Maryland Refused to Give Back a Virginia Runaway Because Her Parents ‘Misgendered’ Her. Then She Was Sex Trafficked; Legislation Proposed to Fix This Insanity

By Daily Wire. A 14-year-old transgender runaway from Virginia endured a six-month nightmare that saw her twice fall into the hands of sex traffickers, the second time after Baltimore bureaucrats refused to return her to her home state because they accused her adoptive parents of “misgendering” her, according to records reviewed by The Daily Wire.

The child, identified in legal documents as Sage, was adopted by her biological grandmother, Michele Blair, after the death of her father. Long troubled, Sage began identifying as a male named “Draco” and ran away from their rural home in late August of 2021, only to end up on the mean streets of Baltimore, where authorities rescued her from a convicted sex offender, according to records. But instead of returning the child to her grandmother, Maryland officials put her in an inner-city group home. The reason: They thought her adoptive, blood-relative parents didn’t seem to sufficiently recognize her transgender identity.

“It is not possible to return the child to that home,” Judge Robert B. Kershaw wrote on Sept. 3, 2021, after an impassioned plea from Baltimore Assistant Public Defender Aneesa Khan.

Instead, the judge turned Sage over to the Baltimore City Department of Juvenile Services “for placement in a hardware secure therapeutic facility which makes reasonable accommodation for Respondent’s expressed male gender and desire to live as a trans male.” That meant housing the girl just rescued from a sex offender with some of Baltimore’s most troubled biological males.

“[Sage] has committed no juvenile offense in Maryland, is not a Maryland resident, and has no connections to Maryland… If he is located in another State there is no legal authority to return him to Maryland, much less for Maryland to assert legal custody over him.”

(Read more from “Maryland Refused to Give Back a Virginia Runaway Because Her Parents ‘Misgendered’ Her. Then She Was Sex Trafficked; Legislation Proposed to Fix This Insanity” HERE)

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Del. Dave LaRock Files “Sage’s Law,” HB 2432, to Protect Parental Rights and At-Risk Children in Virginia

By Royal Examiner. Sage’s Law seeks to address several failures of the government that were experienced first-hand by a Virginia teenager and her parents over the past year. Michele Blair, the mother of the bill’s namesake, shared her story of being intentionally kept in the dark about her daughter’s gender struggles while at school by both teachers and counselors, which led to Sage being bullied, assaulted, sex-trafficked, and then kept from returning to her parents after she was rescued because of unfounded claims of child abuse. Sage’s story is heartbreaking and compelling.

“Virginia law needs to be absolutely clear that affirming a child’s biological sex does not justify taking a child away from their family. Subjective determinations of whether a family’s beliefs are “abuse and neglect” are unacceptable. Teachers, school counselors, social service workers, and courts must respect the parent’s fundamental rights in the parent-child relationship by involving parents immediately when a child is experiencing serious challenges. The horrific treatment of Sage Blair has shown the need to provide protections for parents and children in Virginia.,” said Delegate Dave LaRock. (Read more from “Del. Dave LaRock Files “Sage’s Law,” HB 2432, to Protect Parental Rights and At-Risk Children in Virginia” HERE)

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Sage’s Law

By PJ Media. Back in the summer of 2021, Virginia’s Appomattox County High School decided to hide the fact that a teenage girl named Sage identified as a boy from her parents. According to a piece on The Federalist, that decision resulted in a chain of horrific events that not only sent Sage through a terrible ride through the state’s juvenile justice system but left her at the hands of sexual predators two times.

The Federalist recounts how Sage was adopted by her grandmother Michele after Michele’s son, Sage’s father, died. Sage struggled with problems from the loss of her father. She received medical and mental health treatments, and the schools had always informed Michele if there were any issues.

When Sage began coping with gender dysphoria, she began wearing boys’ clothes and identified as a boy while at school using a male name and pronouns. She was lonely and bullied and wanted to find a place to fit in. No one informed her parents, and a school counselor told her that she could use the boys’ bathroom. The boys in the school followed her around, touching and threatening her with a knife and rape. At one point she was slammed up against a wall. The school had concerns and contacted Michele without disclosing Sage’s gender dysphoria. Sage ran away and was located nine days later in Maryland, having been sexually assaulted. She had been kidnapped and taken there. Transgender children are often the target of predators, and some sites that were recommended to her by a school counselor led to pornography and older men.

Michele traveled to Maryland, where her daughter was being held in juvenile detention. They saw Sage via video screen and the pair told each other they loved one another. Despite this, Sage’s court-appointed attorney, Aneesa Khan, told the court that Sage did not want to come home because Michele and her husband Roger had abused her due to her new gender. Sage said that Khan told her to say that her parents hit and starved her so that Khan could win the case and Sage could be placed in a foster home that would affirm her gender.

Judge Robert Kershaw moved Sage from solitary confinement to a children’s home, where she was housed with the boys and frequently assaulted. During this time, Sage continued to see Kershaw for hearings and Khan had school counselors testify against Michele and Roger. Khan even told Sage the lie that her parents did not want her anymore because she was transgender. Sage never received any of the cards and letters that her mother sent her. Sage skipped school while at the home and smoked marijuana. Khan said that she didn’t care if Sage did drugs, so long as she won the case. Khan also contacted one of Sage’s Maryland school friends to help her contact Sage, and Sage’s case became known in her school. (Read more from “Sage’s Law” HERE)

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