Vernadette Broyles Represents Family of Sage Blair in Suit Against VA School
The suit alleges a school policy which kept information about a student’s gender private led to the student running away from home and experiencing horrific sexual abuse.
by Evan Urquhart
The family of a child who ran from home after their grandmother and adopted parent found out they had social transitioned at school is suing the child’s former school district.* Michele Blair claims that her grandchild, Sage Blair, would never have run away if the Appomattox, VA school had informed them of the transition. Blair is being represented Vernadette Broyles, a lawyer associated with the far-right Alliance Defending Freedom. Broyles is notable for representing a large number clients who seek to use lawsuits to attack transgender rights, including former St. Louis clinic staffer Jamie Reed.
Assigned Media first reported on the Blairs’ story in January of this year. At that time, as now, it was difficult to get clarity about what had happened due to a lack of mainstream media reports verifying many of the key facts. (Assigned gently reached out to those involved in the story. Given the sensitivity of the topics, we were not surprised when we were unable to speak directly with those involved.)
The story as related by grandmother Michele Blair is harrowing, though it is important to note it includes many details that have not been confirmed. Blair describes the then 14-year-old Sage as having run away from home in September of 2021 after experiencing bullying and sexual assault at school. The night the child ran away, Blair found a hall pass containing the name “Draco,” exposing the fact that they had been identifying as male at school. According to Michele, the runaway was abducted by sex traffickers and experienced multiple sexual assaults before being rescued by the FBI. (Reports documenting FBI involvement in the case have yet to be uncovered, but social media posts and news stories support the basic timeline of Sage’s having run away in 2021.) Once rescued, the child experienced further trauma in the foster care system, and later ran away a second time. According to the grandmother this led to the child being sex-trafficked. After a second rescue, the child entered a group facility in VA, where Blair claims they ceased identifying as male, and was later released to the grandparents’ care.
News reports in the Daily Mail, the New York Post, and other outlets have related the troubling details of a young person’s alleged multiple sexual assaults, as told by her grandmother, much as they did in their January coverage of an attempt to name a law requiring schools to out trans youth to their parents after Sage Blair.
screenshot from the Washington Times
The repetition of these details about a minor’s trauma in national news stories in the right-wing press is concerning, given that the central figure in the story is a child (currently 16) who has not spoken publicly about these events nor given clear consent for these details to be shared. Also concerning is the lack of reporting to substantiate the most horrific of the claims, some of which would seem likely to have yielded criminal cases and police reports. As we wrote in January, this remains a troubling story. While it’s important to note the lack of good reporting substantiating some details, it is equally important to be mindful of the trauma experienced by this family, which is clearly quite real.
Pronoun note: Assigned Media’s policy is to use the pronouns a subject of our coverage prefers. Because of the unusually complicated nature of this story, we are using they/them to indicate our uncertainty. Other news coverage has used she/her. Sage’s grandmother’s reports that Sage currently identifies as a girl.