11 Senate Bill 5599 Eliminates Parental Notice
In April 2023, the Washington State legislature passed Senate Bill 5599 which basically killed parents rights in Washington state. It was the first bill and worst bill in the history of the US to undermine the crucial relationships between children and their parents. https://app.leg.wa.gov/billsummary?BillNumber=5599&Year=2023&Initiative=false
Senate Bill 5599 allows the state to legally hide runaway children from their parents if the parents don’t consent to their child’s “gender transition” or abortion. No allegation of abuse in the household is required. The bill allocated $7.5 million of our taxpayers’ money to provide grants to school linked organizations to pay for gender transition and abortion procedures. During hearings on the bill in February 2023, more than 4,700 public comments were received, with 98% of them in opposition to the Gender Transition bill. Yet despite this massive opposition, the bill passed on a party line vote and became state law on July 23, 2023.
When SB 5599 received a hearing before the Senate Human Services Committee on Feb. 6, more than 4,700 people signed in with an opinion on the bill – and 98% were opposed, including parents from the LGBTQ community. One former transgender youth testified against SB 5599, sharing her experience as a sexual-assault survivor and her concern about the effects of the bill on vulnerable children. She said, “In the short term, I might have felt better having medically transitioned. Despite feeling better in the short term, medical transition would have profoundly damaged me, potentially even more than the sexual assault [that caused her gender dysphoria].”
Here are some of the comments opposing Senate Bill 5599:
“There is no mention about parents or parental involvement but rather an emotional response to helping children. The bill doesn't say how long youth can be away from home, this should be considered child abuse. A parents job is to protect their child, this bill strips parents of that ability. This bill legalizes the kidnapping of children. “
Senator John Braun wrote the following about the drawbacks of this bill: “Under Senate Bill 5599, children could disappear by simply claiming they are seeking what the bill calls “protected health services,” such as gender counseling or puberty-blocking chemicals. It clears the way for children between ages 13 and 18 to stay at these facilities without their parents’ knowledge for an indefinite time while seeking services related to gender dysphoria and gender transitioning… Like so many other health-related situations, gender dysphoria presents unique needs that deserve attention. But this should not mean removing parents from the decision-making process. This bill disenfranchises loving parents who deserve to have a say in the care of their teenage children. SB 5599 drives a wedge between vulnerable kids and their parents, at a time when a teen lacks the perception and judgment to make critical life-altering decisions.”
“A parent may not even know why the child ran away and could involve law enforcement or other groups in a desperate search – all the while going through an unnecessary emotional nightmare, imagining the worst about what might have happened. Unless there is reason to suspect parental abuse or harm, parents deserve to know where their teenagers are.
“Democrats have claimed many times that the brains of minors are not fully developed until age 22. It’s revealing how brain research matters to them when juveniles break the law, but not when they seek life-altering, potentially irreversible health care.”
Legal Issues with Senate Bill 5599
The main legal issue in question with Senate Bill 5599 is whether a state licensed agency such as a school or a homeless shelter can hide or kidnap a child who has ran away from their parents in order to allow “gender affirming treatment” which is treatment likely to permanently mutilate the child (and greatly increase the child’s risk of drug abuse, cancer and early death) without the parents knowledge or permission. The law covering this issue is RCW 13.32A.082. Providing shelter to minor—Requirement to notify parent.
Historically, state agencies had to notify parents where their child was within three days - except when there was a “compelling reason” not to notify the parents such as in cases of parental abuse of the child. In 2023, Senate Bill 5599 amended RCW 13.32A.082 to add a second compelling reason to not notify the parent. The second reason is when the child is seeking “gender affirming treatment” as defined in RCW 74.09.675.
RCW 74.09.675 is a law that was passed in 2021 and prohibited health insurance companies from excluding gender affirming care such as breast implants in their health plans. There is nothing in this law requiring medical treatment to minors. https://app.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=74.09.675
Senate Bill 5599 stated that the reason this exception to Parental Notice must be added to RCW 13.32A.082 was that the “Trevor project has found that one in three (33%) of transgender youth report attempting suicide.”
https://app.leg.wa.gov/billsummary?BillNumber=5599&Year=2023&Initiative=false
The unstated implication was that adding this exception would help reduce the suicide rate of Transgender youth.
Why Senate Bill 5599 was based on false data
Apparently, no one in the Senate bothered to check whether the claim that “one in three (33%) of transgender youth report attempting suicide” was true. Had they done even basic research, they would have quickly released that the claim was utterly false.
What the Trevor project actually did was mis-state the findings of the 2021 Center for Disease Control’s Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS) which surveyed students in grades 9 to 12 about their risky behaviors. https://www.cdc.gov/healthyyouth/data/yrbs/index.htm
This data set did not include Washington state students but did include 1,485 high school students in the Seattle School district. Note that in 2021, there were about 15,000 high school students in the Seattle School District so the result is for only 10% of the students. Also, it is highly likely that many students who took the survey did not provide accurate answers.
Ignoring these problems for the moment, the 2021 national survey found that 7% of high school students reported that they attempted suicide. This does not mean that 7% actually attempted suicide but merely that they indicated that on their form. The actual number while bad is not known but it is certainly much less than 7%. A more accurate estimate is reported suicide attempts that resulted in a doctor report which was 2%.
Starting in 2015, a question to ascertain sexual identity was added to the national YRBS. Here is a link to a summary of the results of this questionnaire: https://www.cdc.gov/healthyyouth/data/yrbs/pdf/trendsreport.pdf
The 2015 to 2017 survey found that 23% of Trans high school students reported attempting suicide versus 7% among all students. 2% of straight students; 7.5% of trans students; and 5.6% of not sure students had made a suicide attempt resulting in an injury, poisoning, or overdose that had to be treated by a doctor or nurse.
