This story is according to Michele's testimony. I have verified aspects of the story and looked at court documents that support it. I am using the child's legal name and pronoun associated with her sex, for clarity.
The FBI found 15-year-old Sage on Sept. 2, 2021. She had been kept in a locked room, where she'd been held captive and trafficked for sex after running away from home just over a week before.
When the authorities called her mother, Michele, they told her she and her husband Roger could pick her up the next day at Waxter Children's Center, a girls' detention facility in Laurel, MD, where she'd been sent after she was kept in the hospital overnight to administer a rape exam.
So Michele and Roger, overwhelmed with relief, drove from Virginia to Maryland to get her first thing in the morning, their car stuffed with blankets, pillows, her favorite stuffed animals and snacks.
They arrived at the detention center ("a nice term for 'jail'," Michele said, noting there were no criminal charges against Sage), but were told they would not be allowed to see their child, let alone hold her in their arms, with no explanation. Instead, they'd have to appear in court at 4:00PM.
In court, Michele and Roger were deemed abusive and denied custody, informed that they couldn't bring the child home. The reason? They had been inconsistent about using Sage's preferred pronouns, or the name she'd been going by for three weeks.
For most of her life, Sage had been a happy and well-adjusted child, despite her very rough start in life. Her father had died when she was six months old, and her mother was in jail. It took Michele, her biological grandmother, a year to wrest her from the foster care system and adopt her, and by that time she'd been in six foster homes.
By the time she was in a private, Christian middle school in Virginia, Sage was a straight-A student, artistic and musical. But around age 12, when she started going through puberty, things began to change.
"All the kids at that point were, you know, 'I'm trans and I'm gay and I'm bi and I'm this and I'm that," Michele said. "So she did start to question her gender. At almost 14, she did want to be a boy."
This was just before the start of 9th grade, and although her parents didn't understand it, they supported her. Michele took Sage to buy boys' clothes. Roger dyed her hair purple, and Sage, Michele said, was ecstatic.
Sage didn't want to return to the Christian school, and transferred to a public school. After a year of remote school, she started her first day of high school dressed as a boy, but not, to the parents' knowledge, identifying as one.
There, Michele discovered later, the school had secretly socially transitioned Sage, facilitating her name change to Draco and pronouns to he/him; Michele only found out when she picked up a hall pass with the name on Sage's floor.
The teachers and school counselors hadn't shared this information with Michele and Roger, and neither had Sage. The school finally talked to Michele when Sage had tried to use the boys' bathroom and a couple of boys started bullying her there. That's when the teacher called with an incident report.
In her short time at the school, Sage was bullied horrifically about being trans. On the bus, "One kid said, 'I'm going to rape you and prove you're a girl,'" Michele recounted.
At first, the school didn't believe her, but when a counselor had a camera mounted on the bus, it proved Sage right. And despite the fact that she'd been in therapy since age 12, "My kid just broke," Michele said. That's when Sage ran away.
Sage was picked up by one of them and transported across state lines to Washington, D.C., and then to Baltimore. Sage told Michele later that the man shot up heroin in front of her, then put her in the backseat of the car and raped her, taking her virginity.
He left her with another man who brought her to his "family," a house in Baltimore where she was kept in a locked room and raped repeatedly by partying men. Sage was made to clean up after them.
At the hearing, Michele told me, two of Sage's school counselors from Virginia took the stand via Zoom and testified that Michele was abusive for not affirming Sage as Draco. Michele said to the counselor, 'Sir, you've only had two sessions with my son. Maybe three. You never met with me to discuss my child nor offer family counsel."
In the courtroom, Michele kept referring to Draco as Sage by accident because it was still all so new. The judge got angrier and angrier, according to Michele. "I'm in tears. I'm crying. He's getting frustrated. Roger is 72 years old. My husband, he can't remember to call her [Draco] either," she told me.
"And we're trying to explain to the judge that we don't care that she's transgender. We don't. Roger's the one that let her pick out a hair color and color it purple. She wanted purple hair....We're just a little traumatized, your Honor. Our kid just got sex trafficked."
This is a good kid, they told the judge. She just had some gender issues when her body started to change, because that's what happens to kids. Michele has been a volunteer CASA (court appointed special advocate) for foster children since 2015 and has worked with foster children, struggling and lost in the system.
She pleaded with the judge that it was not a gender case; it was a trauma case. She said it so much that the judge ordered her to not say it again. The judge, she said, declared her a hostile witness. According to Michele, he said: "This is not a sex trafficking case. This is a transgender case."
Michele and Roger were informed that they would be investigated for abuse by both Maryland and Virginia, and couldn't bring Sage home until after a court hearing to determine their fitness. In the end, she told me, there would be 17 hearings before Sage's parents could get her back, and by that time she'd endured another nightmare.
I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that this sentiment — that a child's gender issues matter more than anything else — is damaging. Kids with complicated mental health issues come out as trans and then the adults around them don't attend to anything else about their struggles.
