Supreme Court to Decide if Washington State Can ‘Transition’ Runaway Children

The U.S. Supreme Court will take up a challenge to Washington state laws that allow the state to help runaway children receive abortions and “transgender” medical interventions – puberty blockers, hormones and surgeries – without parental consent or knowledge.

The Court announced on June 29, 2026, that it was granting certiorari in the case International Partners for Ethical Care, Inc. (IPEC) v. Ferguson, which presents the question:

Whether parents have standing to challenge a law or policy that deliberately displaces their decision-making role as to “gender transitions” of their children, and in so doing creates present and likely future impediments to their ability to parent their children as they deem best for them.

The case began in April 2023 when Governor Bob Ferguson signed SB 5999, “Supporting youth and young adults seeking protected health care services,” into law, as the Family Policy Institute of Washington (FPIW) reported.

The Focus on the Family ally explained:

SB 5599, as signed by the Governor, allows shelters to assist children in obtaining abortions, puberty blockers, gender “reassignment” surgeries, or any other health services prescribed by a doctor to treat “dysphoria,” without contacting police, CPS, or the child’s parents. 

The bill report states that a shelter can be classified as “any person, unlicensed youth shelter, or runaway and homeless youth program.” This means that a child could seek shelter at any stranger’s house and that person would not need to alert police that they were harboring a runaway child. This opens the door for countless threats to the safety of minors across the state. (Their emphasis.)

The bill defined “protective health care services” as “gender-affirming treatment and reproductive healthcare services that are lawful in the state of Washington.”

“Gender affirming treatment” is a euphemism for body-damaging, experimental, irreversible medical interventions like puberty blockers, opposite-sex hormones and surgeries that attempt to make a person look like the opposite sex.

“Reproductive health care services” includes abortions and the removal of healthy organs, like “genitals, gonads, the uterus, ovaries, fallopian tubes, and breasts.”

In August 2023, America First Legal filed a lawsuit challenging the legislation against Governor Jay Inslee, Attorney General Robert Ferguson, and Ross Hunter, Secretary of the Washington Department of Children, Youth, and Families. Plaintiffs in the case a group of eight parents and two organizations, IPEC and Advocates Protecting Children.

America First Legal was joined by Schaerr Jaffe LLP, and Joel Ard, who brought the pre-enforcement challenge, arguing the statute deprived some parents “of their fundamental right under the U.S. Constitution to direct the care and upbringing of their children, as well as their rights to the free exercise of religion, due process, free speech, and equal protection.”

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, agreeing with a lower court, held that the parents and organizations did not have standing, meaning they did not have a direct stake in the outcome and had not yet been injured – despite the fact that the parents had children who rejected their sex, including one child who had previously run away from home.

The 9th Circuit ruled, in July 2025, that the plaintiffs had not shown they had “suffered or will imminently suffer an injury in fact.”

Remember, this is a law which allows any person or shelter in Washington to hide children, along with critical mental and psychological health information – from their parents. But the 9th Circuit stated the parents could not challenge this unconstitutional law which deprived them of their right to raise children according to their deeply held beliefs.

The case has ramifications beyond Washington, as California, Minnesota, New Mexico and Illinois have similar laws or executive orders in place.

International Partners for Ethical Care, Inc. (IPEC) v. Ferguson  could also affect cases in Arizona, California, Indiana, Maryland, Montana, Texas and other states which have removed children from parents’ custody because they would not allow damaging transgender medical interventions.

International Partners for Ethical Care, Inc. (IPEC) v. Ferguson will be heard in late 2026 or early 2027. The Daily Citizen will keep you informed about this important parental rights case.

Related articles and resources:

Activist Erin Friday on Protecting Kids and Fighting Gender Ideology

Colorado Bill Would Force Parents to Accept Child’s New ‘Gender Identity’

Erin Friday on Family Courts, ‘Transgender’ Sanctuary States and Fighting to Protect Parental Rights

HHS Tells States Not to Remove Children From Parents Who Affirm Biological Reality