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"Nobody wants to meet with me. Nobody came to me and say, 'I'm sorry. We messed up. We made a mistake.' Nobody."

Speaking with a mother of a trans-identified daughter who placed herself into the foster care system at 16 and killed herself while on cross-sex hormone therapy at 19
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"It is part of the Twilight Zone-like unreality into which this issue has plunged much of the Western world that a mother telling the story of her daughter’s suicide while under the influence of cross-sex hormones — crucially, in her mother’s account, doled out in lieu of counseling to address underlying mental health difficulties — is seen by the forces aligned with the right-thinking in our society as a purveyor of hate and harm. A mother who must be driven off the streets lest her message corrupt its listeners into a dangerous hesitancy to block the puberty of children with off-label cancer drugs — drugs used to chemically castrate adult sex offenders — and put them on a path to becoming lifelong dependents on the medical industry." 

This was how I described the scene at the protest of the American Academy of Pediatrics by various groups representing parents of children stricken by Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria in October in Anaheim, CA in October. The mother referenced in that passage was Abigail Martinez, whom I sat down with later that day to discuss her daughter Yaeli’s death by suicide.

The story was thoroughly investigated in a long piece published at the Daily Mail , which included text messages documenting a loving mother-daughter relationship that persisted years after the court-ordered removal of Yaeli from her mother’s home in 2016. The family court ruled that Martinez, a mother of four working as a nanny, was an abusive parent and placed Yaeli — then going by her self-assigned male name of “Andrew” — in the foster care system, wherein 12-year-olds are deemed competent to manage their own medical care.

The piece also included a long quote from an official at the federal Department of Health and Human Services who described the policy of affirmation that he believes lead Yaeli down the garden path to her dismemberment on a railroad track, and the cause of the policy’s implementation in an Obama era lawsuit:

A former civil rights director for the federal Department of Health and Human Services who helped Martinez with her case claimed that the Arcadia school district and LA County put politics before Andrew's wellbeing. 

Roger Severino told DailyMail.com that he believes district officials were afraid of losing funding and desperate to show their pro-trans credentials after being sued by the Obama administration in 2013 for discriminating against a trans boy, and inappropriately pushed gender reassignment on children as a result.

A July 2013 settlement between the Department of Justice and the district obligated schools to 'promptly inform' any gender-transitioning student of 'their right to request a support team of appropriate individuals to ensure that the student has equal access to and equal opportunity to participate in the District's programs and activities.'

'The state got between a young girl in trouble and the person who loved her the most, her mother,' said Severino.

'Instead of working through the underlying depression, they put Abi's daughter on a one-way track straight to transition and chemical interventions that would lead to permanent sterilization as a kid.

'Because the state took Abi's daughter away, her depression got worse. And without having her mother's love, she took her own life.

'I think the school district and especially DCFS are ultimately responsible for her death.'

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Authors
Wesley Yang