WASHINGTON, D.C. (LifeSiteNews) — Administration for Children and Families (ACF), a branch of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, proposed a rule for foster parents across the country who care for children “identifying” as “LGBTQI+” that would make affirming a confused child’s true biological sex “child abuse,” resulting in the removal of the child from the foster parent’s custody.
Conservatives have slammed the proposal because in principle it could easily be extended to all children, undermining basic parental rights everywhere and destroying families.
“Safe and Appropriate Foster Care Placement Requirements for Titles IV-E and IV-B” was issued on September 28. The government is accepting written public comments until Monday, November 27.
According to the proposal, foster care agencies would be required to ensure that “LGBTQI+” children in foster care are placed with parents designated as “safe and appropriate” who will use the child’s preferred pronouns, allow them to cross-dress, and provide “services that are necessary to support their health and well-being,” such as “interacting with LGBTQI+ mentors and peers.”
Refusing to do so would qualify as “hostility, mistreatment, or abuse.”
According to the breakdown of the ACF proposal, three requirements would qualify foster care providers as a “safe and appropriate” placement for “LGBTQI+” children.
First, they must “establish an environment free of hostility, mistreatment, or abuse based on the child’s LGBTQI+ status.”
Second, they must be “trained to be prepared with the appropriate knowledge and skills to provide for the needs of the child related to the child’s self-identified sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression.”
Third, they must “facilitate the child’s access to age-appropriate resources, services, and activities that support their health and well-being.”
“Hostility, mistreatment, or abuse” is construed in the proposal to include any “attempt to undermine, suppress, or change” a child’s “sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression,” and any act that would “unreasonably limit or deny a child’s ability to express their sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression.”
“Conversion therapy” – by which confused children are counseled so that they understand and come to accept the reality of their biological sex – is specifically forbidden, raising concerns about First Amendment rights.
Foster care parents are “expected to utilize the child’s identified pronouns, chosen name, and allow the child to dress in an age-appropriate manner that the child believes reflects their self-identified gender identity and expression.”
READ: HHS employees who resist Biden’s transgender pronoun mandate will be fired
Further, foster care parents would be required to undergo training and indoctrination that “must reflect evidence, studies, and research about the impacts of rejection, discrimination, and stigma on the safety and wellbeing of LGBTQI+ children and provide information for providers about practices that promote the safety and well-being of LGBTQI+ children.”
The recommended research and sources do not include studies that indicate the negative effects of attempting to change one’s sex through surgeries or puberty blockers, such as sterilization and infertility, sexual incapacity, disfigurement of the body, problems with bone structure density, depression, suicidal thoughts and inclinations, actual suicide, the high percent of those who regret attempting to change their sex, and the natural outgrowing of “gender dysphoria” that most children confused about their sex will experience after puberty.
READ: Thousands of young people regret their ‘gender transitions,’ and their stories are gut-wrenching
These studies have prompted European countries such as Sweden, France, and England to prohibit sex-change surgeries and the use of cross-sex hormones for minors.
According to the ACF proposal, services to be provided “LGBTQI+” children include “facilitating access to behavioral health supports respectful of their LGBTQI+ identity,” “interacting with LGBTQI+ mentors and peers,” “joining and participating in affinity groups,” and “connecting the child to available LGBTQI+ supportive resources and events, either in person or virtually depending on local availability.”
Legally tying the hands of foster parents in regard to these “services,” the proposed rule states that foster care providers “must not discourage or prevent the child who identifies as LGTBQI+ from receiving age-appropriate services and supports.”
READ: North Dakota judge upholds law protecting gender-confused kids from transgender drugs, surgeries
The Federalist Society published a legal critique of the proposed rules, slamming the underlying presumptions of the ACF. In the critique, Rachel Morrison noted that “underlying ACF’s proposal is the assumption that only ‘affirmation’ is ‘safe and appropriate.’ If it is legally established that not affirming a child’s LGBTQI+ identity constitutes ‘mistreatment’ or ‘abuse,’ this standard could have massive ramifications for families seeking to adopt, biological parents of children both in and out of foster care, and individuals who work with children.”
