(LifeSiteNews) — The mother of a formerly gender-confused teen is suing staff from a school that concealed her daughter’s “male” identity as well as an attorney who worked to have her daughter removed from her custody and housed with male teens who sexually assaulted her, prompting her escape, kidnapping, and rape by a predator.
Michele Blair, the biological grandmother and adoptive mother of a teen girl named Sage, filed a lawsuit Tuesday in the United States District Court for the Western District of Virginia accusing school officials of “deliberately conceal[ing]” Sage’s “gender identity” from her and of withholding “information regarding bullying, verbal, physical and sexual assault” that Sage reportedly “suffered as a result of” her “male” identity and use of boys’ restrooms at school.
The suit claims that because the school concealed her daughter’s “male” identity, Blair “could not provide [Sage] with the care she needed to address her distress concerning her sex” as well as the “bullying” and “assaults related to” her “male” presentation.
In late January, Blair testified before a Virginia subcommittee deliberating over “Sage’s Law” — which would have required that schools inform parents if their children expressed a discordant gender identity — that boys at the school had “threatened” Sage with “violence and rape” after she began to present herself as a boy.
According to Blair, the school told her nothing about her daughter’s “male” identity. It wasn’t until Blair noticed Sage bring home a hall pass with the name “Draco” on it that Sage shared that she was identifying as a boy at school and that her counselor had permitted her to use the boys’ bathroom.
While confiding to her mother about the violent threats from boys at her school, Sage “was crying and terrified,” shared Blair during her testimony, adding that Sage had been pushed up against a wall by boys at school.
“I said, just stay home, we’ll figure it out,” Blair recounted.
The next day, Blair discovered that Sage had run away. “She left a note saying she was scared of what would happen if she stayed,” Blair said.
The girl was thereafter violently raped and sex trafficked before being discovered by law enforcement, according to the lawsuit. Before Blair and her husband could reach Sage to pick her up, the girl was assigned a public defender, Aneesa Khan, who Blair said falsely accused her and her husband of abuse and neglect, and convinced Sage to lie about this in an attempt to deprive them of custody of Sage.
Blair recounted how she and her husband were summoned before Judge Robert Kershaw, and while interacting with Sage over Zoom as she was held in a cell, the Blairs were rebuked by Khan for referring to their daughter as a girl.
Despite the fact that Blair said she and her husband were willing to use “any name” or pronouns in order to take Sage home, Judge Kershaw had Blair’s husband removed from the courtroom when he was so distraught that he “kept forgetting the new pronouns,” according to Blair.
According to Blair, when she said she wanted Sage returned home to be treated for her “unspeakable trauma,” Judge Kershaw told her he would have her removed from the courtroom if she used the word “trauma” again.
Blair said that for over two months, Judge Kershaw withheld custody, agreeing to Khan’s insistence that Sage be kept in the male facilities of the Maryland Department of Juvenile Services (“DJS”). Sage told Blair that while there she was again sexually assaulted and given drugs.
The investigations found that the charges against Sage’s parents were “unsubstantiated,” according to the lawsuit.
“Sage later told me that Khan had told her to lie that we hit her. Khan even had Sage’s school counselors testify against us, though they barely knew Sage, and they didn’t know us at all. Khan told my precious child I didn’t want her anymore,” Blair testified earlier this year.
“I found out Sage never received any of the letters I sent her,” she continued.
Because of the sexual assault Sage suffered at the Maryland facilities, where she was kept with teen boys, she ran away and was again kidnapped by a man who “raped, drugged, starved, and tortured” her until Texas law enforcement found her and notified her mother, who returned her to Virginia.
There, she was placed in a mental health care facility ordered by Judge Kershaw, which was meant to “affirm” Sage as a male, according to Blair. There, a counselor pressured Sage to have her breasts amputated.
“Sage was too scared to protest. But she asked me to buy her girls’ clothes, because she secretly wanted to be a girl,” her mother said.
The Blairs finally found a lawyer, Josh Hetzler with the Founding Freedoms Law Center, who secured Sage’s discharge from the facility so that she could come back home.
Blair suggested Sage now realizes she was not a “boy” but was simply seeking friends.
However, “the school, the doctor, and the judge were all blinded by their ideology. The consequences for Sage were unspeakable,” Blair said.
“Please don’t let ideology harm another child. Let parents do our jobs. We know our children best. And we love them a million times more,” Blair concluded during her testimony.
According to the lawsuit, Sage “has undergone intensive in-patient and outpatient therapy to address the multiple incidents of extreme trauma caused by Defendants’ acts and omissions.”
“She has been diagnosed with Complex PTSD for which she will likely need therapy for the rest of her life,” the suit reads.
The horrific chain of events suffered by Sage inspired Republican Virginia House Delegate Dave LaRock to introduce HB 2432, known as “Sage’s Law.”
In addition to prohibiting school officials from keeping a child’s perceived “gender identity” secret from parents, it would have required that raising a child in accordance with their biological sex cannot be considered abuse or neglect.
However, the Democrat-led Education and Health Committee of the Virginia Senate voted to block the bill in February.
Maryland Public Defender Natasha Dartigue said Monday that Khan is not providing statements on the matter at this time.
Send an urgent message to Canadian legislators and courts telling them to uphold parental rights.