By Kathy Athearn
The Washington Stand
The Daily Caller has released exclusive information, revealing that in Ohio, the Cuyahoga County Division of Children and Family Services (DCFS) has been tracking kids’ sexual identity in a secret database. They not only track kids in foster care, but those still living with their parents as well. Some of the kids are as young as five years old.
Daily Caller reporter Megan Brock explains that the Cuyahoga office was one of four sites in the country chosen by the Biden-Harris administration to be part of The National Quality Improvement Center (QIC) on Tailored Services, Placement Stability and Permanency for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Questioning, and Two-Spirit (LGBTQ2S) Children and Youth in Foster Care. (The other sites are the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, Allegheny County Department of Human Services, and Prince George’s County Department of Social Services.) The QIC works with the sites to “develop, integrate, and sustain best practices and programs that improve outcomes for children and youth in foster care with diverse sexual orientations, gender identities, and expressions (SOGIE).”
Almost half of the children in the spreadsheet live in their own home with their parents. On the SOGIE Disclosure form, social workers are instructed:
“A SOGIE conversation should be held with every young person age 13 and over,
and should be done in a private setting. Start a conversation about SOGIE with a discussion that SOGIE information belongs to each individual and that privacy of that information is of utmost importance to the Division of Children and Family Services. Whatever information they give you at this point will stay within the agency and the young person has the right to say if anyone else should know. You can show them the flow chart of where their information could go and how it would be used if they give permission. Let them know that the only time you would have to share without permission is if their safety is in question. Use critical thinking to determine when to have this conversation and understand that this is just one way to do it. NOTE: You can also have this conversation with a younger person as children ages 3 and up are very aware of their gender.”
Later in the disclosure form, social workers are told to ask the child, “‘And now do you feel more like a boy or more like a girl, some other gender or maybe somewhere in between?’ If in between is the answer tell them ‘a lot of young people feel like that’ and ask them to tell you more.” They are told to ask the child if he or she has crushes on “boys, girls, or other kinds of people” and whether her or she is “comfortable” with the social worker sharing this information with others, including parents.
The social worker also records whether the parents “accept” or “reject” their child’s gender identity. If parents disagree with their child claiming that he or she is the opposite gender, the Cuyahoga County social workers may “intervene” to provide the child with puberty blockers, chest binders, etc. If the social worker considers the parents abusive or neglectful (e.g. by not using the child’s preferred pronouns or allowing the child to dress in opposite-sex clothing), she can take steps to place the child in a “safe” foster home that “affirms” his or her gender confusion.
Devastatingly, there has been an increase in the number of parents that have had their child “taken away, investigated, or disrupted” because they don’t “affirm” their child’s gender confusion, according to Vernadette Broyles of the Child and Parental Rights Campaign.
Thankfully, there are lawyers such as Erin Friday who are fighting to protect parents and families. Friday submitted an amicus brief in the Supreme Court case United States v. Skrmetti which will be heard in December. Friday told The Daily Caller, “The basis of my brief was if Tennessee or if the Supreme Court finds that there is a discrete group called transgender kids, then every parent in the United States, every single one, who doesn’t affirm their child is at risk of losing custody of their child.”
Meg Kilgannon, Family Research Council’s senior fellow for Education Studies, told The Washington Stand, “There is a clear difference between government officials and politicians who prioritize ‘equity’ and those who believe in parental rights and constitutional protections. The Democratic Party has made identity politics a hallmark of their agenda, sacrificing families and parental rights in the process. On the national level, this means leaders like President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris … enforce abortion and LGBTQ rights forcefully and without regard to how those measures impact families or religious freedom.”
Kilgannon continued, “The Republican Party has historically prioritized religious freedom and parental rights. In his campaign for president, Donald Trump has promised to protect both religious freedom and parental rights, as he did in his first term. Instead of sharing an appreciation for family and religious freedom, there is a clear difference between the parties on this issue.”
Originally published at The Washington Stand!
