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Dozens of students protest Loudoun County's handling of sexual assault cases at Loudoun County High School on 10/26/21.Twitter/7News DC

LOUDOUN COUNTY, Virginia (LifeSiteNews) – Hundreds of high school students across Loudoun County, Virginia, walked out of class in protest yesterday and slammed school officials for mishandling a recent sexual assault by a “gender-fluid” male student in a high school bathroom.

“Loudoun County protects rapists,” students chanted in front of Broad Run High School, where the 15-year-old student was charged with abducting and assaulting a girl in a classroom three weeks ago.

The same boy had been charged with forcibly sodomizing another female student in the girls bathroom at a different Loudoun County high school in May before being allowed to transfer to his current school earlier this year.

A juvenile court judge found the teenager guilty of assaulting the first girl in a hearing on Monday.

“Why was a rapist allowed in our school?” one Broad Run High School student said during a protest yesterday. “Why didn’t anybody tell us?” another student asked.

“We need change. This is BS. We demand change,” other students shouted. Around 75 students participated in the walkout at Broad Run High School, according to The Center Square.

Similar demonstrations were reported at Riverside High School, Lightridge High School, Loudoun County High School, Briar Woods High School, and Stone Bridge High School, where the bathroom assault occurred.

‘Trans’ student guilty of ‘forcible sodomy’

The walkouts came after Chief Judge Pamela L. Brooks of the Virginia Juvenile and Domestic Relations District Court ruled Monday that there was sufficient evidence to find the “gender-fluid” student guilty of two counts of “forcible sodomy” in the Stone Bridge High School case.

The trans-identifying male had entered a girls’ bathroom wearing a skirt, according to court documents.

A sentencing decision is expected in November.

“We are relieved that justice was served today for the Smith’s daughter,” attorney Bill Stanley of the Stanley Law Group, who is representing the victim, said in a statement Monday. “This horrible incident has deeply affected the Smith family, and they are grateful for today’s outcome.”

“No one should have to endure what this family has endured,” he added. The Smith family is planning to file a civil lawsuit against the Loudoun County school system, according to the Stanley Law Group.

On October 7, days before a hearing in which the 15-year-old was expected to plead guilty to the assault, the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office announced that he had also been “charged with sexual battery and abduction” at Broad Run High School. “The investigation determined on the afternoon of October 6, the 15-year-old suspect forced the victim into an empty classroom where he held her against her will and inappropriately touched her,” the sheriff’s office said.

Between the two attacks, the Loudoun County School Board enacted a policy allowing students to access sex-specific private spaces, including bathrooms, and to play on sports teams based on their “gender identity.”

School board under fire

Loudoun County school officials initially denied knowledge of any sexual assaults in the county’s schools. Last week, however, WTOP News revealed that Loudoun County school system superintendent Scott Ziegler sent an email to school board members alerting them of the attack at Stone Bridge High School the day that it happened.

“This afternoon a female student alleged that a male student sexually assaulted her in the restroom,” Ziegler wrote in the email, dated May 28.

At a school board meeting on June 22, Ziegler nevertheless claimed that there was no record of assaults in school bathrooms. “To my knowledge, we don’t have any record of assaults occurring in our restrooms,” he said, declaring that, “the predator transgender student or person simply does not exist.”

Loudoun County Public Schools (LCPS) acknowledged in a statement on October 13 that it had, in fact, contacted the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office about the bathroom rape “within minutes of receiving the initial report on May 28.”

The statement added that “LCPS does not begin its investigation until law enforcement advises LCPS that it has completed the criminal investigation” and said that school system “is prohibited from disciplining any student without following the Title IX grievance process.”

At least one school board member, Beth Barts, has already resigned amid the scandal. “Our students do not need to be protected, and they are not in danger,” Barts said at the June 22 school board meeting. “Do we have assaults in our bathrooms or locker rooms regularly?”

Also in attendance at that meeting was the victim’s father, Scott Smith, who was arrested for “unlawful attendance” after an argument with a pro-LGBT activist who said that she did not believe his daughter, the Daily Wire reported. Smith was dragged out of the meeting and later convicted of disorderly conduct and resisting arrest.

Last month, the National School Board Association (NSBA) cited Scott in a letter to the Biden administration calling for federal investigations of parents pushing back on left-wing school policies, including transgender bathroom rules and the teaching of critical race theory.

The NSBA letter pointed to Smith’s behavior as an example of potential “domestic terrorism,” and specifically asked for the “expertise and resources” of the FBI, Justice Department, Secret Service, Department of Homeland Security, and National Threat Assessment Center.

Attorney General Merrick Garland issued a memo the following week directing the FBI to investigate parents allegedly harassing school administrators and school board members.

In a congressional hearing last Thursday, Garland admitted that he does not know “any of the facts” of the Stone Bridge High School rape case, which he referred to as a “state case.”