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From the Daily Mail: A military family who lost custody of their autistic son after they refused to transition his gender are suing a major DC hospital.
The family said their boy had never shown any desire to become a girl until, at 16, he was hospitalized for self-harming after a bitter breakup with his girlfriend in 2021.
Staff at Children’s National Hospital informed the family that he wanted to be female and should be referred to using she/her pronouns going forward, the suit claims.
His army veteran parents, from Prince George County in Maryland, rejected the suggestion, saying their son was ‘impressionable’ due to being autistic.
The stunning report, published exclusively by Daily Mail, states that, according to the family’s lawsuit, the hospital began a ‘full-on campaign to transgender this child’ and accused staff of ‘mental re-programming’.
The report does not identify the parents, but says they are African-American, and in their 40s. They wish to remain anonymous to protect their son’s privacy.
When the parents rejected the hospital’s push to transition their son, they say the hospital “used its emergency policies to keep the boy in its units and reported the parents to child protection services.” The hospital held the teen for 41 days, claiming he had gender dysphoria.
CPS then moved the boy into foster care, and has never been allowed back to the family home. The boy, now 19, is still in foster care, as the family has been involved in a two-year legal battle to try to get him back.
The custody battle has drained the parent’s finances, and the father said they were forced to sell their thriving business and four-bedroom home to cover legal expenses.
“It changed our entire way of life, with the loss of a child and then with the loss of our income,” the father told the Daily Mail. They have now filed a $100 million lawsuit against the hospital.
Below is one disturbing excerpt from the report:
The lawsuit says the child is currently living with the hospital’s ‘non-gendered’ chaplain, Lavender Kelley, who regularly posts online about trans issues.
In one post on Facebook from 2022, Kelley said they supported transitioning children without their parents’ consent — saying they were ‘drained’ from arguing with families.
The suit adds that, since being removed from the care of his parents, the youngster has appeared in provocative and sexually suggestive poses on Instagram.
The story gets worse. When the teen was first placed in foster care, he was sent to live with a single foster mother “who had a previous assault charge and was alleged to be a close friend of Ms Kelley’s.”
In July, 2022 — the boy made a second suicide attempt, and was re-admitted to Children’s National as a girl. He also had a second autism assessment in August, but at this meeting the foster mother removed him — claiming it was not necessary, according to the lawsuit.
The foster mother then died unexpectedly, with the boy believed to have been moved into the care of Ms Kelley, according to the lawsuit.
The report also explains:
Children’s National is ranked the fifth best pediatric hospital in the country, and treats around 223,000 patients every year — including those with gender dysphoria. It also runs a ‘Gender and Autism Program’, which says it helps young children with autism to understand their gender.
