The state of Washington has approved a new law that enables shelters to hide children from their parents in case the children want to undergo gender transitioning.
State Gov. Jay Inslee, a Democrat, signed into law SB 5599 on Tuesday. The bill essentially grants shelters the right to not notify parents of minors when the children flee homes where gender transitioning is not accepted. “Every child—including our trans youth—deserves to be safe at home. In a perfect world, that is the case, but unfortunately, that is not the reality,” Democrat Senator Marko Liias, the bill’s primary sponsor, said in a May 9
press release.
“This legislation affirms our commitment to ensuring children have a safe and stable place to go when they are not welcome at home.”
While supporters of the bill insist that SB 5599 will protect vulnerable youth, especially those who seek “gender-affirming care,” critics argue that the bill basically removes parents from health and mental health care decisions of their children.
The bill passed the House on April 12. In an
interview with The Epoch Times, Republican state Rep. Chris Corry pointed out that SB 5599 allows a disagreement between a child and the parents over the issue of medical transition to be construed as “abuse and neglect” just because the parents hadn’t “properly affirmed what the child wants.”
Corry noted that there were already state laws available that protect children from abuse and neglect. However, these laws require “solid and compelling reasons” why kids need to be removed from their homes.
“What’s frustrating is even in those cases, the parents still have a right to know where their kids are after they’ve been removed,” Corry said. “In this case, parents would have no idea.”
Criticism of the Bill
SB 5599 has attracted intense criticism online. “The extremists have picked their position against WA families and parental rights. Now they can try to defend it. Spoiler: It’s indefensible,” state Rep. Jim Walsh (R)
said in a May 10 tweet.
“People are overwhelmingly against SB 5599, including many LGBT+ folks. Democrats pass it anyway, allowing youth shelters to hide kids seeking ‘gender-affirming care’ from their parents,” WA Senate Republicans, the official Twitter account of Washington’s Senate Republican Caucus,
said in a May 5 tweet.
It included a statement from a concerned gay parent. “I’m a married gay woman with three children,” the statement said. “SB 5599 gives unprecedented agency to vulnerable children that we grant in NO OTHER CIRCUMSTANCES.”
Social welfare organization Gays Against Groomers slammed the passage of the bill. “Yesterday, @GovInslee signed SB5599 into law, making Washington a sanctuary state for ‘trans’ minors that want to undergo medical gender procedures, but whose parents will not allow them to (because they’re good parents),” it
said in a May 10 tweet.
“These people are monsters. Children need to be protected from the predatory medical industrial complex, not their parents.”
In a May 11
tweet, Republican Minority Outreach Coordinator Andrew Smith said that “none of this matters since within the next 10 years or so gender ideology will collapse as the minors receiving ‘gender affirming care’ today enter their mid 20’s with the consequences of irreversible surgeries, puberty blockers, etc. finally realized.”
Auron MacIntrye, a columnist at The Blaze media outlet, called SB 5599 an attack on the family structure. “The family is the final barrier to the total state which is why the regime will use trans ideology and the civil rights revolution to destroy what remains of it,” he
said in a May 11 tweet.
Media Coverage
Meanwhile, the mainstream media coverage about SB 5599 getting signed into law also attracted criticism. The
Associated Press (AP) covered the story with the headline “Trans minors protected from parents under Washington law.”
Conservative influencer Greg Price said in a May 10
tweet while posting a screenshot of the AP story. “So much for that whole thing about ‘separating kids from their parents.'”
Podcast host Brandi Kruse pointed to the headline published by The Seattle Times which said “Transgender minors protected from parents under new WA law.” The Seattle Times sourced the content from AP.
“The mere concept that transgender minors would need to be protected from their parents is insane to me,” she said, according to a May 11
tweet.
“I might expect to hear that from Senator Marko Liias, or a co-sponsor of the bill, or Jay Inslee. But to see that parroted in a headline from the Associated Press, which is supposed to be one of the most unbiased news entities in the world, is insane to me.
“It continues this narrative that if you are a parent and you have concerns about your minor child as young as 13 or 14 years old wanting to get gender care, that you are a parent your child needs to be protected from. And now, not only are Democrats saying that. The mainstream media is saying that.”
State Bills on Minor Transgenderism
SB 5599 has been signed into law at a time when some states are pushing forward bills to promote transgenderism among minors while others are passing bills to block it.In Kentucky, Democrat Governor Andy Beshear
vetoed a bill in March that the state GOP claimed would have “protected our children by preventing minors from accessing life-altering sex change surgery and drugs.”
The bill would have only allowed sex change procedures like hormone therapies and puberty blockers after an individual becomes 18 years old.
In California, an assemblyman
proposed legislation in January that would allow children who have filed for petitions to change their gender identities and legal names to get such records sealed.
In Georgia, Republican Governor Brian Kemp
signed a bill on March 23 that banned sex change surgeries and hormone replacement therapy for minors.
Late last month, Oklahoma’s Republican-majority legislature
passed a bill banning health care providers from conducting transgender procedures on minors. The bill was approved by the Governor this month.
