Virginia mom praises Trump for shining 'a light' on daughter's school transition case during SOTU
The mother of a Virginia teen praised President Donald Trump for shining "a light" on her daughter’s case during his State of the Union address and vowed to continue her lawsuit against the school she accused of secretly socially transitioning her child without parental consent.
"It meant the world. It was very surreal," Michele Blair, mother of Sage Blair, said Wednesday as she reflected on the president’s remarks.
Sage was recognized as one of Trump's guests during his address to Congress, where he detailed her story before a national audience.
The president said Sage was 14 when school officials in Virginia "sought to socially transition her to a new gender," treating her as a boy and allegedly hiding it from her parents.
Trump described how Sage ran away from home, was placed in an all-boys state facility after a ruling from a judge and was later returned to her family. He praised her resilience, calling her "a proud and wonderful young woman" who now has a full scholarship to Liberty University.
"I’m just so grateful that a light has been shown on this dark topic because it’s happening to so many children like Sage," Blair told Carley Shimkus.
"They [the school] glorified the fact that… she wanted to identify as a boy, and she was being horribly bullied… Had things been different, and they called me and brought me in and told me about the bullying, I could have saved her a lifetime of nightmares," she added.
Attorney Vernadette Broyles alleged that after running away, Sage was sex trafficked across multiple states before being recovered by law enforcement in Texas and later transferred to Maryland.
"It was a nightmare that… I don't know if she'll ever get beyond," Blair told "Fox & Friends First."
Broyles said the family’s legal battle is already underway in federal court.
"We have a Title IX claim that is pending right now in the Western District of Federal Court in Virginia on behalf of Sage herself," she said.
She said the complaint is being amended to include a religious free exercise claim, arguing that Michele Blair’s parental rights to direct her daughter’s religious upbringing were violated.
"This is a deeply broken young woman that was kept in the system," Broyles said.
"So these are the consequences that can come about, the harms, when schools keep secrets from loving parents."
Fox News previously reached out to Appomattox County Public Schools for a statement but did not hear back.