Free Republic

The California Senate passed a bill that would ban parental notification for gender changes in public TK-12 and provide more resources to increase parental support of LGBTQ pupils. While parents broadly support disclosure rules and have approved them in many school districts, state leaders, including the attorney general — who has supported lawsuits against districts with disclosure rules — say these efforts harm transgender children. In the past year, school districts across California have adopted measures requiring parents to be notified if their children request to officially change their pronouns, go by a different name, or use facilities or school...

The controversial Equal Rights Amendment, which was on the ballot for the November elections in New York, has been tossed by a judge on procedural grounds. The ruling is a victory for Republicans and opponents of the bill who say it was written too broadly and could trample parents’ rights when it comes to decisions like children receiving gender-affirming procedures. The ERA was a rapid response by New York Democrats to the Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson’s Women’s Health Organization decision in June 2022. The amendment passed both houses of the New York legislature in a special session just one...

A Montana couple who lost custody of their 14-year-old daughter after refusing to let her transition claims the teen was taken by the state without a warrant. Todd and Krista Kolstads filed state and federal lawsuits claiming their child, born Jennifer but currently identifying as Leo, was taken from them because they opposed their gender transition due to their religious beliefs. In one of the suits, they claim the state's Child Protective Services lied to a court judge in order to take the 14-year-old child without a warrant, as reported by the Daily Montanan. The teen was removed from their...

Despite national attention and thousands of protesting parents, a federal court is refusing to allow parents to opt their children out of LGBT courses in school. The U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals decided on Wednesday that Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) in Maryland does not have to allow parents to opt their children out of LGBT-themed lessons. Judge G. Steven Agee, a George W. Bush appointee, claimed that the parents seeking to opt their children out of the lessons in question did not provide sufficient evidence to justify a preliminary injunction.In March of last year, MCPS added nearly two...

Parents cannot force a school district to let them pull their children out of classes with LGBTQ themes, an appeals court has ruled. Three sets of parents and a parental rights group sued the Montgomery County Public Schools board in Maryland after it announced the classes in 2022. They claimed not being allowed to opt out their kindergarten to grade 5 children violated their First Amendment rights to freedom of religion. But the 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals denied their request for a preliminary injunction 2-1 as the parents failed to show how the policy would infringe their rights...

TALLAHASSEE, Florida (LifeSiteNews) – The office of Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis sharply rebuked media outlet Axios and a Holocaust historian for using the latter’s purported academic credentials to malign a state law against LGBT indoctrination in public schools. In 2022, Florida enacted its Parental Rights in Education law over intense left-wing activist and corporate pressure. The law bans schools from teaching children in kindergarten through third grade about transgenderism and other sexuality-related issues, limits discussions of sexuality for older children to “age appropriate” content and requires parents to be informed of any changes that could affect their child’s physical,...

Gayle Borne has fostered more than 300 children in Springfield, Tennessee. She’s cared for kids who have rarely seen a doctor — kids so neglected that they cannot speak. Such children are now even more vulnerable because of a law Tennessee passed last year that requires the direct consent of birth parents or legal guardians for every routine childhood vaccination. Foster parents, social workers, and other caregivers cannot provide permission.In January, Borne took a foster baby, born extremely premature at just over 2 pounds, to her first doctor’s appointment. The health providers said that without the consent of the child’s...

Huntsville, Alabama is known for a few things, but one of its major “claim to fame” facts is that it’s the home of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center. It also has a Space and Rocket Center that holds exhibits like the Saturn V and hosts a Space Camp during the certain parts of the year for young kids interested in all things space! This year, parents are terrified to send their children to Space Camp because one of the staff members, Molly Bowman, is a transgender individual with a history of being a freak. Bowman is set to serve as...

There will be a new face on the Texas State Board of Education after Brandon Hall, a 27-year-old pastor from Parker County, defeated incumbent Pat Hardy in the District 11 Republican primary. Hall received 53.24% of votes compared to 46.76% for Hardy. Hall will advance to the general election along with Democrat Rayna Glasser, who ran unopposed in her party’s primary. Hall ran on a platform of protecting parental rights, preventing the teaching of Critical Race Theory and promoting Christian conservative values in education. He’s also a supporter of Gov. Greg Abbott’s push for voucher-like education savings accounts, which would...

NASHVILLE, Tenn.—A Christian who faced persecution for her faith in Communist Romania in the 1980s and barely survived an assassination attempt orchestrated by dictator Nicolae Ceausescu warns that the undermining of parental rights in the U.S. today echoes Ceausescu’s totalitarian government. “It’s the same system that the socialists use in order for parents to be put in jail that the students, kids, will be taught in school to report their [parents] to school,” Virginia Prodan, a human rights lawyer who grew up in Communist Romania but came to the U.S. after President Ronald Reagan secured her release... She raised the...

