Chris Lange, FISM News
Virginia Democratic delegate Elizabeth Guzman announced plans to introduce legislation that would hold parents criminally liable for refusing to “affirm” their child’s preferred gender.
Guzman’s proposed expansion to Virginia’s “abused or neglected child” defininition will include any parent or guardian who “inflicts, threatens to create or inflict, or allows to be created or inflicted upon such child a physical or mental injury on the basis of the child’s gender identity or sexual orientation.”
The measure would allow teachers and counselors to report parents who, for instance, fail to use their child’s preferred pronouns. Violators could be subjected to a range of misdemeanor and federal charges.
“If the child shares with those mandated reporters, what they are going through, we are talking about not only physical abuse or mental abuse, what the job of that mandated reporter is to inform Child Protective Services (CPS),” Guzman told 7News.
As she made the local media rounds touting the bill, Guzman bragged about the effects the proposed revision would have on violators.
“It could be a felony, it could be a misdemeanor, but we know that CPS charge could harm your employment, could harm their education, because nowadays many people do a CPS database search before offering employment,” she crowed.
What Guzman failed to mention, however, is that CPS also has the power to remove a child from his or her parents’ custody and place them into foster care.
“This is the state being the abductor of children on behalf of the transgender cult,” David Gordon, a conservative political consultant, told The Daily Wire in response to the proposed legislation.
Guzman, a social worker, is running for her third term in the Virginia House of Delegates. Her voice is one among a chorus of Virginia Democrats and liberal activists in the state who have expressed outrage over Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s policy initiatives that seek to preserve parents’ rights in determining what is best for their own children.
FISM reported last month that the Republican governor rolled back the state’s progressive Department of Education school transgender policies.
Guzman denied that her proposal seeks to criminalize parents.
“No, it’s not. It’s educating parents because the law tells you the do’s and don’ts,” Guzman answered. “So this law is telling you do not abuse your children because they are LGBTQ.” At one point, she paraphrased — or misquoted, rather — scripture to justify her position.
“The Bible says to accept everyone for who they are. So that’s what I tell them when they asked me that question, and that’s what I will continue to tell people,” she said.