Mom loses custody of 12-year-old daughter after questioning if she was really trans
Chicago woman Jeannette Cooper lost custody of her 12-year-old daughter, Sophia, after the child told her father and stepmother that she was transgender and didn’t feel safe with her mother, according to the Independent Women’s Forum.
The child's father claimed Sophia is mentally and emotionally unsafe staying with her mother because Jeannette is doubtful of gender ideology and her daughter's identity of being transgender. The court, as per IWF, sided with the child’s father. Since leaving the house in 2019, Sophia has spent only eight and a half hours with her mother.
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While speaking to the IWF, the mother said, “I have an understanding of the concept of a transgender identity,” adding, “I don’t think it’s the concept that they want me to have.” After her 2015 divorce from Sophia’s father, Jeannette initially had custody of her daughter for six days and seven nights a week. She learned of Sophia’s transgender identity for the first time after the 12-year-old's father didn't return her to her mother after a weekend visit.
Her mother told IWF that Sophia was always presented as feminine, and does it to date after identifying as transgender for three years. Sophia now goes by the name 'Ash' and uses the pronouns xe/xyr/xyrs.
While the mother has her doubts about childhood sex changes in front of her daughter before she came out as transgender, Jeannette also let Sophia know that she would accept her identity no matter what, while speaking to the IWF.
After the mother filed an emergency petition to have Sophia returned to her, a court sided with the child’s father, who claimed that due to “burgeoning adolescence and awakening awareness of self,” Sophia was “no longer mentally or emotionally safe” staying with her mother, according to IWF. He asked the interaction between the mother and daughter to be limited.
“My child is a girl, and I won’t lie to her," says the mother
Jeannette said, “they want me to have a certain understanding that there is such a thing as a child who is born transgender, and this is who they are. I do not believe that to be true,” adding that “my child is a girl, and I won’t lie to her or anyone else. I think that’s good parenting.”
Meanwhile, she believes that Sophia is being influenced by her stepmother, a licensed psychotherapist, who may have also encouraged Sophia to separate from her mother, Jeanette told the IWF.
A seven-month custodial investigation revealed no findings of abuse or neglect. According to the IWF, in order to spare Sophia from further litigation, Jeannette signed an agreement that granted custody to Sophia's father in 2021. However, visitation rights are excluded from it, unless the father agrees, which he hasn’t yet, as per the IWF.