Minnesota's 'trans refuge' law harms youth, weakens parents' rights

Last year, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) signed so-called “trans refuge” legislation, joining California and several other states in passing measures that harm vulnerable youth. The Washington Post recently came to Walz’s defense, claiming that “conservatives” were “falsely accusing him of allowing the state to terminate parental custody if parents prevent their trans children from receiving gender-affirming care.”

But the reality is there’s nothing false about that accusation. This law can indeed separate kids from loving parents’ custody. Every parent in America should be concerned about it and laws like it.

Imagine a teenage girl in Ohio who regularly visits her rather woke aunt in Minnesota. The aunt thinks that her teenage niece’s parents aren’t sufficiently “affirming” of the girl’s desire to adopt a male identity. The parents know the devastating and irreversible harm puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones would cause their daughter, and so they’re not about to consent to them. The aunt files a lawsuit in Minnesota to gain custody of the girl and start her on a regime of the drugs.

Normally, Minnesota courts would dismiss the suit, recognizing that Ohio is the proper venue for the case. After all, that is where the niece and her mom and dad live, and where the girl’s pediatrician and counselor (who would have information about the girl’s physical and mental health) are located. Out-of-state attempts to get custody are usually decided based on the child’s home state.

And that makes sense. Custody challenges should be heard in the state where the parents, child, and relevant evidence are located. And they should be decided based on the laws of the home state.

But the Minnesota law and its ilk throw out this commonsense rule. If anyone — a parent, close relative, or even an unrelated adult — seeks custody of a child “for the purpose of obtaining gender-affirming health care,” then that person can take the child to Minnesota, where state courts now have exclusive jurisdiction to hear the case. Those courts will decide custody of the child — and ultimately whether the child will be put on harmful puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones — based on Minnesota law.

In other words, as soon as the teenage girl crosses the Minnesota state line with her aunt or to visit her aunt, Minnesota courts are now armed to strip custody away from the girl’s caring parents in Ohio and award it to the aunt, who can immediately start the vulnerable child on dangerous transition drugs.

Indeed, in Walz’s Minnesota, putting kids on a one-way street toward the irreversible damage caused by puberty blockers, hormones and sterilizing surgeries is the official policy of the state.

Let’s not forget, just weeks before signing the law, Walz issued an executive order declaring that Minnesota is “committed to protecting access to” and establishing the state as “a refuge for those who seek and provide” transition drugs and surgeries that growing international evidence confirms cause irreversible harm to a child’s body and brain development.

And it isn’t just woke relatives that receive a “get out of jail free” card when they abscond to Minnesota with a child who has been ripped from the arms of her parents, who are her best advocates and defenders. This law will allow Planned Parenthood and other gender clinics to push life-altering transition drugs on children with no meaningful oversight or accountability.

Under the Minnesota law, Planned Parenthood could easily encourage and even pay expenses for a teenager to travel to the state for harmful transition drugs. And it would do so with assurances that state law shields it, should the parents try to intervene to save their child from the lifelong consequences of these drugs.

What the Minnesota law and others like it really do is deprive our children of the one true shield and refuge against pervasive, damaging gender ideology: namely, parents. Parents love and know their children best. They alone have the right and responsibility to raise their children and protect them from harm.

That is why more families are standing up when government officials, schools and even medical providers push dangerous, life-altering gender ideology on their children. Minnesota had the chance to stand with these courageous parents and their children. Instead, it chose to declare them an enemy of the state.

Matt Sharp is senior counsel with Alliance Defending Freedom and director of its Center for Public Policy.