California Family Loses Custody For Opposing Gender Transition

A Ukrainian immigrant family fled Soviet-style control for America in search of freedom and safety. Instead, they say California tore their family apart, seized their teenage daughter, labeled them child abusers, shut them out of her life, and handed authority over to the very system pushing her deeper into gender ideology. Alexandra and her husband came to the United States in 2007. Their daughter was born in Kiev. They built a life in America around hard work, family, and stability. They built a life here. They raised her with love, values, and hard work. Then in June 2024, California Child Protective Services took their 15-year-old daughter, not for proven abuse, not for neglect, but because they refused to affirm a sudden transgender identity and authorize a pathway toward medicalization.

The road to that removal began years earlier. From 2017 to 2020, while living in Massachusetts, their daughter was a lively, happy but hyperactive girl who was relentlessly bullied by classmates and even teachers. The school did nothing. The family sued, but the case was dismissed, and they had to leave Massachusetts. Reduxx reported that her mental-health struggles were worsened by persistent bullying at school beginning in first and second grade. The family had already relocated multiple times before finally settling in Redding. In 2021 they moved to affordable Redding, California, in Shasta County, just before the Fawn Fire.

By 2022, the war in Ukraine had pulled the family into aid work while their daughter struggled to form real friendships. She turned inward and online. She spent more time on Discord, immersed herself in mental-health labels, and pursued explanations for her distress. She researched trauma, sought testing for ADHD, oppositional defiant disorder, borderline personality disorder, PTSD, and major depressive disorder, and even self-prescribed lithium for mood swings. That same year, she suffered a head injury after being dropped off at school when another vehicle backed into her as she exited the car, and two months later she was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder after a single remote phone-based evaluation that relied heavily on questionnaires rather than any in-person assessment. Reduxx also reported that she had previously struggled with anxiety, anger, attention issues, emotional dysregulation, and at one point a temporary psychiatric placement. Reduxx also reported that before the 2023 turning point, she had already started making gradual appearance changes, including cutting her long hair shorter, shifting toward more androgynous clothes, and asking to be called by a unisex name.

Source — Reduxx (Slatz, 2026)

There were no childhood signs of gender confusion. She was neither a girly girl nor a tomboy. The family was dealing with trauma, bullying, psychiatric labels, online isolation, and a child desperate to explain why she felt broken.

Then came 2023.

During a routine child well-visit at Mercy Family Center, the family met psychiatrist Dr. Michelle Sager. The daughter had asked for psychiatric help, and the parents believed she was seeking counseling for her emotional struggles. Dr. Sager worked through Mercy Medical Center and the Children’s Legacy Center for Resilience in Redding, which was presented as trauma-focused care. Under Dr. Sager’s watch, the daughter was prescribed lithium and later antidepressants, with repeated medication changes. Two appointments later, Dr. Sager self-referred us to Children’s Legacy Center for Resilience. Until March 2023, Alexandra was usually present during counseling. Then the daughter reportedly asked Dr. Sager whether she helped with “LGBTQ issues” and asked her mother to leave the room. After private sessions with Dr. Sager began in March 2023, the entire direction of the case changed. The girl started openly pursuing a transgender identity, joined an LGBTQ Discord server where she said she felt accepted, cut her hair short, shifted to male clothing, adopted a unisex name, and started using male bathrooms. Her parents even adjusted the way they referred to her, despite coming from a native language that is highly gendered, in an effort to keep peace and support her while trying to get real mental-health care.

“We accommodated the unisex name she chose.”

Dr. Sager also reportedly reassured the family that breast binders were safe. The family says she was being loaded with heavy psychotropic drugs while gender ideology was becoming intertwined with her psychiatric care. The family’s position is that Dr. Sager and the center began grooming her into trans ideology.

At the same time, she was spending hours online with an individual called “markymoo,” playing Minecraft and Roblox and immersing herself in trans-identifying online spaces. One chilling moment stood out. In April 2023, she warned her mother that California had laws allowing the state to take a child if the parents did not affirm a trans identity. The threat was already in the house long before CPS ever knocked on the door.

In conversion with Maia and Jonni – Maia Poet on Substack

By early 2024, the situation exploded. The daughter demanded testosterone and even spoke about wanting a hysterectomy. Her parents refused and asked her to wait until adulthood before making irreversible decisions. After that refusal, she became increasingly isolated, stopped eating with the family, swore at them, accused them of abuse, corrected their language, and pressured her younger brother to call her “he.” She also used threats of self-harm as leverage with caseworkers and feared being cut off from her online friends. The family was in crisis.

