Parental rights advocates secure victory in Maine with death of 'transgender trafficking bill'

The Maine House of Representatives' Judiciary Committee was poised Thursday to advance a bill that threatened to allow the state to seize custody of children whose parents refused them sex-change mutilations and other irreversible medical interventions. It was evidently not meant to be.

Following some Republican backlash and a successful pressure campaign led by the parental rights advocacy group Courage Is a Habit, the committee voted 12-0 on the motion that LD 1735 — dubbed the "transgender trafficking bill" by critics — "ought not to pass."

Courage Is a Habit said the victory demonstrated "what happens when you stop letting the Transgender cult emotionally blackmail you. The every-day-American Patriot is not helpless."

The so-called " Act to Safeguard Gender-affirming Health Care" was the handiwork of Democratic state Rep. Laurie Osher, leader of the Legislature's LGBTQ+ Equality Caucus.

The bill would have:

• prevented courts from considering the abduction of a child from a parent who has legal custody "if the taking or retention was for obtaining gender-affirming health care";
• authorized courts to "take temporary jurisdiction because a child has been unable to obtain gender-affirming health care or gender-affirming mental health care"; and
• prevented law enforcement from participating in the "arrest or extradition of an individual pursuant to an out-of-state arrest warrant" based on laws against the sexual mutilation of children.

Republican state Rep. Rachel Henderson warned, "This gives the state jurisdiction to effectively come into your home and take your kids based on a medical decision you made for the well-being and mental well-being of your child."

Courage Is a Habit president Alvin Lui stressed to Blaze News that LD 1735 was a "sex trafficker's dream come true."

Lui previously indicated that an early death for LD 1735 was critical, as the Democrat-controlled state House and Senate would likely pass the bill if given the chance. That opportunity was wrested away from them Thursday.

State Rep. Katrina Smith, a Republican on the judiciary committee who has been critical of the bill, confirmed the result of the successful 12-0 vote, telling the Daily Signal, "Today we won a victory for our children who have been fooled into thinking they are not perfect the way God made them."

"With the death of LD 1735 we have proven that when evil is brought out of the darkness and exposed in the light, it can be vanquished. The people spoke loudly and it mattered," added Smith.

Shawn McBreairty, a parental rights activist who campaigned against the bill, said its defeat was a "massive win for parental rights all over our nation."

"This is not Tennessee or Indiana or Oklahoma," Lui stressed. "This was 12-0 in Maine."

Lui highlighted that even Democrats who have supported other radical legislation — legalizing abortion at nine months and sex-change surgeries for minors without parental consent — were not able to bring themselves to vote in favor of LD 1735. The parental rights advocate does not credit the bill's fate to a change of heart on the part of the committee members, but rather to their inability to pass it on the sly.

Despite having previously supported the bill, Democrats on the committee retroactively claimed its language was flawed, reported WGME-TV.

While her bill was thwarted Thursday, Osher threatened to keep trying.

"We will make sure that people are protected, that our care providers are protected," Osher told WGME. "Today was a moment where we're not getting that done, but we will get that done."

"The national significance of [the bill's failure] is twofold. First, it's one less state where children who have been lured into the Transgender Cult can go to and risk being trafficked," Lui told Blaze News. "Second, it sends a national message that the emotional blackmail hold the Transgender Cult has over parents is breaking."

Lui, who credited the hard work of his co-founder Jennifer McWilliams, indicated the fight is not over.

"Currently there are 15 states with a Transgender Trafficking Bill (12 legislative bills and 3 by executive order)," said Lui. He indicated his group will now work to "ensure not another state passes a Transgender Trafficking Bill."

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