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On Tuesday, June 28, at 9am PST,
Who wants to step up & lead to stop this? I would love to, but I do not have the time. Be more than happy to use TReVoices as a platform to get the word out, but I cannot lead!
Scott Newgent
Ca
lifornia will hold its next hearing on California SB107, the California pediatric transgender medical sanctuary state bill. If passed it will usurp parental rights in the 49 other states, encourage runaways to flee to California to transition, and shield culpable enablers and profiting parties from accountability and consequences.
Below please find two pieces of essential reading in opposition to SB107, that demonstrate why the rest of the country should not trust California. Please take the time to read these statements and learn about the bill that California is currently considering—you will see that this bill will have devastating implications far beyond California.
Then please take the time to call the members of the Assembly’s Public Safety Committee TODAY, Monday, June 27, 2022, to oppose the bill—and let them know why. You can find contact information at https://apsf.assembly.ca.gov/membersstaff. You can also attend the hearing in person on June 28th (tomorrow, Tuesday) at 9:00am (PDT) at the Capitol in Sacramento, Room 126, or call in to the hearing. The call-in number to the hearing will not be posted until Tuesday morning. Please check https://apsf.assembly.ca.gov/hearings for updates. There will be other opportunities, as this has not gone to a full floor vote in either the Assembly or the Senate—however it is important that we send the message loud and clear, as early in the process as possible.
The sad fact is that this bill really doesn't change anything for minors, parents or families in California. Transgender ideology and activism has already achieved a powerful hold on the Californian court system—and parents and children are paying the price. Just read the cases of Ted Hudacko and Abigail Martinez and you will see how broken the California Family Courts, and Child and Family Services are.
If passed, SB107 will impacts the rest of the country. Your opposition to SB 107 will help prevent California’s radical anti-child policies from having a ripple effect across the nation. Wherever you are in the US, please light up the phone lines and inboxes of the legislators in Sacramento and let them know that the people of the 49 other States and territories do not want California doing this to our children or families.
Opposition & Legal Analysis, by Erin Friday, Esq.
INTRODUCTION
The purpose of enacting SB107 is to create a sanctuary state for parents and minors from other state’s absolute bans and criminalization of gender treatments for minors. However, the bill is significantly more expansive. SB107 is creating is a safe haven in California for all legitimate disputes for the care being provided. Body modification will be available in California, cafeteria-style. Gender Identity under the WPATH includes eunuchs/nullification. Only recently is nullification being offered in the marketplace. There are absolutely no safe guards in place or requirements that any child obtain a comprehensive mental health assessment that includes an exploration of causality before embarking on any gender treatments. Doctors in California are required to ignore their training and provide the patient with what the patient requests without question, so long as they consent and have the minimal capacity to perform any necessary post-procedure care. There is no other medical treatment in which that occurs outside of plastic surgery.
The gender interventions have a heavy medical burden, in that most are irreversible and will have a profound effect on the most basic human desires – procreation and sexual function. Currently, there is zero research into the efficacy, safety and medical necessity of gender transition in minors, let alone those claiming identities such as non-binary, eunuch, two-spirit and gender queer.
Even the alleged leaders in the field, Johanna Olson-Kennedy, Stephen Rosenthal and Madeline Deutch state that more research is needed. A four-site study is currently occurring on children, however, that study will be worthless in that there are no controls, which is the basis of all evidentiary studies.
SB107 will make it possible for parents/minors to avoid even the most minimal of safeguards in place for life-altering medical procedures for children. Parents and third parties can avoid any scrutiny about what they are subjecting a child to. Simple and necessary guardrails can be avoided if the child can reach California, with or without parents or their consent. Age limitations, parental consent requirements, psychological status, diagnostic requirements, etc. can all be circumvented provided that child sets foot in California. California courts must take jurisdiction over any child who arrives in California for any type of so-called gender affirming care.
SB107 violates the Full Faith and Credit, Article 4 of the US Constitution. SB107 will dismantle the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act. It violates parental rights under the holding of Troxel v. Granville (2000) 530 U.S 57 (parents have a fundamental right under the Fourteenth Amendment to oversee the care, custody and control of a child.)
