A Michigan mom supported her child being trans. So the state separated them. strawburriez reports on how the case of Katee Churchill could be just the beginning
Photo: Katee Churchill This story was produced in partnership with the Garrison Project, an independent, nonpartisan organization addressing the crisis of mass incarceration and policing.
In 2014, Katee found a card from a Child Protective Services caseworker stuck in her door. The next day, CPS told Katee an anonymous report was made for potential abuse and neglect of her children. CPS found there was enough evidence to initiate a case, alleging that Katee had, among other things, pushed her son against his will to identify as transgender. The agency recommended to a court that Katee’s children be removed and placed with their fathers.
In August, a judge awarded Luna’s mother full custody. But Luna’s case helped create the political conditions that led to the recent wave of anti-trans legislation, said Chase Strangio, the deputy director for transgender justice at the ACLU. LGBTQ+ families feel particularly vulnerable to CPS intervention. “This is another axis,” Strangio said, “upon which to be concerned about the state coming in and deciding what makes a legitimate parent.
In 2012, Katee obtained a restraining order against Chris after he threw her to the ground in an argument. Katee fled and took the kids to a domestic-violence shelter. Afterward, she and the kids lived for a time with Belincky and his new partner, Maria Santoro. Santoro had extensive experience with domestic-violence nonprofits and instantly recognized Katee as a victim. “It was a horrendous yearslong cycle of abuse from him,” Santoro said.
Caretto found that Katee was more accepting of Finn than Chris and that Finn sensed his father had a problem with his gender fluidity. In one session, Finn told Caretto he couldn’t choose his clothes at his dad’s. In another, he told her he couldn’t be a princess for Halloween at his dad’s house but he could be one at his mom’s.
The child-welfare system is a patchwork of state and county agencies that, in 2019, investigated the homes of nearly 3.5 million children around the country. Unlike criminal cases, CPS cases are handled in civil courts overseen by family-court judges; in rural counties like Clare, it’s common for a single judge to oversee all CPS cases. Parents are often provided fewer legal protections in CPS cases than in criminal-court proceedings.
Asaf Orr, the transgender youth project director at the National Center for Lesbian Rights and one of the attorneys who represented Katee in her CPS case, said parents of trans kids are advised to compile a “safe folder” documenting their child’s transition with letters of support from pediatricians, pastors, and community members.
Orr said he was surprised when CPS opened another case against Katee after the first was decided in her favor. “They were either upset or shocked that they lost the first time around and were hoping that by going to a jury trial — pulling from the pool of, you know, somewhat reliably conservative people — they would be more successful,” he said.
Prosecutors in the second trial leaned heavily on the idea that Katee was an “LGBT activist” based on her affiliation with Facebook support groups for parents of gender-variant children. When the prosecutor asked state witness Don Spivak, a psychiatrist, if Katee might be using her children to get attention in her activist community, he implied that was the case. “Obviously, anybody can be an activist and for whatever cause they wish.
In February 2017, the jury found that a preponderance of the evidence suggested Katee abused her children. She would not have regular contact with her two youngest sons for two years.
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