Alexandra repeatedly contacted Dr. Sager asking for family therapy and help stabilizing the home. Instead, while giving the impression that she was trying to find a family therapist, Dr. Sager was already moving behind the scenes. On May 29, 2024, she reported the family to CPS because they would not affirm.

On June 1, 2024, the daughter demanded foster care outright, telling her parents she would gain easier access to hormones and surgeries in state custody. Two days later, on June 3, a stranger dressed in black arrived at the family’s home. Reduxx reported that the woman identified herself as being from Shasta County’s Department of Health and Human Services. No badge. No warrant. No court order. No paperwork. Just a demand for the child, paired with accusations of emotional abuse. When Alexandra’s husband demanded proof, there was none. He refused access to speak with their daughter one on one. The worker left, said police would be called, and the daughter ran after her barefoot. The worker allegedly told the girl to follow behind the car because she could not legally drive her. Alexandra reportedly became physically ill during the confrontation. Eight police officers arrived shortly afterward, and the state still took her. No investigation. No warning.

“My husband had the social worker call 911; eight police cars arrived, but they still let the stranger leave with her.”

Then came one of the most damning details in the entire case. The daughter had left her laptop open. The last thing on the screen was a Discord chat with an online friend. The messages allegedly included instructions on how to accuse her parents of emotional abuse, what language to use with authorities, how to ensure removal from the home, and how to “dig a grave” for her parents. This was not organic teenage distress. It was ideological coaching, online manipulation, and state enforcement crashing together in real time. We have seen this pattern before: platforms like Roblox claim to be safe for kids but end up funneling them into off-site Discords filled with inappropriate discussions and bad actors who convince children to turn against their parents.

Once in state custody, the daughter was placed with a “glitter family” – foster caregivers who affirm a child's trans identity after their parents are deemed unfit to look after them due to alleged accusations of “transphobia.” They roomed the 15-year-old daughter with a teenage boy, in alignment with the girl's trans identity. The “glitter family” underfed her. They prescribed birth-control pills. They marched her to a sexual-health clinic for a pregnancy test. They promoted trans ideology daily. They blocked calls and letters from the parents. They coached the girl to testify against them. And while the family was denied meaningful contact, Maggie still had access to her through a house phone and ongoing ideological influence. “Maggie kept using a house phone unlike us and indoctrinating her.”

The daughter also reportedly told caseworkers that her parents were “[spreading] so much hate about the LGBTQ+ and transgender community” because they were speaking publicly and seeking help online.

“Artwork painted by Ellie of herself and her child. Image provided by family” – REDUXX

The family moved immediately to find expert help.

“We are fit parents.”

They lined up care with Dr. Gopal, Chris Jensen, and BNI treatment centers, including BNI SouthCal, a luxury residential rehab program. They spent $180,000 on three different sets of lawyers, each of whom they ultimately fired after feeling betrayed.

Every one of them eventually betrayed the family and had to be fired.

Their private insurance poured another $300,000 into BNI SouthCal at a rate of $5,000 a day, and they fought to keep their daughter there longer so she could stabilize and heal. The court still blocked contact. Meanwhile, decisions over her care and schooling were stripped from the parents. The school stopped giving them access to her records. Medical authority shifted to the foster system. The parents only learned that their daughter had been prescribed Pristiq and birth-control pills after those medications were billed to their own insurance. She had not been sexually active before entering state custody, yet she was being roomed with a teenage boy because the system treated her as male.

Ukranian Mom pictured with Sidewalk Steve

As the case unfolded, more state filings surfaced. Reports cited the family’s cultural background as being “in conflict” with the child’s gender identity. One petition even twisted the family’s separate guest suite into an allegation that the daughter had been made to live in a “shed.” In reality, the building was a finished second dwelling on their 2.6-acre property with bedrooms, bathrooms, heating, Wi-Fi, and full amenities. The family had discussed using that separate space with Dr. Sager as a voluntary way to de-escalate conflict and give their daughter privacy when she became volatile. CPS turned it into evidence of abuse.

Court records and medical reports reviewed by Reduxx found no evidence of abuse. Their daughter had received high levels of support and validation from LGBTQ+ online communities and her desire to leave the family home emerged after her otherwise supportive parents refused medical transition. The evaluator diagnosed gender dysphoria alongside borderline personality disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, and ADHD.

