Fifteen years ago if somebody was up here and said that, they’d say ‘What’s wrong with him?’ ” President Trump said Tuesday in his State of the Union address. Said what? “Surely we can all agree no state can be allowed to rip children from their parents’ arms and transition them to a new gender against the parents’ will.” When Democratic lawmakers declined to stand in assent to that statement, the president declared: “These people are crazy.”
Mr. Trump had introduced Sage Blair, 19, and her adopted mother (and biological paternal grandmother), Michele. Their story is unbelievable—and part of a horrifying trend.
Sage was 14 and a high-school freshman when she declared she was a boy. Her Virginia school “transitioned” her without informing Michele. The school counselor told her to use the boys’ bathroom, where she was assaulted. Police and school officials met with Sage without her parents, warning she could be sued for making the hyperbolic statement that “all the boys are rapists.” Fearing harm to her family, Sage ran away. She was kidnapped by a sex trafficker.
When the Federal Bureau of Investigation rescued Sage in Maryland, a state judge denied Ms. Blair and her husband all contact with their traumatized daughter and withheld custody on claims of abuse related to “misgendering.” The judge ordered her to be housed in a group home for high-risk male teens and young adults. Sage ran away again, only to be abducted by another trafficker and exploited for months until Texas law-enforcement officers found her and returned her to her mother. Why did she claim to be a boy? “Everybody was doing it,” Sage later explained. “I just wanted to have friends.”
The child-welfare system has been hijacked through federally and state-funded programs to classify parents as abusive if they don’t accept their children’s assertions that they are members of the opposite sex. Several liberal states have codified this view into law. Washington enacted legislation permitting children as young as 13 to leave their homes and not be returned to their parents if they are seeking sex-rejecting medical interventions. Colorado lawmakers have repeatedly introduced bills that would require courts in custody disputes to favor a parent who “affirms” his child’s trans identity.
Even when courts determine no child abuse has occurred, children are being removed from homes through networks of runaway shelters and nonprofits. Nonfamilial adults are hiding children who are confused about their sex, and child-welfare departments extend investigations until the child turns 18, rendering the cases moot.
Many states permit or require that foster placements and residential facilities affirm a child’s “gender identity” and consent to medical interventions. That sends a message that the foster-care system offers an exit from parental authority.
The mantra offered to parents is no longer “would you rather have a dead daughter or a living son?” It is “would you rather lose custody of your child, or ‘transition’ her?” Sage Blair’s story is far from unique, and its ending is a relatively happy one.
In Connecticut, Elvira Sayed faced child-abuse proceedings for declining to affirm that her daughter was a boy. Before the case was resolved, the daughter turned 18 and cut off contact with Ms. Sayed. The young lady died by suicide shortly after beginning testosterone treatment. Her body wasn’t discovered for four days.
Connecticut also removed Charles Smith’s daughter from his home for refusing to treat her as male. She had severe psychiatric co-morbidities and had carved up her body from her arms to her feet, but the state viewed her transgender identity as paramount. They took and placed her with an “affirming” gay couple.
California removed Andriy and Alexandra Lyashchencko’s daughter for not treating her as male. The state placed her in an “affirming” foster home, where she shares a bedroom with a teenage boy. Oregon investigated Ashly Wallace four times for alleged abuse for not affirming her trans-identified daughter. She was cleared each time. Her daughter had used Oregon’s shelter system designed for homeless youth to avoid a mother who never abandoned her.
In Washington state, Jodie and David Holman’s daughter used free nonprofit legal services to leave home and was placed with an unvetted stranger. The parents weren’t found to be abusive, and their daughter was eventually returned. But she subsequently fled again and has been missing for months.
Vernadette Broyles, Sage’s lawyer, says that ideologues have used laws designed to protect children as a cover for their abuse: “Confidentiality requirements governing child-welfare proceedings conceal the full extent to which the child welfare apparatus is being used to investigate, coerce and separate children from their parents who decline to affirm their children’s rejection of their sex.”
State legislatures have begun to respond. Texas, North Carolina and Indiana have enacted laws clarifying that raising children consistent with their sex doesn’t constitute child abuse. Lawmakers in Ohio, Georgia and New Hampshire are taking up similar measures. Democrats have killed similar measures in Virginia each year since Sage’s Law was introduced in 2023 and refused even to hold a hearing for Yaeli’s Law in California. Yaeli’s Law is named for a teenage girl who died by suicide after the state removed her from her family because her mother refused to “transition” her.
Mr. Trump’s recognition of the Blairs at the State of the Union signals that the federal government is prepared to examine how the child-welfare infrastructure has been turned against the children it was designed to protect.
Ms. Hanford is a senior policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation. Ms. Friday is a lawyer and president of Our Duty USA.