"I'm Prepared to Lawyer Up"

An interview with parental rights lawyer Vernadette R. Broyles

Many of us have heard the horror stories out of Texas, where some parents have been investigated by child protective services for allowing their children to medically transition—that is, they’ve been penalized for doing what they believe and have been told by clinicians is best for their kids. This is a gross misuse of state power to triangulate between parents and kids, a usurping of parental rights.

But CPS has also been weaponized to investigate parents who don’t want to medically or socially transition a child. Indeed, at the World Professional Association of Transgender Health’s annual conference, experts encouraged the use of CPS for such a purpose. This is also a gross misuse of state power and a usurping of parental rights.

WPATH suggesting the use of CPS/from SwipeWright on Twitter

So, too, is the widespread practice of allowing teachers to withhold information about a child’s gender identity and secret social transition from parents, especially because social transition itself is contested within the clinical community.

Many gender-affirming clinicians say that parents are included in decisions about pediatric and adolescent gender transition, both social and medical—parents consent, children assent. But the truth is, some laws, regulations and individual activists allow kids to access gender medicine without parental consent, and some activists preach family abolition, wanting to separate children who identify as trans from non-affirming parents.

These are the kinds of parents who come to lawyer Vernadette R. Broyles. Some who engage her have already lost custody of their children—not for abusing or neglecting them, but for not being willing to affirm and medicate them. Some have discovered that their kids already socially transitioned at school, not only without the parents’ knowledge but often deliberately keeping them in the dark, assuming the worst of parents and violating due process—effectively marking them as unfit with no investigation or evidence. Many understand that the suicide claims often used to justify these secret transitions are unsupported by evidence, no matter how many times the media repeats them, and that Sweden, Finland, medical organizations in France and the UK have all questioned the affirmative approach.

I’ve interviewed Vernadette twice for stories, one that The New York Times requested I write (but then didn’t publish) about schools secretly socially transitioning kids, the other for a piece about parents being investigated by CPS for not affirming or medicating their kids. Meanwhile, many of the parents I’ve interviewed—whose kids had sudden gender issues and demanded medical interventions—felt powerless and defeated, terrified of losing an emotional and even legal connection to their children. I asked Vernadette to talk about what rights we as parents have.

LD: How is it that a parent can be investigated by CPS for not affirming a trans identity or medicating gender dysphoria, when that’s not officially a form of child abuse or neglect?

VB: What is typically happening in these cases is eerily similar. The claims of the gender dysphoric child are conspicuously similar, almost scripted, inevitably claiming to be suicidal if forced to go back to parents who refuse to endorse their psychological identity, that which is a biological impossibility. It’s not that parents are against anything; they’re just for raising their child rooted in reality, and to be able to cope with physical reality because that’s what good parents have to do about a whole variety of issues.

When the children claim to be suicidal, it’s usually an obvious cry for help, but that can also be mixed with a measure of manipulation. Frequently it’s also mixed with a claim of some sort of sexual violation or abuse, by someone in the family.

Otherwise good, caring parents now become the subject of CPS investigations and subject to loss of custody because of the child claiming that typically she is going to commit suicide if the parents do not do what the child wants.

LD: So parents are charged with neglect because they allegedly did not protect the child from an abusive member of the family or not doing what activist mental health professionals claim the parents need to do to keep the child from harming themselves?

VB: Correct. The real challenge for parents is that so many of the mental health professionals in these facilities have been trained in the gender ideology dogma and how to respond to a child with gender dysphoria, or feel intimidated by the portion of the practice that has been.

When you have an absence of mental health professionals prepared to provide the child with actual mental health treatment that’s needed, but are prepared to endorse this claim [of transition or die], then the parents are in a real pickle. They can really create difficulties for the parents. That involves an attack on the rights of parents who remain committed to raising their child in accordance with biological reality. It places them at a terrible and unfair disadvantage.

LD: What should a parent do if they’re being investigated?

VB: Their first line of defense is in the court itself, and bringing in experts who will be able to educate the court as to the actual science and medicine underpinning this phenomenon. [Some resources below.] If that fails, it’s the appellate courts and then finally civil rights lawsuits. All this requires bleeding financially and emotionally. It’s very, very, very difficult. You have to find some place and start there, where you can begin to push back.

I worked with a couple in Arizona. They were completely blindsided by their child’s transition and were investigated by CPS and lost custody; the father hasn’t seen his daughter in a year-and-a-half. These parents have been devastated in every conceivable way by a court that believes the ideology, not the science.

The encouraging thing is that we’re learning from these early situations. We can get smarter. In another case, the judge dismissed the case and the child is recovering and not in the system, and her mental health is improving.

The other thing is that parents do have due process rights and 4th amendment rights under the Constitution. So when a CPS person contacts you, you’re not required to let them speak to you or your child or to let them into your home if they don’t have a warrant or a court order.

Know your right to respectfully say, “I appreciate your interest but unless you have a court order or warrant, I’m not prepared to allow you into my home or to speak to my child. We can make an appointment for you to come back when I have my attorney present.” Sometimes that takes care of it.

LD: What kind of attorney should a parent retain (if they have the means)?

VB: They should get an attorney who is familiar with CPS and who practices in juvenile court.

LD: Is there anything we can do prophylactically, to avoid getting into these situations?

VB: Even before you get any contact from CPS, if you have a child that’s making claims about distress with her body, her female sex (I say “she” because that’s the majority, though it could be he), don’t play around with it. It’s serious. Get good mental health help right away. That means a psychotherapist who will do good exploratory psychotherapy of the whole family dynamic, what is at the core of this distress with being female.

We need to see this phenomenon as a manifestation of that same distress that took different forms in the past: bulimia or anorexia or cutting. If you see it as a similar manifestation, it’s a little less overwhelming.

Begin checking the internet history, social media and the phone, and immediately begin to intervene if need be. When you have a child in your home, you have the parental authority. You can cut that influence off. The same with friend groups.

The third major influence is the school. More and more, you have ideologically-driven teachers or counselors that are propagating this in schools and not telling you about it. I would demand some answers about what’s going on in school. Parents have no say in the curriculum in many (although not all) states, so if necessary, you should consider taking your child out.

LD: While you’ve noted that secretly socially transitioning children is a violation of our constitutional parental rights, it’s also mandated by school guidelines in certain states, and teachers can get fired if they don’t maintain a child’s secret from his or her parents. What can we do to try to keep secret social transitions from happening?

VB: We advise parents to write a strongly-worded letter, making it clear to the superintendent, to the principal, to the assistant principal, to the counselor what will be allowed with your child and what will not be allowed. Make it clear that your child is not allowed to have any private conversations with an adult about her gender identity without your knowledge and consent. And that you expect to be contacted and involved if your child ever expresses confusion or distress about her biological sex or any other mental health issue. We encourage people to cc an attorney. What that signals to them is: I’m prepared to lawyer up. Most schools don’t want to have to fight these battles.

Resources:
For therapists:
Gender Exploratory Therapy Association

For information about the actual science of gender-affirming care:
See studies at SEGM
This piece and this piece on what the science really says
Stats For Gender

For information on constitutional parental rights:
American Bar Association
Parentalrights.org

For parental support:
Genspect
Our Duty
Baywater Support
Parents of ROGD Kids
Cardinal Support Network