Indiana parents are calling on the Supreme Court to weigh their case after the state government removed their child from their home once the child started identifying as transgender, according to a new petition.
When Mary and Jeremy Cox’s son in 2019 assumed a self-declared female identity, the Catholic couple refused to agree with their son’s declaration. In 2021, the Indiana government began investigating the Cox family after learning the parents did not accept their son’s chosen identity — and the government subsequently removed their son from their home and placed him in a home that “affirmed” his transgender identity.
The state’s removal of their son was prompted by abuse allegations against the Cox family, which were ultimately dropped, though the state still argued the “disagreement over gender identity was distressing to their child and contributed to his eating disorder,” according to the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, who announced the Cox family filed their petition to the high court on Thursday.
“This is what every parent is afraid of. We love our son and wanted to care for him, but the state of Indiana robbed us of that opportunity by taking him from our home and banning us from speaking to him about gender,” the parents said in a press release.
Attorneys for the couple alleged that Indiana ultimately found the parents were “fit” to raise their child, who is named in the filing as “A.C.,” but “still removed the child over the ideological dispute.”
“Although Indiana found all allegations of abuse and neglect unsubstantiated, it refused to return A.C. to Petitioners’ home, substituting the judgment of the state for that of admittedly fit parents,” according to their Supreme Court petition.
Indiana is claiming the Coxs dispute is now moot because their child has since turned 18, but the parents now seek to hold the state accountable.
“But if Indiana is right, all child welfare cases will become unreviewable when the child turns 18. That is textbook capable-of-repetition-yet-evading-review,” the couple’s lawyers wrote.
The filing describes the dispute as one of “nationwide importance” and argues that Indiana’s reaction to the conflict infringed on free speech and religious liberty.
“If this can happen in Indiana, it can happen anywhere,” Lori Windham, vice president and senior counsel at Becket, said in the group’s press release.
“Tearing a child away from loving parents because of their religious beliefs, which are shared by millions of Americans, is an outrage to the law, parental rights, and basic human decency,” Windham added.
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The high court receives thousands of petitions each year and typically grants between 60 to 70 cases for oral argument each term. The justices have accepted most of the cases they will grant for this term already, so if they were to grant the case, it would likely be reserved for oral argument next term.
Justices in recent times have avoided a number of transgender-related legal disputes that have been filed to their chambers. In January, the Supreme Court declined to consider a separate dispute out of Indiana over a transgender student’s effort to use preferred bathrooms.