Father Fights To Keep Government From Sterilizing His Son

After raising concerns about his then-13-year-old son taking puberty blockers and starting on a path to irreversible, experimental, and life-long medical interventions to “transition” into a girl, the Colorado government stripped father Robert Cameron of all rights to protect his child.

Colorado was able to do that because the child’s mother and Cameron’s ex-wife, Nancy Drake, used Colorado’s “affirmation only” legal structure to wage a war against Cameron through the courts. Drake, who joined forces with an activist therapist, has been able to use government force to push the now-14-year-old boy into the transition interventions which, if pursued in full, have the power to sterilize, reduce brain development, and cause bone density issues, among a host of other gruesome effects.

“My child is more important to me than whatever the court system may do to me. If my child needs to be saved, it’s my job as a parent to save him, and he needs to be saved right now. He needs to be saved from predation and manipulation,” Cameron told The Federalist. “I haven’t slept well in forever because I’m afraid for my child. I also see the adults preying on this child’s innocence. This all falls under the sexualization of children that we are engaging in as a society. That’s absolutely appalling. And I’m not even talking about the medical experiments we’re doing on children.”

In order to protect the identity of the minor child, The Federalist has given his parents pseudonyms, and removed other information that could lead to identifying him.

Cameron’s primary goal is to have his son be able to wait until he is 18 to make the decision, but Drake, who appears to have trigger-happy, extraordinarily litigious lawyers behind her, need the transition to start now, no questions asked — literally.

Drake, an academic in a left-wing community in Colorado with whom Cameron shares joint custody, successfully got the state of Colorado to block Cameron’s oversight over their son’s medical treatment or even speak to him about transgenderism, using suicide statistics among those confused about their gender as the primary reason why. Despite the fact that evidence shows pediatric gender transition does not reduce rates of suicide, the more curious fact is that Cameron’s son has never been suicidal. Cameron confirmed that to The Federalist, and the arbitrator admits that fact in court documents reviewed by The Federalist.

Even more, while the court stripped Cameron of his rights over his son’s treatment and allowed the medical transition of a minor, the child also expressed doubts about whether he even wanted to go through with a transition — something that, to most objective medical professionals, would have raised a red flag about going through with the interventions at all.

“I’m scared for my son. I can’t talk to my son about what’s going through his head. That’s unacceptable — the state can’t do that. That’s just not okay,” Cameron said. “I should be able to talk my son about anything. Is he gonna like it? Some of it, he will. Some of it, he won’t. I have a very good relationship with all my kids. I am precluded by a court order from speaking to my son about the subject of transgenderism.”

Drake did not respond to The Federalist’s request for comment, but within minutes of the request being sent, she threatened Cameron with calling Child Protective Services if he spoke to the media, claiming doing so means that he “intended [their son] to be harmed” and that it is “proof of child abuse.”

Some weeks ago, Drake also attempted to stop Cameron’s ability to speak to pretty much anyone by requesting a gag order on top of the others already issued that would encompass “friends … anyone in our social circle … activists, and … the media,” claiming it puts their children (their son is one of two twins, the other, a girl) in “physical, medical, and psychological danger,” according to an email sent to the case arbitrator reviewed by The Federalist.

Drake threatened Cameron’s ability to have parenting time with their children at all. As of press time, the request for the gag order has been rescinded.

Government-Enforced Gender Transition

Colorado law is stacked against Cameron and enforces a model that essentially requires parents, therapists, and doctors to pursue gender transition for minors, no matter what.

Drake was able to wield the law in her favor starting last year because, despite having been divorced since 2013, the parents’ disagreements over the best path for their son’s confusion about gender ended with bringing on a medical arbitrator in 2024.

Cameron wanted to take a more measured approach, pursuing exploratory therapy until his son turned 18, as opposed to immediate medical intervention.

“In the case of trans children, the question to ask is, ‘Are you sure you’re not just gay? What makes you think you are a girl? And do you even know what a girl is?’ Because I point blank, asked my son that question — ‘What do you think would make you a woman?’ — and he couldn’t answer that,” Cameron said. “He didn’t know what it was. He just felt effeminate. Well, fine. You know, boys come in all shapes and sizes. That approach is illegal in Colorado. You can lose your license as a therapist if you practice anything other than affirmation.”

Drake, who did not respond to a request for comment, allegedly refused to take that approach and demanded that their child see a therapist who would inevitably seek transition. The arbitrator then placed Cameron under the gag order.

“The only option offered by the state or by the courts is affirmation,” Cameron added. “That’s what the mediator, arbitrator basically forced me into: Either your affirm, or the ex-wife gets full power of medical decision.”

In an attempt to warn his son of the kinds of interventions he was about to pursue, Cameron frustratingly told him things like “these doctors will cut off your d*ck with a d*ck saw,” and “no son of mine will socially transition.” But the arbitrator used that against him, saying Cameron was “exposing [his son] to his own version of conversion therapy.” Drake claimed that their son was “bombarded with anti-trans propaganda.”

