A military family who lost custody of their autistic son after refusing to change his gender is suing a major D.C. hospital.
The family said their son had never shown any desire to become a girl until, aged 16, he was hospitalised for self-harm following a bitter break-up with his girlfriend in 2021.
Staff in National Children’s Hospital He informed his family that he wanted to be a woman and that they would refer to him using she/her pronouns from then on, the lawsuit states.
His parents, army veterans, fFrom Prince George’s County in Maryland, They rejected the suggestion, saying their son was “impressionable” because of his autism.
They have accused the hospital of starting a “full-blown campaign to transgenderize this child” and She accused staff of “mental reprogramming” and said her son had been forced to write letters to friends denying his former male identity.
In the photo above, the family shared with DailyMail.com on condition of anonymity. The eldest son appears on the far left, with his mother’s arm wrapped around him in a loving embrace. They are all smiling and happy in the photo, after the second son graduated.
Pictured above is Children’s National Hospital in Washington DC, where the boy was treated and then transferred to Child Protective Services.
According to the lawsuit, the hospital used its emergency policies to keep the boy in its units and reported the parents to child protective services.
The boy was placed in foster care and has not returned to the family home since. What followed was a two-year legal battle for custody of the teen, who is now 19 and remains in foster care.
The parents, who are both in their 40s and African-American, say their son was at risk because his condition means he is vulnerable to social manipulation.
They spoke exclusively to DailyMail.com but want to remain anonymous to protect their estranged son’s privacy.
The boy’s father revealed how they had to sell their thriving business and four-bedroom family home to cover legal costs.
The father said: “This has been devastating. It has taken so much money from us that there is nothing left.”
“It completely changed our way of life, with the loss of a child and then the loss of our income.”
Karl von Batten, a D.C. Republican committee member who supports parents, said the case was personal to him because he also has an autistic son.
Mr von Batten said: “For me, this is personal. My son is autistic and if you tell him you are a penguin, he will tell you he is a penguin.
“I am very upset by what they have done in this case, it seems that there is no protection. I do not want this to happen to my son or any other child with autism.”
The family is seeking up to $100 million in damages and coverage of their legal costs.
Pictured above is hospital chaplain Lavender Kelley, who is believed to be currently caring for the boy. The person says online that he does not have sex.
The lawsuit says the boy currently lives with the hospital’s “genderless” chaplain, Lavender Kelley, who regularly posts online about trans issues.
In a 2022 Facebook post, Kelley said she supported children transitioning without parental consent and claimed they were “exhausted” of arguing with families.
The lawsuit adds that since being removed from his parents’ care, the young man has appeared in provocative and sexually suggestive poses on Instagram.
It is unclear whether the 19-year-old has received any sex-change treatments, such as feminizing hormones or gender reassignment surgery.
The lawsuit was filed in Maryland District Court, accusing Children’s National Hospital of eight counts, including negligence, intentional infliction of emotional distress and discriminating against someone based on their religion.
It has since been sealed by a judge and is now in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.
In a statement, the hospital told DailyMail.com that the defense had withdrawn the case. Defense representatives denied this.
National Children’s Day It is ranked the fifth best pediatric hospital in the country and treats about 223,000 patients each year, including those with gender dysphoria.
It also runs a ‘Gender and Autism Program’, which claims to help young children with autism understand their gender.
Amos Jones, who represents the family, previously said: “This is the craziest case I’ve ever had. I don’t know why people think this makes sense. But I guess a lot of people are okay with this now in Washington DC.”
Ms. Kelley, pictured above, has worked at the Washington DC hospital for decades.
The family says their eldest son was hard-working and was initially home-schooled, before being sent to secondary school at the age of 14.
He graduated a year later and was then accepted into an Associate Degree program in Engineering.
In May 2021, he texted friends to tell them he was LGBT, but used male pronouns and at no point indicated he wanted to be a woman.
At the time, he was also being tested for autism and attending a counselling service for disabled children.
He was voluntarily transferred to the National Children’s Hospital in early November 2021, after he attempted suicide following the end of his relationship with his girlfriend.
But after the hospital determined he had gender dysphoria, he was kept there for 41 days.
It was not clear how this was determined or whether any psychological testing or evaluations were conducted.
The boy was then moved to foster care, according to the lawsuit, and placed with a single foster mother who had a prior assault charge and was believed to be a close friend of Ms. Kelley.
In July 2022, the boy attempted suicide for a second time and was readmitted to Children’s National as a girl.
He also had a second autism evaluation in August, but at that meeting the adoptive mother withdrew it, claiming it was not necessary, according to the lawsuit.
The foster mother died unexpectedly and the boy is believed to have been placed in Ms. Kelley’s care, according to the lawsuit.
He turned 18 in March 2023, which means he is now an adult and does not have to return to his parents if he does not want to.
In court documents, her parents accused the hospital of “cruelly, abruptly and intentionally disrupting the fundamental rights of two healthy parents to raise their minor child.”
“We were never made aware of our son’s alleged desire or plan to change gender,” the documents read.
‘Instead of treating us as sponsors with legal rights and dignity, the defendant… treated the parents as if they had harmed their son, even though the parents had never endangered their son and had home-schooled him until he entered college at age fourteen.’
They added: “At Children’s National, it is as if all critical reasoning towards the child has been suspended and there has been no investigation into the extent to which the child was lying.”
The parents have requested a jury trial.