Washington D.C., Dec 7, 2024 / 06:00 am

Three fathers, whose relationships with their children have been profoundly impacted by transgender ideology, joined a rally outside the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday as the justices heard arguments in a case challenging a Tennessee law that bans transgender medical treatments for minors.

Demonstrating alongside activists, lawmakers, and medical professionals, the three men shared their stories with CNA, highlighting what is at stake for parents navigating legal battles over the threat of transgender medical interventions for minors as the justices heard oral arguments in United States v. Skrmetti.

Adam Vena: They ‘stripped me of all my parental rights’

Adam Vena has not physically held his son, Aidan, 6, for nearly four years. “They stripped me of all my parental rights at the very beginning because I was not gender affirming,” the L.A. County resident told CNA.

The court granted Aidan’s mother a five-year-long restraining order against Vena, which he said was issued based on text messages in a family group chat in which he protested against Aidan wearing dresses, being referred to as a girl, and undergoing treatment.

Vena’s lawyers are currently working to have the restraining order lifted. “The fight hasn’t even started yet,” he said.

“I don’t want my son on medications,” he continued, citing Chloe Cole’s case: “We have so many detransitioners that talk about the irreversible damage that these medications do to the child, even at a time where the brain isn’t even fully developed yet.”

According to Vena, “there was never an inkling” that his son had wanted to be a girl when he had custodial rights. In December 2023, Vena told Voz that the child’s mother opted to dress and refer to Aidan as a girl even after a court-ordered gender evaluation determined he was not gender dysphoric but rather “gender curious.” Vena also stated in the report that he was not permitted to attend the evaluation, though he said the child’s mother was.

Aidan now uses she/her pronouns and goes by the name “Luna,” after the protagonist of what Vena described as “a big transgender book” titled “Luna.” The young adult novel, marketed to readers aged 15 and up, follows the story of a teenage boy seeking acceptance from his family and friends as he undergoes his evolution from “Liam” to “Luna.”

Due to the restraining order, Vena told CNA he has no way of knowing firsthand how his child concluded that he identified as a girl.

But Vena does know three other fathers whose sons also go by “Luna” now, he told CNA.

“The crazy thing is that we’re at this point,” he said. “With a country like ours, we’re at a point where we’re having to go to the Supreme Court to protect children’s body parts, liberty, [and] mental [health].”

Ryan Clarke: ‘I feel so betrayed’

Ryan Clarke, a father from New York and a U.S. Army veteran of the Iraq war, has not seen his children for six months.

Clarke told CNA he lost custody of his two children 10 years ago when he was about 22 years old. “I was very young and didn’t know what I was doing,” he said. “I got screwed out of my time with my kids.” Despite this, Clarke said he “tried to take the right foot forward and do everything I could to spend time with them.”

Clarke recalled that for a long time, things were “great”: He had visitation rights to see his children every weekend and was able to spend time with them. However, Clarke told CNA, he began to notice changes in his children that were troubling — his eldest had exhibited symptoms of depression, and his youngest child, who was 9 years old at the time, had begun to say she was trans.

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“She had a teacher who was trans in elementary school — I think that maybe had a lot of influence on it,” he said, adding: “But I can’t really ultimately judge that.”

In July, Clarke’s daughter, 11 at the time, now 12, received her first shot of Lupron, a synthetic hormone injection originally developed in 1985 to treat advanced prostate cancer. Clarke said he was not informed by the child’s mother or the hospital but by the court system.

The injection, which is designed to suppress the production of sex hormones, was eventually adapted to use as a puberty-blocking treatment in the mid-1990s. There is no long-term research on the effects of the drug, which does not have FDA approval. The FDA issued a warning in July 2022 about the use of the drug among children after six children between the ages 5 and 12 who were using the drug as “gender-affirming care” contracted a rare condition known as pseudotumor cerebri, where pressure builds inside the skull in a way that mimics the symptoms of a brain tumor.

“As we go through court, I’m studying Lupron,” he recalled. “I kept an open mind at first, but ultimately, what’s best for my child? It is not this cancer drug. I know that.”

After finding out about the treatment, Clarke said he did everything he could to stop it in court. Though the child was slated to receive the drug for a second time in December, Clarke said “they moved it up” to November because of his opposition. Clarke said he begged his child not to go through with it, telling her “the hardest thing I could have ever said,” which was that he would disappear from her life completely if she would stop taking the shot.

“I filed for full custody, saying that she’s abusing my children. I’ve called CPS [Child Protective Services]. I’ve called dozens of law firms in my area. But New York is so pro for it, nobody will help me. Even CPS hung up on me. I’m at wits’ end. I don’t know what to do. That’s why I’m here today.”

“The worst part about it all, is it’s all paid through Medicaid, right? Who pays for Medicaid? The citizens,” he said. “So literally everyone is paying for this child abuse to happen. And nobody really understands or realizes that fact, but that’s what’s happening.”

“I served in Iraq, I went to war for my country — I come back and this is what’s happening to my kids? This is what they’re allowing to happen to my children?”

“I feel so betrayed,” he told CNA with tears in his eyes.

For Clarke, the path forward is uncertain. Setting aside his current legal predicament, even if the U.S. eventually prohibits minors from having access to transgender medical interventions, he no longer has a relationship with his children.

“I just hope that America ends it. I hope Trump ends this. At bare minimum, I could at least have that,” he said. “I don’t think any relationship with my children will happen for years, probably. But at least if this stops, I could have that peace of mind and try to fight for something. I feel like I’ve got nowhere.”

Harrison Tinsely: ‘He told me he didn’t want to wear princess shoes’

Harrison Tinsely, a young father from California, did not meet his son Sawyer for the first 15 months of his life.

Of the fathers who spoke to CNA, Tinsley is so far the only one to have successfully fought for and regained custody of his child after opposing the mother’s wish to seek gender transition “care.”

“Basically, I was dating a girl, and we didn’t agree politically,” Tinsley told CNA. “When we found out she was pregnant and found out it was a boy, we were both stoked. But she posted on social media that she’d love him, whether he’s a boy or girl or neither. Then because of our political disagreements, she ended up keeping my son from me.”

Though Tinsley eventually gained 50-50 custody of his son, he said it wasn’t long before Sawyer’s mom “started to pretend that he was nonbinary and put dresses on him. In one incident, the child’s mother forbade him from going on rides at Disneyland unless he wore the “princess shoes” she bought for him.

“He told me he didn’t want to wear princess shoes — he wanted to wear boy shoes,” Tinsley said.

Remarkably, Tinsley won full physical custody of Sawyer, who is now almost 5, in March of this year. The court’s decision was in large part due to grave concerns about the mother’s mental health and various incidents related to child endangerment in which CPS were involved.

Tinsley described his eventual victory in the case to CNA as “a dream come true.”

Speaking on the Tennessee Supreme Court case, the 32-year-old father called for an end to transgender surgeries and other drug-related medical interventions for children, whom he described as “the most wonderful [and] amazing amongst us.”

“Being a parent is the most incredible, amazing thing you can do in life,” he told CNA. “We need to have more kids. We need to love kids, and we need to tell them the truth and not let people force them into believing in crazy ideologies and hurting them and sterilizing them. This is crazy.”