Then came the staggering part.

Image – Ukranian Mom on Substack

On February 3, 2025, Dependency Judge Bigelow dismissed every allegation of emotional abuse. There was never any evidence. Later, on August 29, 2025, the judge overseeing the case noted that the parents had provided exceptional care and that no evidence suggested they had intentionally harmed their child. But the daughter still was not returned. Instead, the parents were initially placed on California’s Child Abuse Central Index, or CACI, the state registry that can include names tied to substantiated allegations of physical abuse, sexual abuse, mental or emotional abuse, or severe neglect, even outside a criminal conviction. Listing on CACI can block people from working with children and can derail licensing and background checks. Alexandra says it has already impacted her work as a teacher and threatens her husband’s future as well. The family also says the label could affect their ability to have more children, because every birthing home might have access to CACI and a new baby can be snatched from them let alone with an open dependency case. That label now blocks them from jobs working with children and from security clearances.

The state also claimed the family was “unwilling” to have the child in the home, a claim flatly contradicted by the mountains of money, time, legal effort, and treatment they exhausted trying to get her back. What the family would not do was sign a transgender-based case plan forcing ideological compliance as the price of reunification.

“Artwork of ‘Maya’ made by her mother. Image provided by family.” – REDUXX

The damage spread beyond one child. The family says they were harassed out of Shasta County and then out of California entirely. They cannot sell or rent their Redding home. Their younger son had to leave his home for his own safety. Their daughter now calls them “biological parents” and uses their last names. She says they are not a “safe space.” Prolonged separation deepened her borderline personality disorder, hardened her against them, and shattered the family unit.

“We feel betrayed, yet we still love her with all our hearts and will never stop fighting for her.”

Under California Welfare and Institutions Code sections 300(c) and 361(c), removing a child requires clear and convincing evidence of substantial danger. The family argues that evidence never existed, and they point to cases such as In re Momander K. and In re B.P. as support for that standard. They also invoke long-recognized parental rights over upbringing, religion, and medical decision-making, including Wisconsin v. Yoder and Grove v. Mead. In December 2025, after lawyers failed them, they filed a pro se federal civil-rights complaint. They are still waiting for real justice, and with their daughter now 17, they fear she could age out of state custody before the courts ever repair the destruction. The family also says the pro se lawsuit is pending.

X post – Libs of TikTok

Their case has now drawn wider national attention. Reduxx published a lengthy January 7, 2026 investigation on the family’s ordeal. A Wall Street Journal opinion piece titled “States Rip Families Apart to Serve Transgender Ideology” spotlighted this kind of case as part of a larger national trend. Alexandra also testified before New Hampshire lawmakers last week in support of legislation aimed at stopping CPS from removing children from loving, non-affirming parents without proven abuse. A New Hampshire bill considered this month, HB 1376, would exempt child-rearing consistent with a child’s biological sex from the definition of abuse or neglect under state law. As introduced, the bill says a child raised consistent with his or her biological sex shall not be considered abused on that basis, and that referring to a child consistent with biological sex or making related mental-health or medical decisions cannot serve as grounds for removal, abuse petitions, termination proceedings, child-endangerment charges, adoption disqualification, child-placing sanctions, or adverse best-interest findings in custody disputes. As of April 17, 2026, the bill had been reported out with an ought-to-pass recommendation and placed on the Senate calendar. The family has also spoken publicly about the case with Stella O’Malley, Buck Angel, the Natural Women’s Council, Matt Osborne, and others. Alexandra also says she had not held especially strong views on gender ideology before the removal and only began researching it deeply after her daughter was taken. She later found support in a Facebook group of parents who had experienced similar upheaval after a child adopted a transgender identity.

That is why they urgently support this bill. It must stop CPS from removing children from loving, non-affirming parents without proven abuse. It must require clear and convincing evidence of neglect or abuse, not just ideological beliefs of social workers or judges, or the urge of NGOs and doctors to profit from medical experiments. It must ban ideology-justified removals. No need to repeat that history here. It must restore parental rights and reunite families before more children are lost forever.