No one, inclusive of parents, has the right to consent to the sterilization of a minor. Minors, regardless of how seemingly insistent or persistent they are, do not have the psychological acumen, developmental maturity or capacity to fully understand to what they are agreeing. Part of adolescence is to try on different identities, with consolidation only occurring on average at age 25. The number of those who regret gender treatments continues to climb, and will surely continue in that direction as obtaining gender interventions now requires only a simple request. Reddit/Detrans has grown by 60 new members a day for the last two months. Membership is now at almost 35,000, a doubling in a year.
The Definition of Gender Affirming Health Care and Gender Affirming Mental Health Care
The definitions of “gender affirming health care and “gender affirming mental health” must be fully understood to comprehend the breadth of SB107, the harms and unintended consequences. Pursuant to Section 16010.2 of the CA Welfare and Institutions Code,
“Gender affirming health care” means medically necessary health care that respects the gender identity of the patient, as experienced and defined by the patient, and may include, but is not limited to, the following: (i) Interventions to suppress the development of endogenous secondary sex characteristics.
(ii) Interventions to align the patient's appearance or physical body with the patient's gender identity. (iii) Interventions to alleviate symptoms of clinically significant distress resulting from gender dysphoria, as defined in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th Edition.
(B) “Gender affirming mental health care” means mental health care or behavioral health care that respects the gender identity of the patient, as experienced and defined by the patient, and may include, but is not limited to, developmentally appropriate exploration and integration of identity, reduction of distress, adaptive coping, and strategies to increase family acceptance.” (Emphasis added.)
The language of the statute permits the patient –a child– to determine interventions that she believes are medically necessary for herself as well as those which align with her desired appearance. Medical interventions could include nullification surgeries, which are surgeries designed to remove secondary sex characteristics - for example, the removal of breasts and nipples, the closing up of the vaginal opening or the removal of the gonads and surgical shortening of the penis. For examples of these surgeries, please visit San Francisco’s Align Surgical Center, run by a WPATH doctor. (WARNING the photographs of the success stories are graphic.) Gender interventions could also include comparatively benign laser-hair removal.
The gender affirming mental health care could encompass the use of the child/patient’s chosen name and pronouns.
Historically, gender treatments for minors required a diagnosis of gender dysphoria as defined in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5). At a minimum, the child needs to meet certain criteria, i.e., gender distress must be experienced consistently, persistently and insistently for a minimum of six months. The California “gender-affirming care” definitions and related laws have no threshold requirement that the child suffer from gender dysphoria before embarking on the path which will have life-long consequences. The child, even on a whim, can decide she does not like her breasts, and the removal of them would be covered under the definition of “gender affirming health care,” whether or not her distress rises to the level of a gender dysphoria diagnosis. The “may include, but is not limited to” and “as defined by the patient” phraseology in the statute places the child in the driver’s seat of what she believes she needs. There is no requirement of a mental health assessment to determine that the child has gender dysphoria before he or she can start on irreversible cross-sex hormones. This eradicates any gate-keeping or even guard rails for a child, or even a minimum mental health diagnosis, which is difficult to obtain given the inclusion of gender identity in the conversion therapy laws.
The only gate-keeper for the minor are the parents and other state’s applicable laws. SB107 removes parents’ authority to obtain therapeutic intervention and psychometric assessments and also removes the ability of governing bodies, inclusive of medical boards, to determine what is in the best interests of the child.
The Effect of the SB107 Proposed Amendment on Civil Code Section 56.109
The proposed amendment to Civil Code §56.109 states in relevant part:
“[A] provider of health care, health care service plan, or contractor shall not release medical information related to a person or entity allowing a child to receive gender-affirming health care in response to any civil action, including a foreign subpoena, based upon another state’s law that authorizes a person to bring a civil action against a person or entity that allows a child to receive gender-affirming health care. (Civil Code §56.109(a))(Emphasis added.)
Notwithstanding subdivision (c) of Section 56.103, a provider of healthcare . . . shall not release medical information to persons or entities who have requested that information and who are authorized by law to receive that information, pursuant to subdivision (c) of Section 56.10, if the information is related to a person or entity allowing a child to receive gender affirming health care, and the information is being requested pursuant to another state’s law that authorizes a person to bring a civil action against a person or entity who allows a child to receive gender-affirming health care.” (Civil Code §56.109(b)) (Emphasis added.)
