On Wednesday, a Minnesota mother asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review a case in which local county officials and the school district did not stop her teenage son from getting gender transition treatments despite the fact that her consent had not been given.
The Thomas More Society filed a petition for a writ of certiorari on behalf of the mother, Anmarie Calgaro, as The Christian Post reported. The Thomas More Society wrote:
The Petition for a Writ of Certiorari, filed July 24, 2019, with the United States Supreme Court in Anmarie Calgaro v. St. Louis County et al, declares that Calgaro’s due process rights were trampled upon when the county and its referred health providers ended her parental control over her minor son without a court order of emancipation.
Kaardal continued:
Unbelievably, Minnesota statutes authorize a county to deem a minor “emancipated” to receive welfare payments to live on their own and allow medical providers to void parental input if it determines the minor is living apart from the parents and is managing his or her own personal financial affairs. And the St. Louis County School District in Minnesota has a custom and practice of barring a parent for more than two years from involvement in the child’s education after a child is deemed by the school principal, not by a court order, to be emancipated. This is an unacceptable situation for any parent and a serious violation of parental and due process rights.
The background of the case is this, according to NBC News: the boy, who is now 18, claimed he came out as gay at the age of 13; he also claimed that his mother and stepfather became verbally and physically abusive. The boy said that when he was 15, his mother permitted him to move in with his biological father, who soon was incarcerated, which left the boy staying with his grandmother and series of friends, then finally got his own apartment. He was reputedly provided with elective medical services for a sex change without his mother’s consent or a legal order of emancipation.
The boy asserted, “I was not pressured in any way by my providers to consent to this treatment. My providers had no involvement in my decision not to involve my mother in my health care decisions.”
But in November 2016, when the boy was 17, his mother held a press conference at which she said, “The news that county agencies and health service providers, the school and other county and state offices were completely bypassing me came as a total shock. Why wasn’t I even notified?” She filed suit against St. Louis County, the St. Louis School Board and the principal of her daughter’s high school, the director of the county’s Health and Human Services agency, and two nonprofit health clinics. She wanted to prevent healthcare providers from giving her son any additional treatment.
In May 2017, District Court Judge Paul Magnuson ruled against Calgaro, stating, “The School District argues that Calgaro has failed to plausibly allege that the execution of a School District policy or custom caused the deprivation of Calgaro’s parental rights. The School District is correct. Calgaro fails to provide any facts that the School District executed a policy or custom that deprived Calgaro of her parental rights without due process.”
Kaardal stated that St. Louis County determined, without any basis, that the boy was emancipated and could receive government benefits.