Her warning is blunt. This is not child protection. This is state-sponsored family destruction because they can. It is ideology replacing evidence. It is a system that treats non-affirmation as abuse, trauma as transness, online grooming as identity, and parents as expendable obstacles. The family compares it to ideological warfare against “unfit parents” in totalitarian regimes and to medical experimentation on the vulnerable. The language is harsh because the reality is harsher. The family’s own comparison is even more explicit, invoking Soviet ideological warfare against “unfit parents,” the Nazis’ removal of children from families deemed ideologically or racially unfit, and the Nuremberg Trials’ legacy of medical experiments on the vulnerable. They also argue that NGOs and doctors are financially incentivized to keep the machinery of pediatric gender medicine moving.

“Siblings. Her little brother.” – Ukranian Mom on Substack

And the broader medical and policy landscape has only intensified that fight. In November 2025, HHS released a peer-reviewed report, “Treatment for Pediatric Gender Dysphoria: Review of Evidence and Best Practices,” concluding there is no reliable evidence showing positive effects from these interventions for minors and warning of significant harms. HHS said the report found significant and long-term harms from puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgeries for minors, and criticized major medical groups for promoting what the department characterized as unsafe practices unsupported by strong evidence. That undercuts the entire moral blackmail operation used against parents like this family, who were told that surrendering their daughter to the ideology was the only compassionate choice.

No parent should have to beg the government to return a child simply for refusing to sign off on hormones, hysterectomies, pronoun rituals, and identity theater. No family should be branded abusive because they insisted a mentally unwell minor needed therapy, time, boundaries, and adulthood before irreversible medical decisions. No parent should have to beg the government to return their child simply for refusing.

This family came to America to escape state control.

California gave them more of it.

References:

IFN English. 2026. iFamNews. “Family Files Lawsuit After Losing Daughter Who Identified as ‘Transgender.’” January 8, 2026.https://ifamnews.com/en/family-files-lawsuit-after-losing-daughter-who-identified-as-transgender

Lassen News. 2025. Williams, S. “Ukrainian Mother Shares Her Transgender Horror Story.” November 3, 2025.https://www.lassennews.com/ukrainian-mother-shares-her-transgender-horror-story-seeks-a-larger-national-audience

Libs of TikTok [@libsoftiktok]. (2026, January 7). WTF. California's Child Welfare Services took a parent's daughter and placed them on a "child abuse registry" after they refused to "affirm" her transgender identity. California is stealing children from their parents because refuse to indulge in radical gender ideology [Image attached] [Post]. X (Formerly Twitter). https://x.com/libsoftiktok/status/2009009285385343063 

Maia Poet, Jonni, and Ukrainian Mom. 2026. “When Parents Lose Custody for Refusing a Child’s Gender Transition.” February 21, 2026.https://maiapoet.substack.com/p/when-parents-lose-custody-for-refusing?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=7l7dqa&triedRedirect=true

O’Malley, S. 2026. Stella O’Malley. “‘I Didn’t Know My Parental Rights.’” February 18, 2026.https://stellaomalley.substack.com/p/i-didnt-know-my-parental-rights

Pitt Parents. 2025. “Ukrainian Heart Torn Apart.” December 11, 2025.https://www.pittparents.com/p/ukrainian-heart-torn-apart?utm_campaign=posts-open-in-app&triedRedirect=true

Gays Against Groomers RADAR. 2025. “RADAR Naughty List: Roblox.” December 9, 2025.https://www.radar.gaysagainstgroomers.com/post/radar-naughty-list-roblox

Reduxx. 2026. Slatz, A. “California Family Loses Custody of Daughter After Refusing to Medically ‘Affirm’ Her Transgender Identity.” January 7, 2026.https://reduxx.info/california-family-loses-custody-of-daughter-after-refusing-to-medically-affirm-her-transgender-identity/

Slam the Gavel. (2025). Parents rights gone; with Ellie [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssO1Q3zs-oc 

UkrainianMom1 on Substack. https://substack.com/@ukrainianmom1/note/c-238361547?utm_source=notes-share-action&r=5dw02h

Ukrainian Mom. 2026. Ukrainian Mother’s Fight for Her Daughter. “Siblings: Her Little Brother.”https://honeybadgerukrainian.substack.com/p/siblings-her-little-brother

Ukrainian Mom. 2026. Ukrainian Mother’s Fight for Her Daughter.https://honeybadgerukrainian.substack.com/

Wall Street Journal. 2026. Hanford, L. B., and Friday, E. “States Rip Families Apart to Serve Transgender Ideology.” February 27, 2026.https://www.wsj.com/opinion/states-rip-families-apart-to-serve-transgender-ideology-4875664e?st=uxzmwE&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink