White House weighs executive action to prevent government from taking kids from parents who oppose gender transition

FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—The White House has weighed an executive order that would stop Child Protective Services from taking children away from parents who refuse to accept their child’s so-called gender identity, several sources involved with the order told The Daily Signal.

A conservative coalition led by parental rights activist Erin Friday has met with the White House’s Domestic Policy Council to work on a directive establishing that parents should not risk losing custody of their children if they don’t affirm their child’s chosen transgender identity, Friday and other coalition members told The Daily Signal.

The coalition has provided detailed recommendations on the executive order and is urging the president to act quickly. In addition to the executive order, members of the coalition told The Daily Signal they are lobbying Congress to hold a hearing featuring parents who have lost their kids to gender ideology, as well as pass a bill similar to the executive order.

In November, Trump signed an executive order supporting foster youth, but the order didn’t address children being placed in the foster care system due to gender identity, or foster parents being rejected due to affirming biological sex, according to Friday.

The coalition is asking the administration to promulgate an executive order that would include provisions that affirm parents’ rights as recognized by the First Amendment to raise their children in a manner reflecting their religious beliefs; eliminate regulations that discriminate against parents who affirm biological sex; eliminate federal funding for the removal of children from parents who refuse to let their child obtain transgender procedures; and slash funding to organizations that support hide a child’s gender identity from their parents.

The coalition also recommends that Health and Human Services find and return children whom child welfare agencies have removed from their parents due to the parents’ refusal to help the child transition. Instead, the coalition wants the agency to fund child welfare agencies, guidance, trainings, and curriculum that affirm biological sex.

A year ago, Erin Friday said she consulted a Trump administration official on an executive order to prevent parents from losing their kids to “transgender sanctuary states.” States like California, Minnesota, Washington, and Colorado have laws saying that children who run away from home to those states in order to receive transgender medical interventions will not be returned to their parents.

Friday and other conservative activists sought to help the White House take on the Biden administration’s 2023 foster care rule, which said it’s “mistreatment” or “abuse” for a foster parent to refuse to affirm a child’s LGBTQ identity.

The current status of an executive order prohibiting parents from losing custody over gender identity is unclear. A White House official told The Daily Signal that until officially announced by the White House, discussion about potential executive order is “purely speculation.”

When Erin Friday refused to refer to her seventh-grade daughter by a male name and he/him pronouns, Child Protective Services showed up at her house and accused her of being abusive, Friday says. After about a year and half, Friday was able to help her daughter choose to live in accordance with her biological sex.

Now, she gets a call every couple weeks from parents asking her how to get their children back after losing custody of their child due to affirming the child’s biological sex, she said.

“If CPS has opened up a a investigation on them, I tell them, ‘get in a car and go. Drive to Florida.’ And I have parents who do it. They leave in the middle of the night. They’re out. They know that they’re going to lose custody of their child, and it’s the end,” she told The Daily Signal.

“I’ve had families move back to Poland,” she continued. “This is the United States. We are having families run away because they’re afraid their government is going to come and take their children.”

Transgender-identifying children in red states where child sex change procedures are illegal can flee to blue states, where CPS refuses to return them to their parents, Friday said. As a result, federal action is needed to prevent the government from separating families across the country, she said.

“This is an issue that crosses party lines,” said Friday, a former Democrat. “It doesn’t matter. Parents don’t care what jersey they’re wearing if their child is being stolen.”

Trump has taken a variety of actions to protect kids from irreversible transgender medical interventions.

Trump signed an executive order on Jan. 28 prohibiting federal funding for “the so-called ‘transition’ of a child from one sex to another.”

In December, HHS announced it has moved to establish two new rules: one preventing hospitals that participate in Medicare and Medicaid from performing sex-change procedures on minors, and a separate rule prohibiting Medicaid dollars from funding these procedures on minors.

“Trump has done an amazing job on this issue,” Friday said.

But tax dollars are still being used to separate children from their parents, Friday said, and an executive order is the only answer. Some parents bankrupt themselves fighting to regain custody of their children, while others give up for fear that CPS will put child abuse on their records because they won’t call their daughter a son.

“All of the systems are so deeply corrupt, and it’s an interstate issue, so it really can’t be handled at a state level,” she said.

[Editor’s note: This story originally was published by The Daily Signal.]