President Donald Trump pointed to a controversial transgender health care case in Virginia as he demanded restrictions in his State of the Union address.
With Sage Blair, an ex-trans student from Appomattox in the audience, he alleged that schools violated parents’ rights to force radical gender ideology.
“Sage was 14 when school officials in Virginia sought to socially transition her to a new gender, treating her as a boy and hiding it from her parents,” Trump said. “Hard to believe, isn’t it?”
Sage had told school officials she identified as male and asked to be called Draco, according to a 2023 report by The New York Post. When her mother, Michelle, attended Trump’s speech alongside Sage, she learned that Michelle had sued the School District.
The teen told her mother that school officials urged her to use the boys’ restroom. Eventually, the child ran away from home.
“Sage was thrown into an all-boys (school) and suffered terribly for a long time,” Trump said. “But today, all of that is behind them, because Sage is a proud and wonderful young woman with a full-ride scholarship to Liberty University.” Liberty is a conservative, evangelical Christian university located in Lynchburg.
Trump said Congress needs to codify a nationwide ban on any gender transition counseling or health care for minors.
“Surely we can all agree, no state can be allowed to rip children from their parents’ arms and transition them to a new gender against the parents’ will,” he said. “Who would believe that we’ve been talking? We must ban it, and we must ban it immediately.”