“His statements capture the deep frustration of a father who has been stripped of his parental rights and placed under a gag order, preventing him from advocating for his son’s medical care. His words reflect the immense emotional toll of fighting a system that has silenced him while allowing life-altering decisions to be made without his consent,” Lori Gimelshteyn, executive director of the Colorado Parent Advocacy Network (CPAN), told The Federalist. “[He is] a father who is deeply fearful, feeling powerless as he watches his child being placed on a medical path he believes is premature and irreversible. These statements, as alleged in the report, should be viewed as expressions of desperation and anguish, not intent to harm or manipulate. His words stem from love, concern, and the overwhelming weight of being forced out of his child’s life.”

The arbitrator, whom Cameron said has never met his son and only spoke to him on the phone, made the decision for him. “It’s a medical decision made by an attorney,” Cameron said.

The arbitrator’s decision was all-encompassing, and says in part:

[Nancy] is awarded sole decision making for all decisions concerning [the son’s] treatment for his gender dysphoria, including without limitation, a. which therapist(s) [the son] shall see … b. [the son’s] treatment at the True Center, or another treatment facility or doctor to address [the son’s] desire to transition; c. whether [the son] should socially transition; d. whether [the son] shall take hormone blockers; and d. whether [the son] should take hormones or participate in other treatment.

…

[Robert] shall not attend any appointments with [the son] and [Nancy] dealing with [the son’s] transgender treatment. … 

…

[Robert] shall not try to persuade [the son] that he is too young to make a decision or show him movies or videos about transgender issues that support [Robert’]s position. In essence, [Robert] needs to be emotionally supportive of [the son’s] desire to transition.

Colorado has some of the most harmful laws in the country when it comes to allowing children to transition and removing parents from the equation.

The state is home to multiple “clinics” that specialize in the mutilation and chemical castration of children, and has “shield laws” that allow residents of other states to obtain the procedures, while giving the doctors legal protections from other states whose resident they maimed.

Colorado also requires foster care children who are confused about their gender to be placed in homes with parents who will only “affirm” their confusion, as opposed to allow them to find help or guidance.

The “affirmation” model requires that doctors, parents, and anyone else involved in the decision-making process unquestioningly accept a child’s claimed gender instead of their biological one. This kind of conditioning often leads children to eventually pursue social, physical, and chemical “transition,” which includes being called by different names and pronouns, starting on a regimen of puberty blockers, cross-sex hormone treatments, and other drugs, and eventually undergoing genital mutilation surgeries.

The situation could actually get worse, as a new bill in the Colorado state House introduced last week would codify essentially every legal roadblock and the erosion of parental rights pursued by Drake.

“Section 2 provides that, when making child custody decisions and determining the best interests of a child for purposes of parenting time, a court shall consider deadnaming, misgendering, or threatening to publish material related to an individual’s gender-affirming health-care services as types of coercive control,” the proposed law states. “A court shall consider reports of coercive control when determining the allocation of parental responsibilities in accordance with the best interests of the child.”

Colorado is one of many states with similar laws.

“Every system meant to protect children — the courts, the mental health professionals, even the law itself — has been turned against [Robert], not because he’s unfit, but because he refuses to parent according to the state’s ideology,” Gimelshteyn, who has been working with Cameron, added. “[Robert] is not abusive. He is a loving father who believes his 14-year-old son deserves time, truth, and comprehensive mental health support — not rushed, irreversible medical interventions.”

She said her organization is trying to advocate for “every parent who finds themselves punished for protecting their child when the system abandons its duty of care.”

‘Grooming’ Children

A common story among teenagers who claim to be transgender is that they were influenced by subversive sources online to pursue their newfound identity.

But that is not the case with Cameron’s son. In fact, Cameron said his children are fairly well protected because their internet access is limited.

According to Cameron’s allegations in court filings, however, Drake was a heavy influence in pushing their two children first to be “gay” as young children, and then at least their son to be transgender as a teenager.

“Around the time the twins were 5 years old (2016), [Nancy] decided that they were gay,” Cameron wrote in a June 8, 2024 letter reviewed by The Federalist. “For whatever reason, probably to follow the current [community] trends … she started cross-dressing the kids.”

Cameron explained that Drake had also cut their daughter’s hair to look like a boy, and did not cut their son’s hair so that he could look like a girl.

The two were taken to a specialist to be evaluated for being gay as extremely young children, who, according to Cameron’s letter, determined that they were normal five-year-olds. “‘Well, they’re a five-year-old boy and girl. I don’t know what to tell you,’” Cameron recalled of the doctor’s evaluation to The Federalist.

Some years later, the conversation changed from being “gay” to being “transgender,” which Cameron attributes to Drake following the in-vogue trend among left-wing elites and academics at the time. Drake did not respond to a request for comment.

“After several conversations with [my son], I discovered that he is quite [versed] in the transgender issues,” Cameron wrote. “At 10-11 years old he was well aware of the puberty blockers and cross gender hormones. It is unusual for such a young child to know this much about medical transitioning and he certainly did not learn it from me. His internet access is under the parental control software, so it was not the web. That just left [Nancy]. Sure enough, [Nancy] still pushed the narrative of [our son] being born in the wrong body and restarted the effort to transition him.”

