!!
Relatedly, we've got HF 146 currently in the state legislature and we should contact our state reps to support it. What it would do, if passed, is bar enforcement of any laws passed in other states to remove children from parental custody for receiving gender reaffirming care treatments within the state of Minnesota. Here's the kind of situation the law is designed for:
Imagine a trans child whose parents divorce, partly because they have strong differences of opinion about how to respond to their child's gender identity. Say the custodial parent moves from Texas to Minnesota because they can see the way the winds of change are blowing, and allows the child to seek gender affirming care in the new state. The other parent is horrified that the custodial parent is "allowing" the child to "pervert" their body by, um, taking puberty blockers to delay puberty or dress and socially take on the gender in which they feel comfortable, and takes legal action. Say that noncustodial parent, who is still living in Texas, reports the custodial parent to the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services as a child abuse case purely on grounds of the gender affirmation care.
What this law would do is allow Minnesota agencies to refuse to allow Texas custodial courts to control this kind of dispute and to insist that Minnesota family courts to have jurisdiction. That means that Minnesota has full rights to say, "this child is not being abused for this care, even though it is defined as abuse in Texas, and you can go kick rocks about it because the care is happening here. Texas courts cannot force us to yield the child up to them or to Texas parents."