The amendment to Civil Code §56.019 goes well beyond the stated purpose of the authors of this bill. This bill does not merely provide refuge for families with “trans kids” from laws criminalizing gender care for minors. The breadth of the statute is not even limited to criminal actions based upon a state’s prohibition of gender affirming health or mental care of a minor, but it affects civil action involving someone’s or some entities’ allowance of gender care. The foreign state does not need to have a ban on gender care to be precluded from obtaining records about gender treatment of a minor under this amendment. All 49 states are affected by this proposed amendment.
Moreover, the term “person” relative to this statute is defined expansively and ambiguously to include an individual, governmental subdivision, agency or instrumentality. What is meant by “instrumentality” is unclear. The expansive definition of “person” will protect government entities, including foster care, shielding them from civil action should they improperly subject a child to trans medicine.
Example 1: In New York, there is no ban on gender treatments for minors, provided there is consent by parents. Suppose a New York doctor performs a surgery on a minor without obtaining the requisite parental consent. The parents wish to sue the doctor for the damages to their child. SB107 changes to Civil Code §56.109 will have the following effect: the New York doctor can flee to California and avoid the negligence and malpractice lawsuit. Any civil subpoena served upon the New York doctor while he is in California must be ignored. Civil actions are authorized by New York against the doctor who allowed the gender treatment.
Example 2: Assume that a child in New York, becomes friendly with an on-line trans advocacy group. An adult in that group entices her to come to California to get away from her parents who want her to wait for any irreversible interventions. With help from the CA trans advocacy group, she gets testosterone. Parents, who have a right to file a civil action against the trans advocacy group that allowed their daughter to get gender-affirming care, cannot receive the medical records detailing what happened to their daughter.
Example 3: A non-Californian school teacher recommends to one of her students that she run off to California to get away from her non-affirming New York parents. The teacher is interfering with the parental rights and subject to a civil action. The parents in their civil suit would not be able to reach the teacher if she flees to California via the subpoena process. Nor could the parents pursue the teacher criminally based upon the proposed amendments to the Penal Code.
In sum, SB107 eviscerates parental authority and parents’ rights to pursue legal remedies against any and all wrongdoing, provided it included transgender interventions.
The Effect of the SB107 Proposed Amendments to Code of Civil Procedure Section 2029.300
Code of Civil Procedure §2029.300 is designed to permit litigants in other states to obtain records and discovery from persons in the state of California for evidentiary purposes of litigation in the parties’ home state. SB107 blocks the receipt of certain records from California for use in other states’ actions.
Again, these amendments are significantly more wide-reaching than the purported purpose of the bill, which is to provide refuge for out-of-state actors that violate their own state’s law in performing or consenting to gender interventions on children.
Section 2029.300 states in relevant part: “Notwithstanding subdivision (a) no subpoena shall be issued pursuant to this section if the foreign subpoenas would require disclosure of medical information related to sensitive services OR is based on a violation of another state’s laws that interfere with a person’s right to allow a child to receive gender affirming health care.” (CA Civ. Code of Proc. §2019.300(e).)
The result of Ca. Civil Proc. Code of Proc. §2019.300 is two-fold. First, if the foreign subpoena requests for records relates to “sensitive services,” the potential respondent cannot comply regardless of any agreement or court order to the contrary. The egregious and overreach of this statute can best be explained by way of examples.
Example 4: The guardian of an adult under a conservatorship in another state cannot get the records if that adult received sensitive services without the requisite consent from the guardian.
Example 5: A parent in a foreign state, who has total medical decision-making power over her child, cannot discover what sensitive medical treatments her child may have had while visiting Dad in California. Under SB107 changes to Code of Civil Procedure §2029.300, she will not have access to evidence that could be used to alter the foreign custody agreement as a result of his violations of said agreement, regardless of whether Mother’s state bans the experimental gender treatments.
It is noteworthy that Family Code Section 69255 bars a minor from seeking sterilization without parental consent. Since 99% of all children who start puberty blockers continue to cross-sex hormones, which guarantees sterility, no child can consent to any of these types of gender affirming treatments in California without parental consent. Yet, California is permitting out of state children who get to California to have sterility causing treatments.
Foreign states will not be able to obtain records that would show children are given sterility causing treatments in this state, even if those treatments are violative of California’s own laws, as shown in Example 6.
Secondarily, Civil Code of Proc. §2019.300 forbids a potential respondent from providing documents and records if the foreign subpoena is “based upon another state’s laws that interfere with a person’s right to allow a child to receive gender-affirming health care.” Recall that expansiveness of the term “person”. A person could be a school teacher, a court-appointed counsel, a trans advocate, a neighbor or anyone. All states have laws that can be interpreted as “interfering” with a person’s rights to allow a child to receive medical care, because all persons do not have a right to allow a child to receive care, and all states have limitations on what care is permitted, even California. For example, one parent cannot approve sterility-causing treatment when the other parent with equal custody does not approve.
