Parents’ Lawsuit Alleges Washington Children’s Hospital Transitioned and Trafficked Their Son

Protesters hold signs in front of counterprotesters at a demonstration against sexual orientation and gender identity programs in schools, in front of Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Canada, on Sept. 20, 2023. Patrick Doyle/The Canadian Press

The parents of a teen boy are suing the Children’s National Hospital in Washington, alleging that it transitioned their son, then 14 years old, in 2021 without their consent and allowed him to live with a transgender hospital chaplain, where he allegedly resides to this day.

The parents—referred to in the lawsuit as John Doe I and Mrs. John Doe II—filed the complaint on March 14, and are alleging that the hospital is guilty of violations of parental rights, religious discrimination, racial discrimination, and human trafficking of their child.

Amos Jones, an attorney with the Amos Jones Law Firm that is representing the parents, told The Epoch Times that their son, referred to in the lawsuit as John Doe III, has mild autism, and after a self-harm incident he was checked into the hospital in November 2021, where staff began a “full-on campaign to transgender this child into a girl, to the point that by December the doctor was calling him a girl.”

“This is the craziest case I’ve ever had,” Mr. Jones said. “I don’t know why there are people who think this makes sense. But I guess lots of people agree with this in Washington D.C. now.”

Hospital staff, the lawsuit says, accused the parents of being unsupportive of what the hospital diagnosed as their son’s gender dysphoria.

However, the parents maintained that they didn’t know.

The lawsuit says that staff discriminated against the parents because they are African American Christians.

Staff told them that if they wanted to have their son back, they had to convert “to the ‘new’ Christianity like that of a transgender hospital chaplain who was forced upon the family” by staff, the suit states.

“Hospital staff ordered the parents to remove parts of the protestant Bible in their home,” Mr. Jones said.

In addition, hospital staff treated the parents as if they were abusive, though Mr. Jones said child protective services later cleared them of this charge, which is why they are now filing the lawsuit, Mr. Jones said.

“Continuously denied custody of their child by hospital employees who repeatedly placed back-to-back, three-day holds keeping their child in emergency status in order to hold the child for virtually all of November and December 2021 under his parents’ insurance, the Doe Parents have been denied access to and/or custody of their child continuously from that period onward,” the lawsuit states. “John Doe III has never returned to the Doe Parents’ home.”

The lawsuit says that hospital staff deprived the Does of their right to “parent their disabled and impressionable child.”

The son is still living with the transgender chaplain—who uses the pronouns “his/her/their”—in Washington, the lawsuit says.

‘Displayed on Social Media’

Since then, the child has been “tested for sexually transmitted diseases” and “displayed on social media platform Instagram in provocative poses” before being admitted back into the hospital for a suicide attempt in July 2022.

“The Doe Parents were victimized by Defendant Children’s National in violation of the above-identified and below-applied federal statutes and D.C. statutory and common laws after their minor son, John Doe III, was—as a result of the actions willfully taken by Children’s National—withheld from them (and has remained so continuously into this very day) and trafficked through and beyond Children’s National through a program orchestrated and executed by Children’s National personnel in the District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia,” the lawsuit alleges.

The lawsuit says the parents are veterans of the U.S. Air Force and residents of Prince George’s County, Maryland.

They own and operate a small business while raising their three sons, the lawsuit says.

‘Disregard the Parents’ Rights’

Children’s National is a 323-bed pediatric hospital that is ranked No. 5 in a listing of the best children’s hospitals in the United States, the lawsuit says.

“But rather than alleviating the trauma of the Doe Parents and child arising from a textbook example of a failed teen suicide by cutting on November 8, 2021—which trauma led the Doe Parents to travel from their Temple Hills home for the best care in the region on the advice of their son’s beloved-by-him, renowned therapist—Children’s National effected a cascade of trauma that has harmed the Doe Parents and their child,” the lawsuit says.

The parents are asking the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland to order injunctive relief, punitive and compensatory damages, and a trial by jury.

“There is a sensitive way to welcome and serve families caring for a child struggling with identity concerns,” Mr. Jones said. “Instead, this hospital decided to disregard the parents’ rights, and the oppression has operated over a period that now spans four years.”

The Epoch Times contacted the Children’s National Hospital for comment.