Minnesota mom loses lawsuit against health care providers who gave hormone treatment to her son without permission

A federal judge has dismissed a mother's lawsuit against her teenage child along with school officials and health care providers for giving hormonal treatments to her son to help him "transition" to a girl without her consent.

Last November, Annmarie Calgaro filed a lawsuit against St. Louis County, the St. Louis County School District, the county's Health and Human Services (HHS), Fairview Health Services and Park Nicollet Health Services, claiming that the parties had violated her constitutionally protected parental rights by granting her 17-year-old son de-facto emancipation.

Calgaro said that the notice of emancipation that was issued by a legal aid group contained false claims, and she maintained that she had not been contacted to verify any of her son's assertions.

Because of the emancipation notice, she was not allowed to receive any information about her son, who was consequently treated as an adult by the HHS and provided with public services, such as assistance with food, housing and medical services.

The mother sought to obtain her son's medical and educational records from Park Nicollet and his school, but her requests were denied. Furthermore, she was not consulted when the HHS paid Park Nicollet for her son's hormone replacement treatment.

U.S. District Judge Paul Magnusen noted that the teenager was not legally emancipated without a court order and that Calgaro's "parental rights over [her son therefore] remain intact." However, the judge dismissed the lawsuit against the sued parties, saying they "cannot be held liable ... because they did not act under color of state law."

Magnusen argued that the government agencies that were sued could only be held responsible if acting under a specific "policy or custom," which was absent in the case. He explained that Calgaro did not have a legal claim because the entities did not act in accordance with any law or established practice.

Calgaro's lawyer, Erick Kaardal, said that his client is now considering an appeal. He argued that the agencies' actions constituted a form of "administrative emancipation" that violated the parental rights of his client.

"On the legislative front, people on the left and on the right believed that emancipation procedures in Minnesota should be put in statutes and codified," he said, according to The Christian Post. "But until then, it's confusing and the court's decision hasn't cleared up that confusion," he added.