strong storms.

Water cooler

Anna Bryson at the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports on last night’s Hanover School Board meeting at which they discussed potential anti-trans policies for the district. From the piece: "The policy, if approved, would require transgender students, along with their parents or guardians, to submit a written request to school administration asking for access to restrooms, locker rooms or changing facilities that align with the students’ gender identities...the written request may contain several personal documents related to the student including their disciplinary or criminal records, as well as signed statements from the student’s doctor or therapist." This invasive and condescending policy is the unsurprising result of the Hanover County School Board decision to hire the "Alliance Defending Freedom," an anti-LGBTQ legal org (or, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, an anti-LGTBQ hate group), to review and write school policies. You get what you pay for, and, in this case, you get gross documents that try and paint all trans kids as criminals. Pulitzer Prize Winner Michael Paul Williams, puts it this way: "No other class of Hanover students needs a background check to pee. It’s bad enough that transgender students are bullied in school. It’s unforgiveable that their School Board is party to the bullying." MPW is not hopeful—to put it mildly—that the Board will reverse course, and he thinks these new polices are pretty much a done deal. An additional public hearing will take place on August 16th and a potential vote at the end of the month.

Horribly related, ABC News in Arlington reports that Governor Youngkin wants teachers to out LGBTQ kids to their parents—and with the folks he brought in to the Virginia Department of Education and his newly-appointed majority on the Virginia Board of Education he might be able create the policies to make this a reality. Delegate Danica Roem has a great response: "The Governor will never know what it’s like to be a LGBTQ kid outed against their will at home, abused for being out and kicked out by their parent(s). That’s as real as it gets. @GovernorVA: talk to those LGBTQ kids who were beaten and are homeless because someone outed them."

The August edition of Grace Todd's Attack of the Killer Thumbs is out! Have you ever read a better description of August: "We’re dodging storms! We’re under heat advisories! We’re abandoning our overambitious spring plans! We’re going out of town for a while and coming back to gardens that have gone completely to shit and feeling guilty about it! We’re sweating too much to be sad about the continuing disintegration of society!" Yes to all of that. Tap through, read the whole thing, and get inspired for your fall garden, learn about fungus prevention (with the helpful acronym SCAT), and commiserate with "eating a tomato sandwich over the sink."

I learned two things from this article by Emma Johnson in Richmond Magazine. First, Dr. Jill Biden has a namesake orchid. Second, Dr. Jill Biden was presented with two of her namesake orchids last month and they were cultivated at Chadwick & Son Orchids in Powhatan! I'll tell you what, I have not figured out orchids yet. I mean, I have one, and it is alive, but that's about it. I'm definitely not ready for a Dr. Jill Biden namesake orchid.

Reminder: The meetings to discuss those three fun zoning changes continue! Tonight at 6:00 PM, you can join Richmond's Planning Department virtually for a discussion of the revised short-term rental regulations (aka Airbnbs), elimination of parking minimums, and more liberal permitting of accessory dwelling units. You can pop on to this evening's Microsoft Teams meeting here.

This morning's longread
Pulled from the Flood

An author from one of the towns devastated by the floods in Kentucky writes about what he finds after the waters recede. This is a good piece, equal parts loss and resilience.

The lives are the most important and disturbing losses, of course. The day we were in Hindman another body was found not far downstream from us. As of this writing, thirty-seven people are dead from the flooding, and Governor Andy Beshear says we should expect that death toll to rise. To be in Eastern Kentucky right now is to shed tears of sorrow, pride, anger, and hope, sometimes simultaneously. So many are in the depths of the worst kinds of grief. You can feel it when you’re driving those winding mountain roads, when you see people living in tents or shelters, when you see children trying to play when they know their family has lost everything they own. Seeing them, I can’t help but blame the coal companies who disrupted so much natural drainage, caused widespread erosion, and did more damage to the area that directly contributes to these disasters. I can’t help but blame the legislators who refuse to pass climate initiatives.

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