‘Parental Nightmare’: Blue States Are Becoming Magnets For Runaway Kids Seeking Trans Treatments

Blue states across the country have implemented laws that allow children from other states to obtain sex changes and other “transgender” procedures within their jurisdiction.

California, New York and Minnesota are among states that have passed laws that allow minors to receive transgender procedures and sex changes despite the operations being illegal in the child’s home state. Some of the bills prohibit persons from being extradited back to their home state, and others allow children to become wards of the state when seeking transgender procedures, which experts described as a threat to parental rights in interviews with the Daily Caller News Foundation.

“This is the worst parental nightmare I can conceive of,” Sarah Perry, a senior legal fellow at the Heritage Foundation’s Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies, told the Daily Caller News Foundation.  “Allowing a state to come in and shield a child from the birth parent from out of state so as to allow that child to receive gender-affirming care in the state, has consequences for parental rights and custody law that will be felt for decades to come.”

At least 23 states have passed child sex change bans or bans on other transgender treatments, including Montana, Idaho, Utah, Arizona and North Dakota, among others. Republican Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine implemented a child sex change ban in January via executive order after vetoing a similar bill, a vote which the legislature overrode.

The California law, SB 107, was signed by Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom in September 2022. It allows children from other states to receive transgender procedures and sex changes in the state, shields them from prosecution by their home state, and allows the court to take “temporary jurisdiction” over the case of a child who is attempting to obtain “gender-affirming” care.

“If a minor wants to flee their state in pursuit of gender-affirming health care and flees to California, they’re shielded from their parents,” Perry told the DCNF.

“This bill shamelessly disregards parental responsibility. Parents hold a constitutional right to guide their children’s upbringing,” Sonja Shaw, president of Chino Valley Unified School District in California, told the DCNF.

Other legislation has similar language to the California bill regarding courts taking “temporary jurisdiction” over a child who wants to obtain “gender affirming” care.

Minnesota’s law, which was passed in April 2023, allows the state to have “temporary emergency jurisdiction” over a child present in the state if the child “has been unable to obtain gender-affirming health care.”

Several states have similar laws which would allow for minors and parents to avoid prosecution in the state when in search of transgender medical procedures and sex changes. Some of the laws also prohibit extradition of a child to a state that has banned the procedures.

A law passed last year in Colorado outlaws the extradition of a person for a “legally protected health-care activity,” which is defined as “transgender” procedures and abortions. The law also prohibits law enforcement from cooperating with other states which are investigating a person who fled their state to obtain transgender procedures or an abortion.

Another law in Illinois, passed in January 2023, prohibits the extradition of a person from the state who is charged for obtaining or attempting to obtain “lawful health care,” which is defined as abortion or transgender procedures.

New York’s law, passed in June 2023, prohibits police from cooperating with authorities outside of the state regarding a child seeking trans procedures. The bill also prohibits police in the state from stopping anyone from obtaining sex change procedures even if they’re doing so in violation of another state’s laws.

Democrats in Maine attempted to pass similar legislation this year.

A bill in Maine, LD 1735, failed to make it past committee in January. The bill allowed for Maine courts to have “temporary emergency jurisdiction” over a child who has been “unable to obtain gender-affirming health care or gender-affirming mental health care.”

“Parents were absolutely horrified hearing about the bill, and they didn’t even believe it could be real. To think that strangers thought they could make a better decision than loving parents was an incomprehensible thought to the parents who reached out,” Republican Maine state Rep. Katrina Smith, told the DCNF.

Maine’s failed bill would have prohibited law enforcement from making an arrest and participating in the extradition of a person pursuant to an out-of-state warrant for another state’s law banning transgender procedures.

Some have defended “transgender” procedures as necessary for “transgender” youth.

“Gender-affirming care is safe and widely recognized as an effective way to support the mental and physical health of transgender youth,” Democratic California Attorney General Rob Bonta said in a November 2023 press release.

“Gender-affirming care can literally save lives,” Equality California, an LGBTQ activist organization, said in a November 2023 statement.

Perry said that legislation allowing for runaway children to receive sex changes can only be challenged after someone’s child runs away to another state to receive the procedure.

“Here’s the problem with laws like this, in order to challenge the constitutionality, and there are major constitutional problems here, you need a plaintiff with standing,” Perry told the DCNF.

“That means that some poor parents somewhere are going to have to have a situation where the child leaves from their home state to California, is shielded in California, gets that ‘gender affirming care’ procedure and is unable to go to California and challenge the procedure without realizing that the damage has already been done.”