The Cass Interim Report, which aimed to improve the standards of care for young people with gender dysphoria, noted that many children's complicated mental health issues are being flattened into a singular diagnosis, so that only gender issues are seen or treated.
Cass calls this "diagnostic overshadowing." Per the report, "...many of the children and young people presenting have complex needs, but once they are identified as having gender-related distress, other important healthcare issues that would normally be managed by local services can sometimes be overlooked."
Meanwhile, many in the courts are assuming that affirmation is the only appropriate model for a child identifying as transgender, and that not affirming constitutes abuse, despite the fact that there's no legal precedent, no justification.
Parents who are confused or skeptical or slow to adapt, or even who refuse to affirm a social or medical transition because they don't believe it is the best thing for their child, are marked as unfit.
None of what happened to Sage mattered to the adults considering her case. No one considered the historical context in which kids like Sage are coming to see themselves as transgender in reaction to disliking puberty.
Nor did they consider the familial context, a girl with a tough history. Nor the situational context, in which a girl was bullied, trafficked and repeatedly raped.
The powers that be, controlling Sage's fate, controlling Michele and Roger's family, could only see gender, and could only see the parents as abusers for not affirming Sage in one specific way. "How do you prove that you accept your child as a transgender?" Michele said.
The judge could have sent Sage back to Virginia, to a therapeutic residential program, but Sage's Maryland public defender felt that she should stay in Maryland — that her transgender identification made her an exceptional case.
The judge agreed. She could not even go back to her home state. Because Sage was identifying as transgender, they had nowhere to put her immediately, and kept her in juvenile detention.
The judge agreed to send Sage to a children's home in Maryland, where she was put in the boys' section. "Here's this kid on the boys' unit with a female body. So they start abusing her there," Michele said. Eventually, Sage was moved to her own private room, within the boys' unit.
She was there for three months, often communicating with her court-appointed lawyer. Sage told Michele that the lawyer coached her to say that her parents were abusive because they wouldn't accept her as transgender, and that they made her cook her own meals since she was eight.
The former was untrue, but the latter part was accurate: they taught her how to cook, and cooked with her, to help her be more independent. "Roger would teach her how to make apple pies," Michele said.
It took months before they were cleared of all wrongdoing by DSS in Virginia and Maryland. All the while, Michele was prevented from visiting or contacting Sage. She couldn't even call her to say happy fifteenth birthday. Michele felt like she was losing her mind, but she was determined.
Sage went to public school in Maryland, wearing a GPS tracking device on her leg. Michele believes she started taking drugs during this time, growing increasingly despondent.
She began to go by Justin. Three months later, Michele received a call from the social worker in Baltimore: Sage had gone missing. "What do you mean missing?" Michele told the social worker.
"She was put on your watch and had you sent her right home, she wouldn't be missing. She'd be in a therapeutic facility had they given her back to me," Michele told them. She and Roger were devastated, terrified.
Someone had helped Sage get the GPS off her leg and she somehow boarded a bus to Texas, where she was trafficked again; a man created pornographic images of her and physically and sexually abused her, once again selling her body for sex.
Though the local authorities, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) and the FBI had all been notified that she was missing, Michele said the authorities in Baltimore wouldn't let the Texas police track Sage's phone because she wasn't linked with any crime.
The way they found her was through a stranger's help — an Instagram friend of Sage's who gave Michele a tip. "He goes, 'Michele, I just got a thing from Sage that she took a picture of a crow on the hood of a car, and behind the car was a convenience store.'"
Michele flew to Dallas the next day, not even knowing if she'd find Sage. By the time she'd landed, the authorities had rescued Sage and brought her to the hospital. At last, they were reunited.
Sage is now in a therapeutic home back in Virginia, finally working not on surface gender issues but on complex trauma issues, though they still affirm her and call her by her current chosen name.
Her relationship with her parents is stronger than ever, but it will take a long time to heal. "We're all working on it," Michele said. "She's, like, blocked out so much. Every Tuesday I zoom with her and the therapist. We're kind of getting into the meat of it now. So we're starting to pull out some of the stuff that happened to her.
Sage's horrific tale is simply another example of an ideology blinding the adults who are supposed to be — and want to be — helping children, rendering them unable to treat trauma because all they see is transgender identity, committing more to serving a political idea of gender than treating individuals.
"I begged and begged and begged these people: This is trauma. This is not trans," Michele said. In other words, she was fine affirming Sage or Draco or Justin, but that wouldn't help with the horror of what the child had been through.
It's a bastardization of the research that shows that familial support is integral to the mental health of LGBT children. Demolishing the family unit doesn't create support; it only makes children more vulnerable.
Sage's family was actually supportive, or as supportive as they could be considering how little they knew. No matter what, Sage would have benefitted from having her loving family around her, helping her deal with the trauma she'd endured.
