Anmarie Calgaro is suing her child after her 17-year old daughter sought transgender-related health care. The St. Louis County mom, with the help of several anti-transgender groups, filed suit against her child as well as several county services, healthcare networks, and her local school district. The teen had sought county assistance with transition-related medical care including a letter from a legal aid organization about emancipation.
“It was brought to my knowledge that my son began receiving hormone replacement treatments from Park Nicollet Health Services to transition from male to female, with medical assistance paying for this,” Calgaro said at a press conference on Wednesday (though Calgaro refers to her daughter by male pronouns and descriptors, a doctor has determined that she had the appropriate medical care to “transition to the new female gender”).
Calgaro was flanked by members of the anti-transgender Minnesota Child Protection League, and Republican Rep. Glenn Gruenhagen, a lawmaker with a long record of hostility toward LGBTQ people. The suit was filed by the religious right legal outfit Thomas More Society as well as Republican-aligned attorney Erick Kaardal.
Michele Lentz of the MNCPL said, “Children are too often being used as pawns for the financial and political designs of special interest groups, groups that cannot have the level of regard for the personal, long-term wellbeing of a child as does a parent.”
MNCPL also released a statement attributed to Julie Quist that said:
A private health service began prescribing dangerous hormonal drugs to ‘transition’ him from male to female. This health service never consulted her, even though these controversial and largely untested drugs cause potentially irreversible effects and have unknown long-term risks. He was even prescribed narcotics from another health service. Clearly, Anmarie’s God-given and constitutionally protected parental rights have been violated. And her responsibilities to care for her son’s physical and emotional health and safety have been blocked by the actions of these agencies and services. She has been denied the chance to plead her case in court.
Glenn Gruenhagen threatened to introduce legislation that would block transgender teens with hostile parents from seeking emancipation. “I am deeply concerned when I see state agencies health care services and other organizations undermine parental authority. I intend to introduce legislation to strengthen parental authority over their children and to make sure it cannot be undermined or negated without due legal process. This would include addressing the current emancipation statute in the state of Minnesota.”
It can be inferred from documents filed with the court that Calgaro and her daughter have had a strained relationship. According to a document from Mid-Minnesota Legal Aid from 2015 (which uses male pronouns), the “mother has made it known to him that she no longer wishes to have any contact with him,” she “has taken no actions to report him as a runaway or taken legal action to keep him in her home,” and she “knows where he is and has made no attempts to bring him home.” The teen also has been attending high school with plans for college with supporting herself with two jobs.
Other documents filed with the court show that Calgaro’s daughter had petitioned the court for a name change in January 2016. Calgaro blocked her daughter’s efforts to obtain a name change.
Kaardal said the goal was to prevent the county and health care system from continuing to assist with Calgaro’s daughter’s transition. “We are asking the court to enjoin the defendants from acting as if this teenage child was emancipated until there’s an order of emancipation,” he said in response to a reporter’s question.
The suit was filed in the U.S. District Court District of Minnesota.
Here’s a copy of the suit:
[gview file=”http://thecolu.mn/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Complaint-District-Ct-11_16_16.pdf”]
Here’s video from the press conference:
Here’s the press release from the MNCPL:
[gview file=”http://thecolu.mn/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Gmail-Fwd_-Breaking-MInnesota-Mom-Sues-for-Parental-Rights.pdf”]
What an ignorant woman this mother is. Her parenting skills are non-existent. She doesn’t care about her child at all, she is just embarrassed about having to talk about the subject of transgender issues with her family and friends. Hopefully her daughter can find the support she needs to wait out this one year, and find a new “family” that may not be blood-related, but will certainly be better for her than her “birth” mother is being.
Claire,
I am not sure that this mom is ignorant at all. I think this might be about money. Obviously, the mother has not given the teen support, because Mom is still using masculine pronouns. This teen is living independently, so either mom kicked her out, or she left on her own. Either way, she has been living as an adult for at least six months. What is supposed to happen if a teen living independently has medical issues? Should he or she have to contact parents who have withdrawn support or possibly totally abandoned him or her? What if this teen had sought medical attention for cancer? Would Mom still be suing, or would she suggest that the teen forego cancer treatment because Mom has not been given the opportunity to supply consent? I think the issue here is that the mom has foregone her parenting rights by not pursuing a Mom/child situation–not reporting the teen as missing, not pursuing counseling services in an attempt to mend the broken relationship, not providing financial support for a teen who likely should be able to focus on academics rather than self-support. Mom gave up parental rights at the time she withdrew her support. So she wants to be able to withdraw the elements of parenting with which she is uncomfortable, such as providing support for gender transition, but she wants her parental rights/privileges back when it comes to the need to exert control. As parents, we can’t pick and choose–it’s all or nothing. Mom may not care about the teen at all. In fact, she may be seeking punitive damages which might amount to money in her pocket. Think about it–if she wins, how is the “compensation” granted? She can’t get her child back unless the child agrees. At 17, a teen can pursue legal emancipation, and this kid would have a great chance of winning since Mom has not been providing for her already. So what is Mom going to get if she wins? Her compensation will be in the form of the Almighty Dollar, and the GLBT community will have taken quite a blow—as GLBT children and teens will be forced to succumb to the wills of their parents, even when those parents choose to deny the children and teens the right to live true to their identities. I have a transgender son, and I’ll admit it was emotionally painful to accept it. It almost felt like my daughter died when she became my son. But then I realized that my true loss was the set of expectations that came with gender assignment. Now that I have let go of that, all five of children are free of gender barriers. Gender comes with no expectations, and I think we have all realized how freeing it is for children to just live independently from a set of expectations attached to them because of their genitals. I thank God for giving me the gift of understanding so that I am able to successfully parent all of my children, the heterosexual cisgendered ones and the transgendered one. I love, accept, and support them all…..even when they don’t turn out quite like I expected.
The only “pawn” in this case is Anmarie Calgaro, who is being used by anti-LGBT legislators and activists to further their agenda. There is no law on earth that can force a relationship between a parent and child–especially a child who, at seventeen, is very close to majority. This is one of the reasons that I oppose parental notification requirements for minors seeking abortion care–because any kid who doesn’t want to tell their parents about an abortion has a pretty good reason for doing so.
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