The term “interfere” is nebulous and will lead to absurd results. What laws interfere with a person’s right to allow a child – not their child – just “a” child to receive gender treatments? Would laws sets forth: (1) age limits; (2) consent limits or requirements; (3) mental health assessments; (4) minimal mental health diagnosis: (5) waiting periods; (6) letters from mental health professionals; (7) physical health criteria; (8) Medicaid limitations; (9) insurance limitations etc. that “interfere” with a person’s right to allow a child to get trans medicine?
Example 6: Suppose New York has a similar law to California; namely, one that prevents a doctor from performing gonad removal on a child without parental consent. Suppose a New York doctor does the surgery without the requisite consent, having only obtained the non-custodial parent’s approval. In applying the amended statute, New York clearly has a state law that interferes with the non-custodial parent’s right to allow gender care for the child. Can that non-custodial parent flee to California and avoid liability? Can the negligent New York doctor? Per the statute, the answer is yes to both inquiries.
PROPOSED CHANGES TO THE FAMILY CODE VIOLATE THE UCCJEA
California follows the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act (“UCCJEA”), as do 49 other states and several American territories. The purpose underlying the UCCJEA is to prevent parents from crossing state lines to avoid custody orders and visitations orders from their home state. It was developed in 1997 to create a uniform set of laws and reconcile differences with federal laws on Parental Kidnapping and Violence Against Women Act. A disruption of this multi-state law will be catastrophic for parents and children and will render all non-Californian custody agreements illusory. SB107 is carving out changes to the standardized Act that has served to protect parents and the best interests of children for close to two decades. Any exceptions to this well-established Act will open the flood-gates to states pitting each other custody laws against each other for political gain. The victims will be the children.
SB107 proposes to amend Section 3421 of the Family Code that grants California courts jurisdiction to make the initial child custody agreements in certain circumstances. Generally, there needs to a sufficient nexus between the state of California and the parents or the child for California courts to have control. SB107 turns the UCCJEA on its head, as no nexus is needed for California to take jurisdiction6.
The proposed amended language states in relevant part: “The presence of a child in this state for the purpose of obtaining gender-affirming health care or gender affirming mental health care as, defined by paragraph (3) subdivision (b) of Section 106010.2 of the Welfare and Institutions Code, is sufficient to meet the requirements of paragraph (2) if subdivision (a).” (Fam. Code 3421(d). (Emphasis added.) This amendment gives California court’s jurisdiction over the child irrespective any lack connection of that child – or the parents - with California.
Most alarming is that this bill only requires that the child – not the child and parents – be present in California for the purpose of obtaining gender-affirming health care or gender-affirming mental health care. This, of course, will open a flood of children, regardless of their parents’ or guardians’ approval, entering the state.
Since, pursuant to Section 16010.2 of the CA Welfare and Institutions Code, the patient – the child – has the autonomy to decide how she is defining the mental health care she needs, she can decide that she needs to be in a place that uses her male name and male pronouns and affirms that identity. Her parents may disagree, but that child will find sanctuary in California and the California courts with its jurisdiction can grant custody to someone other than the out-of-state parents. A male child could simply come to California seeking removal of his facial hair and that would suffice to grant California court’s jurisdiction over that child.
SB107 is not just granting jurisdiction over children in states that ban gender affirming medicine, but it is obtaining jurisdiction over children, who come to California for any type of gender treatment regardless of its availability in their home state. The law will permit California entities, Child and Family Services (formerly Child Protective Services), foster care, and other non-parents to obtain custody of a child so that child can avoid parents who refuse to consent to gender interventions or are fearful that puberty blockers will result in the known irreversible osteoporosis, loss of sexual function in boys, and a myriad of yet to be discovered long term affects because—in the words of Stephen Rosenthal of UCSF, Johanna Olson-Kennedy of CHLA, the largest pediatric gender clinic in the US, and Maddie Deutsch the current president of USPATH—more studies are needed.
