Rep. Mary Miller (R-IL) introduced a bill to stop states from removing children from fit parents over disputes about gender identity.
The Yaeli Martinez Child Protection Act would bar federally funded state child-welfare agencies from taking children solely because their parents raise them according to their biological sex or oppose gender-transition procedures. It would also prohibit denying foster or adoptive placements solely because prospective parents would raise a child according to the child’s biological sex.
“Raising your son as a boy or your daughter as a girl is fundamental to parenthood, not child abuse,” Miller said in an announcement accompanying the bill.
“The Yaeli Martinez Child Protection Act defends the constitutional rights of mothers and fathers and stops bureaucrats from using taxpayer-funded child-welfare systems to tear children away from loving families,” she added.
The legislation is named after Yaeli Martinez, a California teenager who was separated from her mother during a dispute over her gender identity, according to Miller’s office. Martinez spent years in the state’s child-welfare system before dying by suicide in 2019 at age 19.
Miller’s proposal addresses several stages of the child-welfare process, from allegations of abuse to custody decisions and foster or adoptive placements.
Under the measure, a parent’s decision to raise a child according to the child’s biological sex would not, by itself, constitute child abuse. State child-welfare systems receiving federal funding would also be prohibited from removing a child from an otherwise fit parent solely on that basis.
The placement protections would apply to foster and adoptive families as well. Agencies could not reject a family solely because its members affirm a child’s biological sex.
The bill would amend the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act and several child-welfare provisions of the Social Security Act. Its stated protections cover parents who decline social, medical, or surgical gender-transition interventions for their children.
Miller’s announcement also identifies changes to the Parental Kidnapping Prevention Act intended to prevent states from improperly asserting custody over a child in disputes covered by the legislation.
The proposal would tie compliance to federal funding and provide a private right of action for violations. That provision would allow people whose protected rights were violated to bring a lawsuit, giving families a way to challenge conduct prohibited by the measure.
