Bereft Mother Testifies Against California ‘Gender Affirmation’ Bill

CV NEWS FEED // A California mother last Wednesday testified against a newly-passed bill in California that critics say empowers the state to abduct the children of parents who will not “affirm” their gender dysphoric kids.

In a statement delivered at a California Judiciary Senate hearing, Abigail Martinez described how Child Protective Services removed her 16-year-old daughter Yaeli from her custody after she was reported by the girl’s school counselor and a group of LGBTQ activists for not affirming the child’s claim that she was a boy. 

The bill, AB 957, includes parental “affirmation” of a child’s “gender identity” as a necessary component of the child’s “health, safety, and welfare.” The legislation categorizes refusing to affirm childhood gender dysphoria as child abuse.  

“My daughter was taken from her loving home because the state of California claimed I was abusive for not affirming her ‘trans’ identity,” Martinez told the court, “I lost my daughter over a name and pronouns. Even after I promised to call her a male name, it wasn’t enough.” 

After the state of California removed Yaeli from her home, Martinez continued, she “was given testosterone instead of therapy,” and was used as a pawn to raise money by the LGBTQ group that aided her emancipation. 

Martinez explained to the committee that her daughter “was not a boy trapped in a girl’s body,” but a young girl with mental health issues in dire need of treatment and care. 

“Parents are given one option to treat their distressed child: affirm, drug, and remove their healthy body part, or else lose your child,” Martinez said. 

“My daughter knelt down in front of a train,” Martinez told the committee through tears. “She was murdered by gender ideology.” 

Martinez was eventually acquitted of the abuse charges, but by then her daughter had already suffered irreversible physical and mental harm due to the hormone treatment she had undergone. 

Martinez was one among over a hundred California residents who testified against the bill at the Democrat-majority hearing. Only 17 testified in favor. 

Originally intended to be used exclusively in divorce court proceedings, AB-957 was passed on May 3, then amended by a co-sponsor after hours in California’s State Senate on June 6. 

The amendment changed the definition and application of the entire California Family Code to include “gender affirmation” under the state’s universal standards for childcare. 

The bill provides no explanation for the terms “affirming” or “non affirming,” leaving interpretation up to the court’s discretion. 

Rep. Lori Wilson, D-Suisun City, wrote the original bill. When asked about the risks of leaving these terms undefined, Wilson replied that “affirmation” was a “plain language” term already defined elsewhere in California law. 

The severity of the bill’s threatened consequences for failure to comply and the ambiguity of its terms could lead many California parents to allow their children to become permanently mutilated because they fear the state will take their children away from them otherwise. 

In a related case, a young California woman recently filed a lawsuit against the doctors and hospital who she claims recklessly placed her on hormone therapy and performed the “gender affirming surgery” of double mastectomy on her at age 13. 

Kayla Lovdahl, who is now 18 years old, claims she came to believe she was a boy after being exposed to “transgender” activists and influencers online. 

Doctors led Lovdahl’s parents to believe that their impressionable young daughter’s gender dysphoria was legitimate grounds for life-altering surgery. Lovdahl now describes the surgery as “ideological and profit driven medical abuse.”

California state Sen. Scott Wilk, R-Santa Clarita told the California Senate Judiciary Committee and parents, including Martinez, gathered on June 13: “If you love your children, you need to flee California. You need to flee.”