The conservative legal group America First Legal (AFL) has sued the state of Washington over a law that allows the state to keep parents in the dark about some runaway transgender kids.
Democratic Washington Gov. Jay Inslee signed a law in May allowing the state to keep the location of kids a secret if they are running away from home to access sex change operations. Senate Bill 5599 requires parental notification of a child’s whereabouts unless there are “compelling reasons” to withhold it. Reasons include “gender affirming treatment” and “reproductive health care services,” according to the legislation. Youth shelters are required to implement the law’s guidance by July 1, 2024.
“This new statute deprives certain parents of their fundamental rights under the United States Constitution to direct the care and upbringing of their children. America First Legal is proud to defend parental rights and stand up against the insidious ‘gender-affirming care’ agenda, which promotes using experimental medical procedures and drugs on minor children — potentially altering their lives forever,” AFL said in a press release. (RELATED: Conservative Legal Group Sues Target For Allegedly Misleading Investors On Corporate Equity Goals)
“Youth seeking certain medical services are especially at risk and vulnerable,” the Washington bill reads. “Therefore, the legislature intends to remove barriers to accessing temporary, licensed shelter accommodations for youth seeking certain protected health care services.”
Inslee, Attorney General Robert Ferguson and Secretary of the Washington Department of Children, Youth, and Families Ross Hunter are the defendants in the case. AFL is bringing the lawsuit on behalf of several parent groups as well as several individual parents.
/1🚨BREAKING — we sued the governor of Washington @GovInslee to block enforcement of a new “state-sanctioned kidnapping” bill that allows the state to hide kids from their parents to perform “gender transitions” – including disfiguring drugs and mutilating surgeries.
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— America First Legal (@America1stLegal) August 16, 2023
The lawsuit seeks a preliminary injunction against the law, and ultimately a permanent injunction against it taking effect. The plaintiffs allege the law violates the free speech and the free exercises clauses of the 1st amendment, the 14th amendment and specifically the due process clause of the 14th amendment.
“America First Legal is leading the courtroom charge against radical transgenderism and the sexual exploitation of our children by militant gender activists,” America First Legal President Stephen Miller said. “No state action more frighteningly illustrates the threat to our children than this law. This sick, authoritarian law essentially allows the state to kidnap children from their parents and hide their whereabouts to surgically and chemically mutilate them — and to formally deprive their parents of any legal ability to stop the medical disfigurement of their sons and daughters by gender extremists targeting their children.”
The Family Policy Institute of Washington (FPIW) in April accused the bill of putting vulnerable children in harm’s way.
“The bill does not state any point at which the host must contact the child’s parents, so the child could presumably be kidnapped from their parents for an indeterminate amount of time, and the parents would have no way of knowing who they were with, if they were safe, or if the police had any involvement in their child’s housing,” FPIW staff wrote in a press release.