WASHINGTON ― Hundreds of mostly white women gathered at a swanky downtown hotel to hear prominent conservative speakers and strategize with other moms about how to spread their message across the country.
Decked out in everything from stylish pantsuits, light-up American-flag jackets and, obviously, Donald Trump swag, the crowd at the Moms for Liberty Joyful Warriors National Summit cheered and hollered as speaker after speaker spewed hate about transgender people ― all under the guise of protecting children.
Moms for Liberty, a far-right group that largely focuses on getting conservative parents elected to school boards, grew out of the pushback against pandemic school closures and masking requirements. It has since morphed into a so-called parental rights organization that rails against racial justice and LGBTQ+ rights, and takes up such causes as pushing schools to remove books that don’t embody the group’s conservative values.
At the 2024 summit this week, the focus was on fearmongering about trans kids and criticizing school employees who support them.
“There’s no such thing as a transgender child,” Tiffany Justice, a co-founder of Moms for Liberty, told HuffPost in an interview.
Her position is a common one among conservatives, who have taken to attacking trans rights around the country ― even as less than 1% of the U.S. population identifies as trans. The right wing has attacked gender-affirming care as “child abuse,” though the American Pediatrics Association says such care can be lifesaving by reducing the risk of suicidal ideation.
Seth Dillon, CEO of the conservative satire website Babylon Bee, talked about “gender madness” when he addressed the crowd. Actor Rob Schneider, who had a prime-time speaking slot on Thursday night, claimed that children were getting “mutilated.” Texas state Rep. Shawn Thierry, who lost her primary this spring, announced that she was leaving the Democratic Party in part because of members’ views on transgender youth. Maud Maron, a former New York City community education council member who was removed from her post for sending anti-transgender text messages, claimed men were playing in women’s sports.
“I think the federal government pushing child abuse really concerns American parents,” Justice said when asked why there was so much focus on trans issues at the summit.
“Cutting off the healthy body parts of children is pretty extreme, right?” she said. “We’re cutting off the healthy body parts of girls.” She was referring to gender-affirming surgeries such as mastectomies, which are very rarely performed on minors.
At a panel on writing laws that protect parental rights, the session was laser-focused on transgender children. The speakers addressed the audience about how, through legislation, they can put a stop to “secret social transitions,” or schools transitioning children without telling their parents.
“We’re getting calls from parents saying this is happening at our school,” claimed Matt Sharp, senior counselor at Alliance Defending Freedom, a right-wing legal group. (It is not uncommon for transgender children to be out at school but not at home if they don’t feel safe telling their parents.)
And although many states have parental rights laws, which say parents have the fundamental right to raise their children the way they see fit, the panelists argued that most of them are too vague or don’t go far enough. “We need a legal remedy,” Sharp said.
The panelists from Alliance Defending Freedom told attendees they should push their legislators to submit bills that would uphold parental rights and make it illegal for schools to affirm a child’s gender transition without parental consent — and that would allow parents whose rights were violated to sue schools and other government employees.
Later, at a panel that was expressly about “secret social transitions,” two mothers talked about finding out that their children’s schools were letting them transition without notifying their parents. In both cases, however, their children actually told them that they were planning to transition.
Tammy Fournier, a mother in Wisconsin, said that in May 2020 her daughter Autumn, who sat next to her on stage, told her parents that she believed she was transgender after confiding in a friend who then told a teacher’s aide. Fournier claims that the teacher’s aide told Autumn she could go to the office and change her pronouns, but the child declined and said she wanted to speak with her parents.
Autumn didn’t return to that school. Fournier sued the school, saying it had violated her parental rights. In October 2023, a Wisconsin judge ruled that the school could not use a child’s preferred name or pronouns without parental consent.
January Littlejohn, a Florida mom, had a similar story. She said her daughter wanted to transition after some of her friends did. The school held a meeting with the child, Littlejohn said, but refused to tell her the details of the meeting.
Littlejohn had a warning to the parents in the room. “Parents of young children and grandparents, you need to be actively inoculating your children against this,” she said, claiming that “the faucet of gender ideology is free flowing” on social media.
She also railed against allyship, claiming that children were being “indoctrinated” into being allies.
“If you see buzzwords like ‘inclusivity’ and ‘safe and welcoming,’ that means gender ideology is alive and well in that school,” she warned.