SB107’s changes to Section 3424 of the Family Code, propose to redefine emergency circumstances to include the inability of an out-of-child to obtain gender affirming care, similar to situations where there are child abuse claims, so that the California courts can take jurisdiction over that child. California is codifying that it is child abuse not to submit your gender confused child to experimental gender treatments. There is no evidence that gender care is an exigent need - those on waiting list for gender care in the UK had no higher suicide rates than the regular population of teens; and no evidence that kids not getting hormones when they want them leads to suicide.
Pursuant to the proposed amendments to Family Code Section 3424, which again changes the nationally accepted UCCJEA, the California courts has jurisdiction of a child who, with or without parents, is present in the state of California regardless of whether the child’s state permitted gender affirming care. The only necessary factor is that the child is present in the state to get some gender-affirming health care or gender affirming mental health care that he himself believes that he should have. He can be in California just because his parents refuse to use his female name. The child can avoid any limitations of his home state that might require him, as a minor to get parental permission, be a certain age for certain interventions, or have gone through a mental health assessment by getting himself to California. He can get emancipated or enter the foster care system in California and his out-of-state parents will have to litigate their claim in a court system that has a track record of finding abuse if a parent will not accept their child’s transgender identity. (See Abby Martinez and Ted Hudacko’s stories.)
SB107 will entice minors whose parents will not consent to treatments to run away to California. This is tantamount to California holding that any parent that refuses to capitulate to their child’s desired gender treatments as abusive. This is the exact foil to the Texas edict that finds parents who permit their child to submit to gender care as abusive. Parents are placed in an untenable position. All children, regardless of comorbid mental health issues, can receive gender care in California with no impediments to the parents to prevent the harm, as California courts have to take jurisdiction. As discussed above, SB107 completely obliterates parents’ rights in contravention of the California constitution and US Constitution. (See Troxel.)
SB107’s changes to the Family Code takes it one step further and preclude a judge from denying jurisdiction as an “inconvenient forum where the law or policy of the other state may take jurisdiction limits the ability of a parent to obtain gender affirming health care or gender-affirming mental health care for their child.” (Family Code section 3427(f).)(Emphasis added.) The inclusion of the term “policy” is overbroad. California courts will need to determine the policies of all 49 states in determining if it must take jurisdiction - a lofty and difficult endeavor given that surgeon generals, medical boards, etc. may have policies that limit treatments by age, mental capacity to consent, parental approval etc.
Moreover, the phrase “other state … [which] limits the ability of a parent to obtain gender affirming health care or gender-affirming mental health care for their child” is over reaching. All states have “limits” on gender affirming care on children – age limits, consent limits, insurance limits, diagnostic limits, and mental health limits. SB107 is clearly designed to be make California the prime state where all children can come to be sterilized and have their bodies irreversibility altered. Girls as young as 13 are getting double mastectomies as CHLA reports in her study.
SB107’s proposed amendments to Family Code section 3428, which again changes a provision of the universal UCCJEA accepted by 49 states and the territories, forces California courts to ignore any violations of an extant custody agreement if the petitioner who took custody of the child and came to California did so for the purposes of obtaining gender-affirming health or mental care for the child. See Example 11 for the effect of this horrific amendment.
SB107 proposes a new section to the Family Code that does not appear in the UCCJEA that states “[a] law in another state that authorizes a state agency to remove a child from their parents or guardian based on the parent or guardian allowing their child to receive gender-affirming health case shall not be enforced or applied in a case pending in a court in this state.” (Family Code section 3453.5.)
This law is best understood by way of example.
Example 7: Suppose Mom believes that her 2-year child is really a girl because he likes to unsnap his onesie and turn it into a dress, which as UCSF’s Diane Ehrensaft states, is a sign that he is a girl. Mom consistently treats her son as a girl, and when he is age 5, she decides it’s time for his penis to be removed. Mom finds a doctor willing to perform the surgery. Most states would consider this to be child abuse given the age of the child. But if Mom can run to California, the CA court cannot consider whether her actions are abusive, because her home state has a law that would define the surgery as abuse.
Example 8: Maryland permits gender affirming care for minors. Maryland is Mom’s home state and its law requires that both Mom and Dad must agree to the surgery their 14-year-old wants. But Mom lies, and says she is the sole parent and consents to the surgery. Mom can run to California and petition the California courts for sole custody of the child because, under Family Code Section 3453.5, the court cannot consider her actions related to the surgery since the court in Maryland could rule that she loses custody because the surgery violated the custody agreement.
