2019 Child Custody Battle Highlights Intersection of Child Custody Rights and “Gender Ideology”

A 2019 news story involving Chicago parents with differing ideas of how to co-parent their child who sought to begin a gender transition highlights how differing “gender ideologies” can impact a parent’s child custody rights. According to news reports, Chicago mother Jeanette Cooper lost custody of her 12-year-old child, Sophia, after she allegedly “failed to create a mentally and emotionally safe environment” for the child who was born biologically female, but sought to transition to a male. Prior to the controversy surrounding the child’s gender transition, Cooper had custody of the child for six days and seven nights a week. However, after the child’s father fought for more expansive custody rights in light of differing ideas of how to parent the child in light of the gender transition, Cooper said she could only communicate with her child by U.S. mail. Cooper said at the time of the limited custody of her child, “People who are imprisoned have more communication with their child than I do…Usually, Child Protective Services has a definition of what it means to be unsafe, to be either abused or neglected. There was no evidence that I had done anything like that.”

Cooper’s custody rights were sliced because she “insisted that Sophia is a girl.” Cooper said, “I don’t think there are any bounds on what it means to be female other than to exist in a female body. There is nothing that I have to do to become female. I simply am. I can dress whatever way I want. I can cut my hair off, grow it long, I can change my clothes. I am still female. Any behavior that I have is female because it is mine.” Cooper apparently “shaves her head and reportedly purchases clothes regardless of whether they are located in the men’s or women’s section.” However, due to the fact that she insists that Sophia is female, in 2019, the child never returned to Cooper’s house after a visit with her father. After that, a custody battle ensued.

As things stood back in 2019, as a result of the custody battle, Cooper was only allowed to see her daughter (who presented at the time as “feminine” and used the pronouns “xe, xyr, xyrs”) when permitted by the child’s father. In addition, the child could not medically transition without Cooper’s consent.

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Source:

fox17.com/news/nation-world/mother-who-questioned-12-year-old-daughters-gender-transition-loses-custody-battle