At just fifteen years old, Yaeli Martinez, daughter to Abigail Martinez, began asking to identify as “Andrew.” Yaeli suffered from a long history of depression and learning deficits, and her mother alleges that Los Angeles LGBT Center school counselors groomed Yaeli into becoming “trans” behind her back.
Abigail, a Christian mother of four, did not affirm Yaeli’s belief that she was a boy and did not call her “Andrew.” Troubled and anxious, Yaeli ran away, and she never came home—Los Angeles Child Protective Service took Yaeli into their custody and placed her in foster care. Abigail was granted just one hour of visitation and instructed to not mention God to Yaeli, and when she turned eighteen, Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles administered Yaeli puberty blockers and testosterone by order of the state.
After undergoing sex-rejecting medical interventions, Yaeli fell into a deeper depression and committed suicide by stepping in front of a moving train. At her daughter’s funeral, Abigial asked to see Yaeli one last time—but the coroner told her there was nothing left to see.
Los Angeles Child Protective Services took Yaeli away from the one person who could shepherd her through her depression, anxiety, and identity crisis—her Christian mother—and placed her in the hands of LGBT advocates who ultimately pushed her into a deeper depression, deeper crisis, and deeper isolation, so much so that Yaeli ended her own life.
What happened to Yaeli and Abigail is a tragic feature, not a bug, of too many state CPS systems. Colorado state law classifies “deadnaming” and “misgendering” as discrimination, classifying a parent’s denial of their child’s preferred name or gender as “coercive control” and “child abuse.” In Indiana, Jeremy and Mary Cox lost custody of their trans-identifying son to CPS in 2021, and last month in Massachussetts, a Catholic family lost custody of their trans-identifying daughter after a school counselor “socially transitioned” her.
In many states across the country, Christians are facing a devastating loss of parental rights—starting with secret gender transitions in schools, and in some cases, ending in lost custody of their own children. From schools to family courts, a systemic overhaul is needed to restore a parent’s right to raise their children according to their deeply held religious values, foster truthful lifestyles in their home, and direct the upbringing of their children without state interference.
In honor of Yaeli Martinez, Sen Eric Schmitt (R-Missouri) and Congresswoman Mary Miller (R-Illinois 15th) offer a solution with their newly-introduced Yaeli Martinez Child Protection Act. If enacted, the bill would:
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- Protect parents from wrongful abuse allegations by clarifying that affirming a child’s biological sex does not constitute child abuse.
- Safeguard parental custody by barring federally funded state child-welfare systems from removing children from fit parents simply because those parents affirm their child’s biological sex.
- Ensure foster and adoptive families cannot be denied placement solely because they affirm a child’s biological sex.
- Amend the Parental Kidnapping Prevention Act to prevent states from wrongfully asserting custody over a child.
- Hold states accountable through federal funding consequences and a private right of action for violations of the Act.
Because of our commitment to defending families, Christian parents, biological truth, and vulnerable children, Concerned Women for America Legislative Action Committee (CWALAC) supports the Yaeli Martinez Child Protection Act and urges Congress to pass this vital legislation. Penny Nance, CEO and President of CWALAC, said,
It is not child abuse for a parent or caregiver to affirm a child’s sex. In fact, doing so is acting in the best interest of the child by protecting them from falling into a false and dangerous ideology. But far too many families have been wrongly investigated and punished by the state for doing that very thing. Far too many foster parents have been barred from caring for children in need because they refuse to use false pronouns. We are grateful to Sen. Schmitt for introducing legislation that will protect families who rightly teach their children that each one is created uniquely, lovingly, by God, male and female.
Christians have a God-given duty to raise up their children in the way they should go. No government, especially not one in the United States of America, should break up families for practicing their sincerely held religious beliefs. Biological truth is not child abuse, and parents must be able to combat the lies of transgender ideology in their own homes. Please join CWALAC in praying for the passage of the Yaeli Martinez Child Protection Act.