Below are some additional examples of the possible resulting unconscionable rulings stemming from the SB107 should it pass.
Example 9: Taking SB107 out of the context of gender, suppose divorced Dad and Mom live in New York. They share custody of their daughter. Mom takes their 15-year-old daughter on three separate occasions for abortions. Mom and daughter are using abortion as essentially birth control. Dad prefers that daughter use oral birth control since the medical risks with abortion are much more profound. Mom moves to California and Dad wants to petition for a change in the custody agreement and prove that Mom is not looking out for the best interest of the child because she is using abortion as a method of birth control. Dad cannot get the CA records to show that daughter had an additional abortion in California. Dad will have evidentiary difficulties to demonstrating that Mom’s parenting is not in the best interest of the child. He will also be stymied in proving that Mom is not protecting their child from engaging in sexual behavior before the age of consent.
Example 10: Aunt brings her nephew in for estrogen through Planned Parenthood in CA when he comes for a visit, unbeknownst to the parents who are living with their son in New York, a state that does not ban gender medicine. Nephew is on estrogen for 2 years, due to his Aunt’s assistance, and is rendered sterile. Parents cannot force the CA Planned Parenthood to provide the records showing what the Aunt did. The Aunt can avoid culpability for sterilizing their son and Planned Parenthood will also avoid liability for its failure to obtain the requisite parental consent. Parents have no way to prove a case against the Aunt who violated a California law banning sterilization of children without parental consent. (See Family Code Section 6925.)
Example 11: Take a divorced Mom and Dad, where Dad has zero custody of the child and zero medical control. Assume Mom and child live in a state where gender interventions are unlawful. Dad can snatch the child and flee to California, where he will be given safe-haven, provided he gets his child on puberty blockers/hormones and/or surgeries, even if the child does not want that. Perhaps Dad’s desire to have his child will compel him to subject his child to gender treatment for the sake of gaining custody of his child. Mom cannot prove that Dad permitted transgender medicine on their minor because she will have no access to any records showing what Dad has done. Even if Mom files a suit in California, she cannot get access to the medical records because the ban on subpoenas is not just foreign subpoenas but ANY subpoena in ANY civil action.
Example 12: Divorced Mom and Dad have a written, contractual custody agreement in which Dad and Mom share 50-50 custody of the child and medical control. The non-Californian court finds it is in the best interest of the child to have a relationship with both parents. Child wants puberty blockers/hormones/surgeries. Dad can flee to CA and Child can get hormones and surgeries in contravention of the court order giving mother 50% custody and control. If Mom lives in a state that prohibits gender affirming care and she will not have the ability to know what treatments Dad has consented to for their daughter. The court in Mom’s state may not be able to adjust custody or penalize Dad for violating the court’s order or custody agreement. California courts will gain jurisdiction over the custody of the child now and Mom can lose all rights to see her child even though she did not violate the custody agreement and despite her home state’s finding that it was in the best interest of the child to have a relationship with the mother.
Example 13: Divorced Mom and Dad have a custody agreement in which Dad and Mom share 50-50 custody of the child and medical control. Child wants puberty blockers/hormones/surgeries. Mom and Dad do NOT live in a state in which there is a ban on puberty blockers/hormones/surgeries. Dad takes daughter in for a double mastectomy and gets cross-sex hormones without consent from Mom. Dad flees to California. Dad is given refuge from prosecution for violating the home state’s order that gave the parents both a say in the child’s medical health.
Mom cannot even get the providers’ records because her state’s law authorizes her to file a civil action – contempt action against her ex-husband for breach of their custody agreement when Dad did not get her permission to get her daughter a double mastectomy or cross-sex hormones if that occurred in California. It matters not that Mom’s home state has no ban on gender medicine on minors.
If Dad stays in California and child returns to home state, Dad can send child hormones via on-line services to his minor child and Mom will have no recourse. (This is done by sending the drugs to a friend and that friend delivers to the child – a workaround known to kids and parents of gender confused minors.)
Example 14: Mom and Dad are married, and have a teenage daughter, who believes that she is a boy after spending the pandemic on line. They live in a state with a ban on gender care for minors. Aunt Martha lives in California and sends daughter a plane ticket to visit her, with Mom and Dad’s permission. Unbeknownst to Mom and Dad, Martha set up a double mastectomy for their daughter while she is in California. Martha could have no liability.
