Virginia Governor's Office Withholds Records on Dropped Women's Sports Petition

The office of Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger is refusing to release records related to the decision to withdraw a regulatory effort that sought to restrict male participation in women's and girls' sports. The administration invoked executive privilege, attorney-client privilege, and a state exemption for gubernatorial working papers and correspondence to deny access to the documents.

According to a response from the governor's office, less than 100 documents, including duplicates, are being withheld. The office stated these records pertain to correspondence and deliberative materials and are protected under Virginia law.

The Virginia State Board of Health withdrew the petition on July 30. The initiative, initially approved by the Board of Health in August 2025, aimed to establish protections for female athletes and access to designated female spaces. The previous administration under Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin had advanced the regulatory action.

OutKick, which initially filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for emails concerning the withdrawal from members of the governor's office, later submitted a narrower request for emails from employees outside of the specified gubernatorial exemption. Both requests yielded no records.

In a subsequent statement, the governor's office indicated that "based upon reasonable inquiry within the Office of the Governor, the requested records could not be found or do not exist."

Governor Spanberger addressed the withdrawal in a September interview with Radio IQ, stating, "There’s no legal authority to move forward with rulemaking and prior administrations may have tried to create lanes, and we’re not doing that." The formal withdrawal notice published in the Virginia Register of Regulations cited a review of statutory authority as the reason for not proceeding with the regulatory action.

Virginia law allows the governor's office to withhold certain correspondence and records prepared for deliberative use. This exemption can extend to records created by lower-level employees for protected officials. State law also requires the disclosure of nonexempt portions of records if their entire contents are not covered by an exclusion, though the governor's office did not specify if any partial disclosures were possible.