New California bill aims to punish parents who refuse to 'affirm' their children's gender identity

Assembly member Lori Wilson, California's only member with a child who transitioned from female to a transman, and Senator Wiener, a man with no children, co-authored Assembly Bill 957.  This bill will be the gateway by which Child Protective Services, the police, and courts will find a parent who does not affirm their child's gender identity, abusive in order to remove and cut off all ties from the child from that parent's custody and control. This bill easily passed the Democrat majority Assembly in recognition of Trans Day of Visibility. This has been Wiener's goal for years and with the surreptitious last-minute amendments, he had his champagne on ice and bag of mushrooms ready.

AB957—another "Wiener Trans Special"— is a bill that will make it child abuse NOT to affirm your child's gender identity regardless of the age of your child.  Sen. Wiener is slipping this in through the backdoor by amending the Family Code to redefine "health, welfare and safety" to mean affirmation of a child's gender identity for purposes of determining which parent is more fit to have custody of the child. Wiener and Wilson just made not affirming a child abuse or, at the very least, neglect.

Wilson defended the bill, saying that "affirming a child's gender identity is in their best interests." She used the example of a 7-year-old who has the ability to articulate that they were born in the wrong body, and the need to "affirm" that. Otherwise, she said "you're rejecting your child," and said "we should be affirming our children in every possible way."

Remember the outrage fit Scott Wiener had when Texas was trying to make it child abuse and criminalize parents who consented to gender transition interventions on their child?  He called it terrifying and disgusting. But what is more terrifying than forcing parents to subject their children to osteoporosis-causing castration drugs – puberty blockers; cancer-causing, heart disease-inducing and body atrophy-causing wrong sex hormones; and removal of health body parts or otherwise say goodbye to your children? Wiener excoriated Texas for separating families and criminalizing parents for transitioning their children, but he is doing the exact same thing, only in reverse: transition your child or else risk losing them.

Instead of directly amending the codes defining "abuse," because Wiener is too shrewd to go for the direct kill, Weber and he are attempting to amend Family Code, section 3011, which addresses the factors that a judge must consider in order to determine the best interests of the child in order to assign, or "award," custody. As the law currently stands, 4 factors must be considered: (1) the health, safety and welfare of the child; (2) abuse by one parent or a partner of that parent; (3) the nature/amount of contact with parents – e.g., has one parent been absent for extended period of time, absent because of abuse, or abandoned the child, and (4) the parent's use of drugs and alcohol. All of these factors, except the overarching general consideration of health, safety and welfare, are negative actions or "strikes" against the parent that call into question his or her ability to care for the child and, thus, whether or not s/he should be granted custody.

The all-important words, "health, safety and welfare" are not defined. However, if AB957 passes, "health, safety and welfare" will include a parent's affirmation of the child's gender identity that can include social transition (a name, a pronoun, a haircut) and/or medical transition (puberty blockers, wrong sex hormones, castration, and surgical procedures) of minors.

The obvious effect of AB957 is that when parents disagree about how to address their child's gender confusion, the parent who is willing to concretize the delusion that a child can change their sex, and that everything is wrong with their body, will get custody. The court will hold that the parent willing to inject puberty blockers that are not FDA-approved for gender dysphoria, can lead to blindness, stop the natural strengthening of bones, and leave boys with micro-penises, in-orgasmic for life, and sterile, or who will place her son on estrogen that can cause sterility in as little as 4 months, will get custody.

Same for the parent who will place her daughter on testosterone that will cause irreversible facial hair growth, baldness, menopause in the teenage years, aggression issues and hyper-sexual impulsivity, and atrophy of the uterus that eventually requires a hysterectomy. And, of course, the parent who is willing to remove body parts from the healthy child will also be deemed the most fit parent entitled to custody.

This is just one law that pits parent against parent with the victor always the parent willing to affirm the child, regardless of age, co-morbid mental health issues or even mental health providers' recommendations. Senator Wiener has been passing these types of bills (e.g. SB407) without much fanfare for years from the left or the right sides of the aisle.

By adding language that states that the health, safety, and welfare of the child includes a parent's affirmation of the child's gender identity,  the true intent of the bill is revealed. Those three words – Health, Safety and Welfare – will make California the first state in the nation to penalize parents for not affirming their children.  Every parent should be terrified and disgusted.