Morrison also observed that while “it is unclear whether ACF considers puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, or surgeries ‘appropriate’ services that support a child’s health and well-being,” nonetheless, another HHS department, the Office of Population Affairs, “published a guidance document in 2022 titled ‘Gender-Affirming Care and Young People,’ controversially promoting ‘gender affirming’ medical interventions for children.”
Pointing out the glaring lack of any consideration of a foster child’s biological parents on such issues, Morrison wrote, “Notably, missing from the proposal is any discussion about biological parents and whether they have a say on which services and activities are provided to their child while in foster care.”
READ: Rampant transgender propaganda is eroding social boundaries
Ryan Anderson, president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, warned on X, formerly Twitter, that despite the proposed rules being “limited to foster care … the principle would extend to all parents.”
Important @FedSoc post from @EPPCdc‘s Rachel Morrison on proposed Biden regulation that deems a lack of “affirmation” of a child’s “transgender identity” to be “abuse.” Regulation is limited to foster care, but the principle would extend to all parents…https://t.co/ajHzMSzkTH
— Ryan T. Anderson (@RyanTAnd) November 21, 2023
Dr. Jay Richards, director of the DeVos Center for Life, Religion, and Family and senior research fellow in religious liberty and civil society at The Heritage Foundation, also warned of the destructive implications of the proposed rule change for every family. In comments on X, Richards wrote, “Follow the logic. The Biden Administration is trying to establish the principle that if you refuse to pretend that your son is really your daughter (simply by virtue of identifying as such), you will be legally guilty of *child abuse.* This is real. This is not a drill.”
Follow the logic. The Biden Administration is trying to establish the principle that if you refuse to pretend that your son is really your daughter (simply by virtue of identifying as such), you will be legally guilty of *child abuse.* This is real. This is not a drill. https://t.co/NQtAjUvWPt
— Jay W. Richards (@DrJayRichards) November 21, 2023
In a fuller statement on the issues and its legal consequences, Richards told LifeSiteNews:
This proposed rule involving foster care is a profound attack on both the rights of parents and common sense. It is part of a larger effort by the Biden administration to establish the tendentious assumptions of gender ideology by regulatory fiat. In this case, it would function to weed out any potential foster care parents who doubt that children can be born in the wrong body, and that a male child can ‘really be’ a female if only he ‘identifies’ as such. In other words, foster parents, under the proposed rule, could be guilty of child abuse if their fidelity to the truth outweighs their desire to conform to this gender madness.
The rule is also a harbinger. If this rule prevails, it will not stay limited to foster care. After all, if denying gender ideology qualifies as abuse in foster parenting, what about in the case of adoption? What about natural birth and parenting? Surely abuse in one of these cases would be abuse in every case.
The silver lining is that this attempted rule further exposes the intentions of gender ideologues – which is to destroy the family, and the immutable and complementary differences between male and female.
LifeSiteNews has extensively reported that, in addition to asserting a false reality that one’s sex can be changed, transgender surgeries and drugs have been linked to permanent physical and psychological damage, including cardiovascular diseases, loss of bone density, cancer, strokes and blood clots, infertility, and suicidality. In addition, studies indicate that more than 80 percent of children suffering from gender dysphoria will outgrow it on their own by late adolescence without surgical or pharmaceutical interventions.
The spike in transgender identification and surgical and chemical mutilation of children in recent years has coincided with kids across the country being actively encouraged in the culture and their classrooms to adopt “transgender,” “gender fluid,” or “non-binary” identities.
The situation has prompted the American College of Pediatricians (ACPeds), an organization of healthcare professionals dedicated to protecting children’s health, to launch a new initiative to help combat the use of experimental drugs and “treatments” for gender-confused minors.
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