IN: Christian Parents Ask SCOTUS to Rule on Custody of Struggling Transgender Child

Courts have thus far refused to return a trans child who developed a severe eating disorder with her non-affirming conservative Christian parents. Mary and Jeremy Cox want to involve the U. S. Supreme Court.

by Evan Urquhart

A trans girl in CPS custody in Indiana is at the center of a court battle which is being misleadingly described in Christian media as the state forcing parents to affirm trans children. Mary and Jeremy Cox are asking the U. S. Supreme Court to force the state to return their transgender teenage daughter, but thus far courts have found that doing so would endanger the child’s welfare.

According to both court documents and mainstream news reports, the child was taken from the Coxes home at 16, in 2021. She was suffering from a severe eating disorder that developed in part due to clashes with her parents over her gender identity. Anorexia, which is specifically mentioned in court documents, is considered one of the most dangerous mental health conditions and can be fatal in extreme cases.

The conflict is happening because the parents say they’re willing to treat the eating disorder, just not affirm the child’s trans identity. The court said it’s not taking a position on the Coxes’ beliefs or saying that parents have to affirm trans children, but sending this particular child back while the conflict over gender is ongoing would risk a relapse of her eating disorder, which in turn would seriously jeopardize the child’s health.

The conflict here is over the most fundamental tenet of child welfare: That the court should prioritize the best interest of the child. The Coxes believe that their right to impose their beliefs on their own child should come before their child’s safety because the danger would be coming from the child’s own actions. A simpler version of this would happen if a child threatened to kill themselves if they were returned to their parents: Whether the child’s reasons were reasonable or unreasonable, whether or not the parents had done anything wrong, if the child was believed to be at a real risk of death they wouldn’t be returned, because the child’s safety is the overriding concern of the system, not who is right between the child and the parents.

The Christian Post, however, has framed the story as the Coxes have, as being about the right of parents not to affirm a child’s trans identity.

screenshot from the Christian Post

This will likely further inflame fears by conservative parents that child welfare agencies will remove children from non-affirming parents despite the Indiana appeals court’s clear statement that this was not the reason for their decision. Several states have attempted to pass laws enshrining a right of parents to refuse to affirm their trans children’s identity, but it’s not clear that such a law would make any difference in a case like this, where a child’s health would be threatened if the court returned her to her parents.