Virginia Republican Moves To Ban Calling ‘Misgendering’ Child Abuse After Girl Is Kept From Her Parents For It

A Virginia lawmaker wants to make sure no parent is accused of child abuse for using their own offspring’s natural pronouns.

Thursday’s presentation by Dave LaRock, State Delegate “Sage’s Law” In response to the horrifying story of a girl from rural Virginia who was kept in Baltimore’s youth center for boys for months after Maryland officials claimed that her family home was unsafe because her grandmother, 72, accidentally called the trans-identifying youth. “she.”

Yesterday, The Daily Wire reported on the story of how Sage was trafficked to Baltimore FBI discovered her at the hands of a convicted prostitute, which Baltimore then took to Baltimore and placed her in a group home. She was then sex traded again.

Maryland held her there, despite a state agency saying the Interstate Compact on Juveniles required her return to her home state, based on the perception that her grandmother and grandfather, who had adopted her as their own child, were not sufficiently accepting of her transgender identity—though evidence of this was flimsy because her school in deep-red Virginia had concealed the fact that she was living as a boy from her parents, who found out only shortly before she was trafficked.

Sage’s Law, also called HB 2432 “Minors & students self-identifying as a gender different from biological sex; parental notification,” would require schools to inform parents if their children are transitioning gender in school; block counselors from encouraging children to keep secrets from their parents; and ensuring that laws on child abuse cannot be interpreted as including parents who don’t affirm a child’s gender transition.

Democrats are in a difficult spot due to Democrat Del. Elizabeth Guzman had already discussed a bill to accomplish this. Guzman copped to the planned bill after The Daily Wire uncovered the boasting of a nationally-renowned school psychologist who said she was working with a lawmaker fitting Guzman’s description “on a child protection bill that would make it illegal to not affirm.”

Guzman was elected as the lawmaker and spoke to local news “It could be a felony, it could be a misdemeanor, but we know that CPS charge could harm your employment, could harm their education, because nowadays many people do a CPS database search before offering employment.”

Later, she claimed that her bill did not include the word “affirm,” However, she failed to introduce a bill in 2020 that would have redefined the term. “abused or neglected child” Include one of the parents “inflicts, threatens to create or inflict, or allows to be created or inflicted upon such child a physical or mental injury on the basis of the child’s gender identity or sexual orientation.”

In Sage’s case, similar logic about emotional abuse formed the basis for holding her, with a lawyer writing that the child “had likely endured emotional abuse and neglect by his parents due to their failure to recognize his gender identity.”

Following outrage about Guzman’s proposal, Virginia Democrats distanced themselves from the proposal, with Minority Leader Don Scott telling the Washington Post, “She has assured me that that bill will not be introduced… If such a bill were introduced, he added, “it would be dead on arrival.”

If Democrats want to ensure that children are not separated from their parents over alleged emotional abuse—not only by future changes to the law, but by the arguments of social workers and lawyers in individual cases under current law—they could support LaRock’s bill which does just that, Laura Hanford, a parent advocate who played a role in pushing for Sage’s Law, told The Daily Wire.

“The Guzman bill shows that there’s a very real chance that kids could be taken away from their parents if they ‘misgender’ them. This is the opposite of the Guzman bill,” She said.

Scott did not immediately return The Daily Wire’s request for comment on whether Democrats will support the Republican proposal on parental rights.

A Virginia group called the Pride Liberation Project–with which the nationally-renowned school psychologist who helped craft Guzman’s proposal was also involved–offered trans youth that “In the event of you needing to leave your home, we can provide you with emergency housing from a supportive, Queer friendly adult.”

Liberals lashed out, calling it preposterous that their fellow travelers would actually take minors away from their parents and place them with other adults if a transgender youth said they didn’t feel accepted by their parents. However, that’s exactly what happened to Sage.

Hanford stated that hiding information about children by schools can increase their risk of being sex-trafficked. Children from good homes can also be placed in institutional living or foster homes if their loving parents are considered to be abusive.

Hanford and LaRock announced the bill Thursday at Virginia’s state capitol alongside Sage’s mother Michele Blair and a representative from the Family Foundation and the Gavel ProjectBlair was saved by the help of a friend, who also helped her.

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