A longtime volunteer child advocate for the King County, Washington, Superior Court said she was dismissed after refusing to say she would encourage children under the age of 12 to undergo life-altering gender surgeries and hormone treatments.
The child advocate, who requested to remain anonymous, told conservative radio host Jason Rantz that for the past seven years, she had worked for the Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) Program, which recruits and trains people to represent the best interests of children between the ages of 0-11. Rantz reported that the child advocate was recently forced to undergo new training after taking some time off and was dismissed after she said she wouldn’t be comfortable supporting a minor who wanted to undergo gender surgery.
“I am very disappointed that CASA, whom I have supported for many years, has succumbed to the extreme liberalism that is rampant today,” the volunteer told Rantz on his radio show on KTTH. “I am appalled that an organization that is supposed to protect our most vulnerable, children between the ages of 0-11, would require that its volunteers be willing to advocate for medical intervention that would alter the natural gender of children.”
A CASA spokesperson told Rantz that while those who volunteer for the program can choose a specific case, they cannot “refuse to serve a category of children.”
“Among the commitments made by CASA volunteers in their oath is to maintain objectivity, treat all persons with respect, fairness, and courtesy regardless of their human diversity,” the spokesperson said. “CASAs also commit to maintain an active commitment to the child for the life of the case if possible and because each child’s case is dynamic, CASAs can select a specific case but may not refuse to serve a category of children.”
The dismissed child advocate said she would never refuse to serve a child who identified as transgender, and she was surprised that her objection to gender surgery caused her to be discharged since she had always chosen the cases she wanted to take.
“I cared about the children I advocated for and put a lot of thought and time into the decisions I made on their behalf,” she added.
Washington has pushed to protect experimental gender surgeries and hormone treatments for children, recently passing a law that shelters, or “host homes,” are not required to notify parents of a runaway child if the child claims to be fleeing parents who do not approve of a gender surgery or an abortion. Instead of reporting the runaway child to the parents, the host home is required to notify the Washington Department of Children, Youth, and Families. The state’s Democratic Governor Jay Inslee was sued in August by America First Legal, which is seeking to stop the enforcement of the law allowing the state to hide child gender surgeries from parents.
When he signed the bill, Inslee said the law is a “compassionate, developmentally appropriate, and reasoned approach to support these youth as they access gender-affirming treatment and reproductive health care services.”
Republicans in the Washington state Senate slammed the bill, saying, “People are overwhelmingly against SB 5599, including many LGBT+ folks. Democrats pass it anyway, allowing youth shelters to hide kids seeking ‘gender-affirming care’ from their parents.”
Post a Comment