The Trump administration warned state child welfare leaders against involving parents in child welfare cases that center on the parents’ decision not to support a child’s self-identified gender.
The Administration for Children and Families, which sent each state a letter on the subject this week, suggested that it will step in if states do investigate parents.
“Parents have the right to raise their children according to their sincerely held religious beliefs and moral convictions,” said Alex Adams, assistant secretary for family support, in a statement posted on the agency’s website. “When states overstep their bounds, ACF will take action to deter inappropriate policies that drive unnecessary interactions with child welfare systems. This is one such example.”
While the letter specifically addresses gender choices, Adams’ comment in the statement seems more expansive. While the number of youth who choose a different gender identity than their biological one has grown in recent years, many more children express a sexual preference that may go against the religious beliefs of their parents.
The communique aligns the Trump administration with legislative efforts afoot in several states. The Iowa House this week passed a bill shielding parents from child abuse cases related to raising their kids based on their biological sex. A legislator in Georgia has advanced a similar bill that would cover parents and other caregivers.
These actions relate to what the administration described as “troubling reports of states removing children when parents declined to support their child’s self-identification as another sex.” Only a handful seem to have been publicly documented:
-In 2021, Indiana parents who were reported to CPS after not affirming their child’s choice to identify as a girl. Even though the allegations were dismissed, the removal of the child remained in place. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal in this case two years ago.
-In 2018, an Ohio judge awarded custody of a 17-year-old seeking to begin the process of gender transition to their grandparents.
-In 2016, a transgender teen was removed from his mother, Abigail Martinez, by Los Angeles County at the urging of school officials who said she was not supporting the youth’s transition.
Three cases from different states, spanning a decade, hardly suggests that any policy exists that specifically classified gender identity rejection as abuse or neglect. And there is no group advocating for such a policy.
“No one is advocating for removing children because a parent is struggling to understand,” Shannon Minter, vice president of legal at the National Center for LGBTQ Rights, told ABC News this week. “But child welfare professionals need the discretion to assess when rejection crosses the line into real harm, the same way they would for any other child.