Example 15: Mom and Dad are married, and have a teenage daughter, who believes that she is a boy after spending the pandemic on line. They live in a state with or without a ban on gender care for minors. Mom and Dad are against their child doing any gender interventions. Child runs away to California. Mom and Dad could lose custody of their child from a California court’s ability to have jurisdiction over that child.
SB107 Amendments to Penal Code Section 819 Harms Minors
SB107 will change aspects of the Section 819 of the Penal Code that removes safeguards for children and can shield bad actors from criminal behavior towards children.
First, Penal Code Section 819 is changed to state that “an out-of-state warrant for any individual who violates another state’s law against receiving or permitting their child to receive gender-affirming health care is the lowest … priority.” Again, examples provide the clearest way to see how harmful this amendment is.
Example 16: State A has laws and policies that have some limitations on age, mental capacity, consent on gender affirming care procedures but does not ban it. Dad, who is not a doctor, has 30% custody of child, but he obtains estrogen through the internet or another venue claiming it’s for him. He gives the estrogen to his 12-year-old son. State A has laws against Dad’s actions. Dad flees to California. He will likely never be found or prosecuted for illegal drug use, fraud or child endangerment since finding him is the lowest priority.
Section 819(c) states in relevant part: “No state of local law enforcement will cooperate with or provide information to any individual or out-of-state agency regarding lawful gender-affirming health care performed in California.” This begs the question, does this protect an out-of-state non-custodial parent who gets gender care in CA from prosecution? The answer is yes. The treatment is lawful even though it violates the out-of-state custody agreement.
Subsection (d) of Penal Code Section 819, states “Nothing in this section shall prohibit the investigation of any criminal activity in this state which may involve the performance of gender-affirming health care provided that no information related to any medical procedure performed may be shared.” If the medical procedure is part of the facts needed to prove a crime, law enforcement has no way of obtaining those records.
Example 17: Dad absconds with child and pumps her with testosterone. He will only be charged with kidnapping because no medical records will be provided as what was done to the child because it would fall within the definition of sensitive services. Subsection C(1) of the Penal Code section 1326 as proposed to be amended bars medical providers from providing any information about the medical treatment that the child received.
CONCLUSION
SB107 is wildly overbroad and goes beyond the stated objective to usurp other state’s ban on gender medicine for minors. It can be used to obviate all states’ custody agreements if one parent decides to agree to gender care without the other parent. It can be used to safeguard non-parental interlopers. It completely tramples on the California Constitution and the US Constitution with regards to Parental Rights.
Any and all changes to the UCCJEA erodes its efficacy and opens up other states to their own changes to their codes following the UCCJEA. This gamesmanship will result in harming children and families, and as stated above, render custody agreements worthless if it addresses one of growing number of kids claiming a gender identity different from their birth sex.
Respectfully,
Erin Friday, Esq.
Experience of Ted Hudacko, a California parent
I am Ted Hudacko. I am the father of two teenage boys. I live in Richmond. My older son, without any prior signs of gender incongruence, at 15, decided with his mother’s support that he was no longer a boy. My wife told me our son was “trans” the same day that she separated from our marriage of 19 years.
I tried to tried to slow this train down by encouraging our family which included my wife, my son and me to do further research to really understand the medical and psychological impact of such a profound decision. I was robbed of this opportunity to partner with my son and wife on such a significant matter. To my devastation, they walked out on me the same day after a marriage of 19 years.
My wife took the opposing tact and stream lined his transition. My wife prevented me from seeing, speaking to, or having any contact with our older son. Meanwhile our younger (13 y.o.) son returned home to live with me.
Four months later, my wife filed for divorce in the Contra Costa Family Court. The Hon. Joni T. Hiramoto was assigned as our judge. Judge Hiramoto presided over multiple hearings and issued custody orders granting shared equal custody of our younger son but sole physical and legal custody of our older son to Mother. There was no finding nor any accusation that I was an unfit parent, otherwise why would I have been allowed equal shared custody of our younger one? Judge Hiramoto denied me regular visitation with my older son. No one, including Judge Hiramoto, could explain why my parental rights had been terminated with respect to only one of my sons. The inconsistency made no sense other than possibly Judge Hiramoto disagreed with my wanting to explore the causality our my older son’s sudden trans identity.
