Minnesota attacks parental rights nationwide with trans bill that could strip custody

Minnesota attacked parental rights across the nation with the passage of a so-called transgender “refuge” bill in a 68-62 vote by the state House.

The law allows the state to take children away from parents who have court orders from other states in child protection cases involving trans medical care.

“Specifically, the bill would prohibit the enforcement of a court order for removal of a child or enforcement of another state’s law being applied in a pending child protection action in Minnesota when the law of another state allows the child to be removed from the parent or guardian for receiving medically necessary health care or mental health care that respects the gender-identity of the patient,” explained the website for the Minnesota House of Representatives.

But child legal advocates say the law will allow the government to usurp parental rights under the guise of “child abuse” for not consenting to controversial medical care such as puberty blockers or breast removal for minors.

“The most insidious aspect of this bill is the language that adds children who are being denied ‘gender-affirming care’…to what amounts to the definition for a child ‘in need of protection or services’ in Minnesota, allowing the courts to take ‘emergency custody’ of the child,” said Bob Roby, a licensed attorney in Minnesota with more than 30 years of experience in family and juvenile court, according to Fox News.

The law was passed to target states such as Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Iowa, Mississippi, South Dakota, Tennessee and Utah, reported Minnesota’s NPR.

Each of the states mentioned has passed strong laws that reinstate parental rights and prevent harmful long-term effects of trans medical care on minors without the legal capacity to decide such matters.

Dr. Angela Kade Goepferd, who makes her living from providing such treatment to kids as medical director of the Gender Health program at Children’s Minnesota, said that gender treatment is not new. 

“The controversy around this care is new, and has been constructed over the last one to two years,” she claimed. “But this care itself is not new.”

What’s new is the alarming increase in children receiving transexual treatment by physicians like Goepferd.

From 2017 to 2021 the number of gender dysphoria diagnoses for minors tripled, according to the Associated Press.

Under any other circumstances, the healthcare industry would consider the uptick an epidemic, with an active search for causes, not just treatment.

But for peddlers of medical treatment for trans minors, there is too much money at stake, especially if parents have to be consulted first before treatment starts.

In Tennessee, lawmakers were outraged when a doctor was caught on video bragging about how much money trans treatment for minors made for doctors and hospitals.

The reaction has been a rush by states to take away the decision-making from doctors, who have obvious conflicts of interest, and put the decisions back in the hands of parents, who have no such conflicts.

The GOP in Minnesota voted to oppose the so-called trans “refuge” bill with just three abstentions. 

“It allows children, regardless of age, to seek and receive radical medical treatments … all without their parents’ guidance and love,” said Rep. Peggy Scott, according to the Minnesota House website.

The bill “undermines parental rights, and most concerningly, has zero guardrails to protect our kids,” she said in a news conference before debate.