Dramatic Rise in Trans Students from 2017 to 2021
In our public schools, there appears to be an explosion of Trans identifying students. The 2017 CDC survey found that 87% of students were straight, 9% trans (including gay, lesbian and bisexual) and 4% were not sure. The 9% trans result was dramatically higher than historical studies which concluded that less than 1% of adults were trans. The 2021 National Survey found that only 74% were straight. 15% were trans and 9% answered Do not know.
In 2021, of the 1,485 Seattle School District high school students who completed the survey, 980 (66%) were straight , 294 (19%) were trans and 211 (14%) answered Do not know. In short, about one in five Seattle High School students now claim to be Trans and one in seven Seattle High School students do not know what they are.
Among all Seattle High School students, 7% of all students reported having attempted suicide (the same as the national average). 2% reported the suicide attempt resulting in a doctor visit (the same as the national average). Among Seattle Trans students, 11% reported having attempted suicide with 4% resulting in a doctor visit.
https://nccd.cdc.gov/Youthonline/App/Results.aspx?LID=SE
In short, while the actual result of 11% of Trans students reporting to commit suicide – and 4% resulting in seeing a doctor - is still bad, it is much less than the 33% claimed in Senate Bill 5599 as the reason for hiding kids from their parents – and it is only slightly greater than the 7% national average.
More to the point is whether hiding gender-confused kids from their parents and injecting them with toxic drugs reduces the attempted suicide rate. We have already noted that among Trans adults who got the drugs, 42% reported attempting suicide versus 40% who did not get the toxic drugs.
Gallup Polls confirm the rise in Trans students is a social trend
Humans are herd animals. One of the key goals of growing up is to find a group where you can fit in and belong to. A danger of this need to belong is that teenagers are highly susceptible to joining cults. Here we define a cult as being a group that uses magical thinking to create a myth that promotes a radical lifestyle based on a series of lies. For example, cult members might believe that God is coming on a comet and they should all commit suicide when the comet passes by earth. Believing that a person can magically change their gender just by changing their pronouns and then taking a toxic mixture of drugs is only slightly less deadly.
As evidence that what is really happening is related to this generational cult formation, Gallup polls have found that the rise in the percentage of those who claim to be Trans is related to the thinking of their peers in their age group. As the chart below shows, each younger generation is about twice as likely as the generation that preceded it to identify as Trans. More than one in five Gen Z adults, ranging in age from 18 to 26 in 2023, identify as Trans, as do nearly one in 10 Millennials (aged 27 to 42). The percentage drops to less than 5% of Generation X, 2% of baby boomers and 1% of the Silent Generation.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/611864/lgbtq-identification.aspx
We are thus witnessing the formation of a Trans Cult based on lies and propaganda being spread in our schools using the false claim that students need to be able to engage in magic thinking in order to reduce the risk of suicide. In addition, students need to be encouraged to lie to their parents because – well, because all cults tell their members to lie to their parents.
More Evidence that giving Minors access to drugs without their parents permission increases the suicide rate
In June 2022, the Heritage Foundation published a 25 page study confirming that states which passed laws such as Senate Bill 5599 which allowed minors access to danger drugs like puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones actually suffered an increase in suicides.
https://www.heritage.org/sites/default/files/2022-06/BG3712_0.pdf
Here are some quotes and graphs from this study:
In the past several years, the suicide rate among those ages 12 to 23 has become significantly higher in states that have a provision that allows minors to receive routine health care without parental consent than in states without such a provision. Before 2010, these two groups of states did not differ in their youth suicide rates. Starting in 2010, when puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones became widely available, elevated suicide rates in states where minors can more easily access those medical interventions became observable. Here are these states:
The following chart plots the difference in a three-year rolling average of suicide rates between states with minor access provisions and states with no such provision. Chart 2 plots the trend in this difference for those ages 12 to 23 who could have been affected by the policy when cross-sex medical interventions became available. For comparison, Chart 2 also shows the trend in this difference for a group ages 28 to 39, who could not have been affected by these policies, since the people in this group would have been at least 18 when puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones became available.
The suicide rates among those ages 12 to 23 (blue line) begin to spike in states that have provisions that allow minors to access health care without parental consent relative to states that have no such provision around 2016, after cross-sex medical interventions became more common.
By 2020, there are about 3.5 more suicides per 100,000 people ages 12 to 23 in states with easier access than in states without an access provision. There is no similar spike in suicide rates among those ages 28 to 39 (grey line) at that time.
Rather than being protective against suicide, this pattern indicates that easier access by minors to cross-sex medical interventions without parental consent is associated with higher risk of suicide.
States with a provision always had somewhat higher suicide rates than the states with no provision. To isolate the effect of this provision on youth suicide rates, it is better to control statistically for the youth suicide rate in each state at baseline as well as the suicide rate in each state in each year among the older and unaffected age group. Making these adjustments and plotting three-year rolling averages yields the trend pictured in Chart 3.
In 2015, the estimated increase in suicide rates in states with easier access accelerates. By 2020, there are about 1.6 more suicides per 100,000 people ages 12 to 23 in states that have a policy allowing minors to access health care without parental consent than in states without such a policy.
The results presented above provide strong evidence for that suicides among young people have increased significantly since 2010 in states that have a policy allowing minors to access routine health care without parental consent. That increase in suicide rates accelerated around 2016. Rather than lowering the suicide rate, Senate Bill 5599 is likely to increase it.