May 26, 2023

There is nothing more emotionally stabilizing than parental love.  And yet, in the Evergreen state, where I was born and raised, ideologues are severing the sacred bond between parents and children.

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Despite massive pushback, Washington state governor Jay Inslee, a Democrat, recently signed the insidious and audacious Senate Bill 5599 into law, disregarding and insulting parents outright.

Inslee, you may recall, held on to emergency powers amid Covid-19 for 975 days — the longest span for any governor.  A third-term governor, he is now signaling that gender ideology trumps the rights of parents.

An assault on children and the nuclear family, SB5599 clears the path for youth shelters and host homes to hide children between the ages of 13 and 18 from their parents, while undergoing euphemistically termed “protected health care services,” related to gender dysphoria and gender transitioning.

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To be sure, this bill has little to do with protecting children.  Instead, it exploits their insecurities and vulnerabilities when they are most fragile — in middle school and high school.
Curiously, gender dysphoria, loosely defined as the distress caused when someone’s birth gender does not match their gender identity, has been exploding among adolescents over the past few years.

As a former middle school teacher in the 1990s, I do not recall a single case of gender dysphoria among my students.  Some struggled to keep up with daily homework assignments, while others could not make it to class by the first bell. Many were moody, self-conscious, eager-to-please peers, and uncertain how to navigate the world around them.

Yet ideologues in Washington state operate under the false assumption that 13 is not too young to begin the inhumane, regimented, all-consuming, and mostly irreversible process of gender transitioning, while parents are left out entirely.

The bill is a snub to parents if ever there was one. 

Imagine the horror and heartache of not knowing where your child is for weeks, months, even years, only to reunite in the future without previous knowledge that your son or daughter has changed genders.

Specifically, SB5599 maintains that parents of runaways or homeless youth from across the country, not just Washington state, do not need to be notified if there is a “compelling” reason.

“Compelling reasons include when a minor is seeking or receiving protected health care services,” reads the bill’s awkwardly worded summary.