In pretty terrible news, a Minnesota mom announced at a press conference this past Wednesday that she plans to sue her 17-year-old transgender daughter for seeking gender reassignment, because she did so without her knowledge or approval.
Anmarie Calgaro is specifically challenging a state law that actually allows emancipated minors to make choices about their health care and medical procedures without parental consent, according to Jezebel. According to the law, any minor in Minnesota living separately from their parents and who is financially independent “may give effective consent to personal medical, dental, mental, and other health services,” without receiving permission from a parent or legal guardian.
The teen filed an emancipation statement in June 2015, which states Calgaro made it clear she “no longer wishes to have any contact” with her daughter, according to NBC News. Even further, Calgaro also knew where her daughter was staying–but didn’t try to have her come home. Thus, Calgaro’s daughter legally began hormone therapy and received new identity documents without her mother’s knowledge.
Calgaro claims that she was never notified that the emancipation statement had been filed, which means she couldn’t dispute it, stating:
“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.”
Besides suing her daughter, she is also suing the “county health boards, a school district, and local health care nonprofits,” as she believes the law is a “violation” of parental rights, and that “the transitioning thing isn’t even the issue, the issue is that [her daughter is] able to make these [medical] decisions.”
The saddest part, for me, is the fact that throughout the conference, Calgaro continued to misgender her daughter, referring to the teen using male pronouns, despite a doctor’s letter stating that the teen “has had appropriate, permanent clinical treatment for transition to the new female gender.”
The good news is the teen has been receiving hormone therapy for about a year, and will turn 18 next July, and will officially be a legal adult.
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