According to leaked documents, the World Professional Association for Transgender Health is pushing hormonal and surgical transitions for minors. Getty Images Newly leaked files from the world’s leading transgender health-care organization reveal it is pushing hormonal and surgical transitions for minors, including stomach-wrenching experimental procedures designed to create sexless bodies that resemble department-store mannequins. The World Professional Association for Transgender Health documents demonstrate it’s controlled by gender ideologues who push aside concerns about whether children and adolescents can consent to medical treatments that WPATH members privately acknowledge often have devastating and permanent side effects. Yet the US government, American doctors...

The encore episode of the "Generation Indoctrination" podcast, hosted by Brandon Showalter, delved into the heartrending story of a father fighting against the medicalization of his gender-confused son, revealing the depth of the impact of entrenched gender ideology on family courts, legal systems and medical institutions. The story of Ted Hudacko, a father from the San Francisco Bay Area, was the focus of the season three bonus episode, titled “A Father Fights Back: How the Family Courts Facilitated The Sterilization Of His Gender-Confused Minor Son.” The story, according to Showalter, epitomizes the struggles many face in the complex and often...

The American Psychological Association (APA) has adopted a policy statement that promotes K-12 transgenderism and denounces child-protection laws.

Parents aren't just fighting to uncover the influence of gender ideology activists in their children's public schools, but their influence with federal policymakers who stand to upend 50 years of policy on sex discrimination in schools by redefining it to include gender identity. The Biden administration has neither turned over its communications with activists related to the development of its proposed Title IX regulations in response to a Freedom of Information Act request, nor given any meaningful update in more than a year and a half, a new FOIA lawsuit alleges. Parents Defending Education said it asked the Department of...

Today we're joined by Todd and Krista Kolstad, Montana parents who find themselves entangled in an ongoing months-long custody battle for their 14-year-old daughter. The couple candidly open up about the challenges they faced and the heartbreak they endured after losing custody of their daughter. Montana's Child and Family Services gained custody of their daughter when they refused to affirm her newfound "gender identity" as a boy. We delve into the origin of the dispute, starting as a seemingly minor disagreement and escalating into a legal battle that no parent could anticipate. The Kolstads courageously navigate through the difficult terrain...

A recently-introduced bill in the state of Illinois would change the definition of “abused child” to include minors whose parents object to their children receiving puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, transgender surgeries, and abortions. House Bill 4876, which was introduced in early February, also shields doctors from liability if they prescribe such treatments to minors who do not have parental consent — and empowers the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) to step in and, if they deem it necessary, remove children from their biological parents based on the new definition of an “abused child.” According to the legislation,...

A bill introduced in the Illinois House of Representatives would legally define it as ‘child abuse’ for parents to object to gender transitioning of their children by way of puberty blocking, cross sex hormones or surgery.The legislation, Bill 4876, introduced earlier this month, would also protect doctors from liability should they decide to prescribe those treatments to children who have not gotten parental consent.The legislation would also allow for the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) to take children away from their parents for opposing such procedures.The legislation also allows for minors to be afforded the same legal...

Do you think parents should have a say in the medical procedures performed on their children? Most people do, at least in Middle America. It is only in the rarified air the Elite breathe--you know, the people who love the smell of their own gaseous emissions--that letting parents have a say in their child's medical care is controversial. New York is one of those places, which is why NYC smells like a sewer at the height of summer. 🚨 This NY bill “would allow any child or teen under 18 to seek out and consent to medical treatment — including...

An Indiana Catholic couple whose child was removed from their home following disagreements over their son expressing a desire to identify as the opposite sex are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to hear their case. Parents Mary and Jeremy Cox follow the Bible’s teachings on human sexuality, ascribing to the belief that God designs humans as male and female. Because of their religious beliefs and adherence to biological reality, they could not abide using feminine pronouns to identify their son, who demanded to be called by a female name after he told his parents in 2019 that he identified as...

Parents ask Supreme Court to hold Indiana reponsible for removing transgender child from their home ... In 2019, Mary and Jeremy's son told them that he identified as a girl, but in line with their Catholic religious beliefs that God created human beings with an immutable sex, male or female, they did not believe in referring to him using pronouns and a name inconsistent with his biology. ACLU SUES CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL FOR HALTING ADULT TRANSGENDER SURGERIES In addition, the Coxes believed their son was struggling with underlying mental health conditions, including an eating disorder, so they sought therapeutic care for...