Until I learned many months later that Judge Hiramoto has an adult son of her own who publicly transitioned from male to female on social media at a time just prior to and concurrent with Judge Hiramoto’s presiding over our custody matter. According to legal ethics experts, this was a serious violation of judicial canons by Judge Hiramoto failing to disclose her personal conflict of interest or to self-recuse. On social media, Judge Hiramoto publicly cheered her child’s transition repeatedly.
Judge Hiramoto appointed a Minor’s Counsel, Daniel Severin Harkins, to represent my son. Harkins consulted with Dr. Diane Ehrensaft, Director of Mental Health for UCSF Child and Adolescent Gender Center to produce a sloppy report rife with factual errors and outright slander of Dr. Ehrensaft’s professional rivals in psychology who advocate a more cautious “watchful waiting” psychotherapy approach instead of rushing children into puberty blockers and wrong-sex hormones. UCSF staff conspired with officers of the family court to strip my parental rights in order to implement a pre-planned transition of my son for their own selfish financial interests. Mr. Harkins has taken about $20k in attorneys fees since his appointment in 2019.
The custody orders preserved one single parental right to me. The order specifically forbade that my son be allowed to undergo “any gender identity-related surgery” before age 18 without the explicit written consent of BOTH parents.
In October 2021, I discovered a $210k charge on my heath insurance statement for a surgery at the UCSF gender clinic in August 2021, shortly after my son turned 17. Following initial denials, Mother and her attorney admitted and produced further documentation of the surgery for a puberty blocker, Supprelin LA. Subsequent review of my son’s medical progress notes show conversations between UCSF, Minor’s Counsel Harkins, Mother, her attorney, Nathaniel Bigger, and Asaf Orr, Senior Counsel for the Transgender Youth Project to procure this prohibited gender transition surgery in secret. All knew the custody orders’ prohibition on “any gender identity-related surgery” without my consent but proceeded without even notifying me.
The UCSF progress notes indicate my son recently had been suicidal, something that normally negates an individual’s competency for consent. The “consent” form that my son and the Mother signed fails to mention sterilization as an outcome from the puberty blocker and wrong-sex hormone.
UCSF and Mother also started our son on estrogen. According to two medical experts I consulted, including Dr. Erica Anderson, former President of US PATH, the US chapter of WPATH (World Professional Assn. for Transgender Health), recently retired staff psychologist from UCSF’s gender clinic, and a trans woman—permanent sterility can result in as little as 4 months under the combination of estrogen and this puberty blocker. The same puberty blocker given my son is used to castrate sex offenders.
I contacted Minor’s Counsel Harkins to share this information, my concern for my son’s health, reproductive viability, to ask why Harkins had allowed this to happen, why I had not been informed or my consent solicited, and why Harkins was sterilizing my son? Harkins gave no answers, hung up on me, stopped answering my emails but continued billing me for his “services.”
My attorney and I filed an emergency ex-parte motion with the Family Court seeking removal of the puberty blocker implant. If we acted fast to remove the implant, there was a chance we could save my son’s sexual viability and fertility. This is a young person who, to my knowledge, has never had a romantic relationship. Despite explaining this urgency, the presiding judge did not grant an expedited hearing but instead scheduled one six months later when removal likely could not save our son’s fertility.
My family’s story has been the subject of multiple investigative journalism pieces and garnered international attention:
Prior to my wife separating from me, she was familiar from media accounts of the custody case involving Mr. Jeff Younger in Texas. In that case, Mr. Younger’s ex-wife is seeking to gender transition one of their two twin sons, James, from a boy to a girl. Prior to separating, my wife’s ideology seemed to become more aligned with Jeff Younger’s ex’s strategy and approach.
It is my belief that my wife saw this as an extremely effective tactic to use in her subsequent divorce from me. Judge Hiramoto appears to have sided with my wife in the custody dispute not on basis of law or my unfitness as a parent, but instead based on Judge Hiramoto’s personal identification with the similar dynamic within Hiramoto’s own family, a transfeminine son and acrimonious divorce.
There are numerous entities that make money from these protocols (gender clinics, hospitals, pharma companies, therapists). The family and dependency courts make money encouraging and exacerbating family disputes and in my own experience there is conspiracy among these entities for self aggrandizement at the mortal cost to kids. Kids are not fully developed nor mature enough to make these permanent life-altering decisions as minors. We don’t allow 15 year olds to go off to war, to consume alcohol or get tattoos but we are going to allow them to alter their bodies by cutting off their breasts, removing their uteruses, castrating themselves?
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