A Minnesota mother is suing county health boards, a local school district, a pair of local health care non-profits and her 17-year-old son, after the state secretly gave sex-changing transgender hormones to her son without her consent.
“It was brought to my knowledge that my son (sic) began receiving hormone replacement treatments from Park Nicollet Health Services to transition from male to female, with medical assistance paying for this,” Anmarie Calgaro told reporters in a St. Paul, Minnesota court, according to NBC News. “I was not consulted or informed about this [transgender treatment] in any way.”
Attorney Erick Kaardal said that her child, who is still a minor, is being changed from “boy to girl … without her consent and without court order,” Pioneer Press reported.
Calgaro’s lawsuit challenges a Minnesota state law that allows minors to obtain medical treatment without parental consent, and claims the law is unconstitutional because it denies parental rights.
Calgaro said that Park Nicollet Health Services, Fairview Health Services and the St. Louis County School District will not allow her access to her child’s health records.
She added that he is receiving money from state medical assistance funds to pay for medicine, including hormone treatments and narcotics, and living expenses so he can live independently.
People who want to live as members of the other sex sometimes seek surgery, which is only provided after the person takes body-changing opposite-sex hormones for a year or more. The surgery is irreversible, and the hormones can also cause irreversible damage. Many parents face legal problems when trying to help their teenagers who claim to be members of the opposite sex.
In 2015, Mid-Minnesota Legal Aid wrote a letter to Calgaro saying that she relinquished her legal rights over her child.
The reason for this was the teen said Calgaro wasn’t married when she gave birth and she did not report her child as a runaway six months after he left home, even though she had legal custody of the child.
Calgaro lives in northeastern Minnesota while her son lives in central Minnesota.
Calgaro doesn’t oppose her son’s sex-change decision for moral or religious reasons, she just wants her child to wait until he’s more mature to make a life-altering decision, her lawyer said.
“Not only was I robbed of the opportunity to help my son make good decisions, but I also feel he was robbed of a key advocate in his life, his mother,” Calgaro said.
A Minnesota judge ruled this week that a ban on gender reassignment surgery for those on Medicaid was unconstitutional.
To learn more about the politics, science and polls related to gender issues, click here.
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