A family from Maryland has accused the Children’s National Hospital of encouraging their autistic teenage son to identify as a “girl.” The biologically male child was then taken from his family’s care due to their refusal to “validate” his transition, and has now been placed in the home of the Hospital’s non-binary “chaplain,” who has connections to Assistant Secretary of Health, Rachel Levine.
The lawsuit, which was filed in March by Maryland couple John Doe II and his wife, states that their 16-year-old autistic son was admitted to the hospital after a suicide attempt in November 2021. Shortly after his admission, the parents allege that hospital staff began to insist their son was transgender, despite the boy never questioning his gender identity before his hospital stay.
According to a press release issued by Partners for Ethical Care, the suit claims that the hospital “intentionally set out on a … program to identify, critique and then rebuke the family’s professed religion… [and] to expressly require the parents to convert to the ‘new Christianity’ by engaging in faith-conversion sessions with the hand-selected [hospital] chaplain not of any of the Doe family’s faith, Lavender Kelley.”
Kelley, a biological female who identifies as non-binary transgender, has repeatedly posted in support of the medical transitioning of children against the wishes of their families.
“I’m so drained from watching children die because their families don’t understand the science of gender or the psychology of coercion or the damage of weaponized religion. And to see government be not just merely unhelpful but outright violating means only more suicides and profound mental anguish to come,” she wrote on Facebook in March 2022, only two months after the family were told in CPS court proceedings that their son would only be allowed home if they affirmed his new trans identity and stopped reading “particular passages” of the Bible at home.
“Even if you don’t agree with gender affirming therapies, please, please, please know that they stave off suicides and give children space to grow up and grow into authentic identity,” she continued in the post. “There’s nothing that’s done in gender affirming therapies for children and adolescents that isn’t 100% reversable [sic] if they change their mind. We’re buying them time to understand the complexities of gender but in a way that promotes psychological growth along the way,” Kelley continued.
Despite her insistence otherwise, “gender-affirming” therapies such as hormone treatment lead to permanent effects.
Prior to being placed directly with Kelley, the boy had been released into the home of a foster carer, one who is alleged to have been a close personal friend of Kelley.
The suit claims that the “foster mother” had a previous assault charge in Maryland, and began “exploiting” the teenage boy by posing him as a female in Instagram photos, despite allegedly writing that he “did not want to be a woman.”
Disturbingly, after being tested for sexually transmitted diseases in the summer of 2022, the boy was once again hospitalized for a suicide attempt.
The suit further adds that the “foster mother” suddenly died, and as a result, the teen was rehoused into the care of hospital Chaplain Kelly herself, where the parents claim he still resides to this day to the best of their knowledge, despite having turned 18 in March of last year.
In another Facebook post from June 2023, during the time period that the suit alleges the boy was living with Kelly, the chaplain and her partner are pictured at an event at the Israeli Embassy in Washington DC, with transgender Assistant Health Secretary Admiral Rachel Levine.
Levine has been one of the most vocal proponents of the medical transitioning of children. “Gender-affirming care is life-saving, medically necessary, age-appropriate, and a critical tool for healthcare providers,” Levine said in June 2022. “As a pediatrician, when it comes to making sure kids are healthy and happy, I know how important care that affirms someone’s true identity can be.”
Even though a judge found in August of 2023 that abuse charges brought against the parents by the hospital were unsubstantiated, the parents have not had their son returned to them.
“This is the craziest case I’ve ever had,” said the family’s lawyer, Mr. Amos Jones in March. “I don’t know why there are people who think this makes sense. But I guess lots of people agree with this in Washington D.C. now… There is a sensitive way to welcome and serve families caring for a child struggling with identity concerns. Instead, this hospital decided to disregard the parents’ rights, and the oppression has operated over a period that now spans four years.”