By 2022, when the twins were 12 years old, Cameron was hearing more from Drake that their son was transgender. While their daughter, whom Cameron describes as having matured faster than her brother, started refusing to get her hair cut short, requested to see a normal therapist as opposed to an “equine trauma therapist,” and “grew out of whatever influence her mother had and became a regular teenager,” their son started weighing a transition.

But, according to court documents, their son appeared completely unsure about identifying as a girl and, as Cameron wrote, “[My son’s] opinions on what he was, is and will be, kept changing depending on who he was talking to — [Nancy], me, therapist or friends … He was all over the place and to me that confirmed the immaturity.”

While Cameron said that his son “was not interested in any medical interventions,” by 2023, his son was seeing a therapist who specializes in transgender identity allegedly insisted upon by Drake. The therapist in question had her own transgender-identifying child and an office plastered with gay and transgender pride flags, Cameron said.

Cameron’s son “became more certain that he is trans,” the letter states. The child was quickly swept to the TRUE Center for Gender Diversity — part of the Children’s Hospital Colorado that focuses entirely on mutilating and castrating children. The center stopped surgeries in 2023, but continues to give drugs to children.

“I consider this to be a form of grooming, where you’re presenting to an emotional and susceptible child one side of the story, that if you think you are a effeminate, you’re obviously a girl,” Cameron told The Federalist. “He is being manipulated. He’s being manipulated by the activists that have an agenda and the money behind that agenda of pushing children into opposite gender in the process of destroying the children and the family.”

As The Federalist previously reported, the kind of insistence and affirmation grooming alleged by Cameron can be extremely detrimental to children, as attested by numerous detransitioners — those who were coerced into medical transition and later regret the irreversible alterations they made to their bodies.

A May 2024 text exchange between Cameron and his son shows that the child in one moment said he was ready to “socially transition,” but only three minutes later said, “I changed my mind … I don’t know if I’m ready.”

However, like clockwork, within a few short months of seeing this new affirmation-only therapist, the son was approved to start taking puberty blockers last September, and Cameron believes he is presently on them.

Blackmailing The Courts

While the court arbitrator paved the way for Cameron’s son to start puberty blockers, citing suicide rates, the arbitrator also admitted that the child is not suicidal and the puberty blockers would not necessarily do anything to improve his mental health.

In Colorado, that reality apparently does not matter.

“Since suicide mortality in minors with gender dysphoria is related to other psychiatric history rather than their gender dysphoria, and since the annual suicide risk is thankfully closer to 1 in 10,000 than 1 in 2 [as it is often falsely portrayed to be], parents and courts should not be blackmailed into encouraging unproven medical interventions for this condition,” Dr. Travis Morrell, chair of the Colorado Principled Physicians and senior fellow at Do No Harm, wrote in an expert briefing to the court on Cameron’s behalf.

Morrell cited the vast array of evidence suggesting that any kind of benefit to starting children on these kinds of drugs either does not exist or is completely unknown.

“The multi-year Cass Review Final Report recommended medical GAC [gender affirming care] (puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones) be restricted to experimental studies with 10-15 year follow-up, as it recognized that many kids ‘detransition’ in half that time,” he wrote. “The same comprehensive report found ‘the evidence does not adequately support the claim that gender-affirming care reduces suicide risk.’ This was based on a peer-reviewed systematic review — the highest level evidence — that found no proof for the efficacy of puberty blockers, even for ‘gender dysphoria, mental and psychosocial health or cognitive development.’”

The Cass Review is a 2024 British paper debunking much of the propaganda pushed by far-left proponents of gender transition for minors. Its findings caused multiple countries to stop their mutilation and castration operations for minors, and has been cited in several states for their own bans on the interventions — including in the U.S. Supreme Court case United States v. Skrmetti.

Last year, the United Kingdom found an “unacceptable safety risk” in prescribing puberty blockers to children under the age of 18 and indefinitely blocked the practice.

On Appeal

Right now, Cameron is appealing the decisions made by Colorado courts to strip him of his rights. His lawyers told The Federalist that there may also be First Amendment considerations regarding some of the gag orders and attempts from Drake, who did not respond to a request for comment, to silence him.

The Trump administration shows another sign of hope, too.

On Jan. 28, President Donald Trump signed an executive order blocking federal funding going toward operations that support transgender interventions for children.

For now, however, Cameron simply hopes his son can see through the pressure, at least until he is 18.

“Find out what a girl is. Find out what a boy is. Find out if you’re attracted to girls or boys. Find out where you fit into this big, great world of ours. Find out what you want to contribute to this world — you have so much learning to do, so much exploration,” Cameron said. “Don’t fixate on something that science has shown, if we leave you alone, you’ll probably forget about within the next few years.”

Breccan F. Thies is an elections correspondent for The Federalist. He previously covered education and culture issues for the Washington Examiner and Breitbart News. He holds a degree from the University of Virginia and is a 2022 Claremont Institute Publius Fellow. You can follow him on X: @BreccanFThies.