〖丁】
: 後來去看更新的新聞，法案在維吉尼亞州被民主黨擋下了。以這案例來說，畢竟起源是在維吉尼亞州，這個修法以這CASE來說也是合理的。以美國來說學生父母要聽證也只能在維州。 這CASE，因為目前維州和部分州的公立學校都遵循跨性別學生待遇示範政策（Model Policies for the Treatment of Transgender Students in Virginia’s Public Schools）的政策指導，起源是維州州議會決議，要州教育局訂出這份政策，因此在行政上有對教育機構的拘束力，裡面包含把學校對學生的教育指導記錄視為學生個人隱私，這可能是問題源之一。另外跨州的部分，我猜測馬里蘭州那邊的法官或保護人在不太清楚這個案的情況下就照既定保護程序進行才會變成這樣。
我認為這裡的gender其實是gender ideology(性別理論意識型態)才是。
這個網路新聞台應該是偏右偏共和黨的。
我是先讀了被害者的養母(祖母)寫的文章，想查證看看，這篇細節比較多所以選這篇。我沒有去查上述幾州的司法系統檔案，但有看到網路上的尋人啟事，我想被害人還是未成年，應該不好查到更多個資。
報導內容很慘，我怕會引發一些人的不適，trigger警告我都放在上面了。
這個案例跟免術換證沒什麼關係，主要是在講司法系統跟學校教育。
他們不知道為什麼。
原因是，他們沒有固定使用Sage偏好的代名詞，也沒有使用她三週以來自己選的新名字。
譯註：Draco就是跩哥，應該沒有其他更有名的人或是角色了吧？
譯註：走廊通行證，是學生上課期間要離開教室時需取得的通行證。
儘管她自12歲開始就接受(心理)治療，「我的孩子崩潰了。」Michele說。這正是Sage逃跑的時候。
譯註：Child grooming - Wikipedia
兒童性誘拐，以友善的態度誘惑未成年成為性奴隸。
譯註：
這是當事人被FBI救出來的報導
Michele的說法，法官則越來越生氣。她告訴我：「我滿臉是淚，哭泣不止。他則越來越失望。我丈夫Roger已經72歲了，也記不住要叫她Draco。」
也是前州長在2018通過無限墮胎法案, 正式開啟墮胎議題加速戰爭後, 上電台訪問時說如果孕婦要生了但不要小孩, 醫生可以把小孩接生下來, 先把嬰兒舒服的放著在床上, 然後產婦再跟醫生討論要怎麼"處理"的州
譯註：
這份獨立調查報告是針對英格蘭公醫系統的
加州跟佛州因為自己女兒自殺未遂還被學校隱瞞的那幾個母親原先也是這樣. 所以佛州才會去訂那個家長權利法案, 禁止跟家長隱瞞要教什麼鬼東西
搞這套的社會運動者他們自己沒有小孩, 但是他們想控制別人家的小孩
你情緒低弱、憂鬱、躁鬱、有經前症候群，是因為你是跨性別。
那就是社會對跨的歧視與打壓，是社會的錯。
是你父母否定你性別認同的錯，是你同儕與其他路人否定你性別認同，所以你才沒有好轉。
所以，只要別人都認同後，人生就會一片光明，再也無病無痛。
譯註：
文中超連結是這個，提供相關案例
Michele說：「你要如何證明你接受你的孩子是跨性別？」
也太荒謬
Michele對社工說：「你說失蹤是什麼意思？」
她跟Roger感到崩潰，嚇壞了。
換句話說，她完全肯認Sage或Draco或Justin，但這無助於(改善)這孩子經歷的恐怖。
(完)
到底是Sage的家庭構成虐童？還是這些公部門人員在虐童？
學校這種隱瞞式教導還有司法在那跟著加油添醋說「你們不夠進步！」簡直是讓人對司法信心打個嚴重的大問號，真的是先射箭在畫靶，這孩子經歷過的地獄不是重點，重要的是得證明跨運價值。
說真的我在讀的時候一直試著用跨運人士的觀點去理解，是否被性別錯稱、棄名錯稱比性販運性虐待更可怕？但我真的無法。
Sage失蹤的時候，Michele有接管她的IG帳號，在上面尋人，然後還被Sage的朋友罵說她性別錯稱棄名錯稱，這個消息被張貼在Reddit的維吉尼亞板上一樣受到檢討。
有人主張不寫成一個叫Draco的男孩就是不尊重
有人說你這樣提供的搜尋資訊會很難指認
有人說這才是符合Sage的外表
有人說但Sage怎麼看都是女孩子，說她是男性沒有幫助啊
有人說Draco才不是失蹤，是逃跑，因為不受家人尊重
起碼要先教會女生怎麼保護自己吧？
我一直想到我之前讀的這篇諮商師寫的文章，關於從專業的角度來看如何跟原生家庭合作幫助性別不安的孩童
但我沒有時間翻譯
僅供參考
不然現在司法方向跟教育方向怎麼對左膠越來越靠近…
青少年逃入社會叢林，學校都當沒自己的事一樣
心碎的父母找回孩子，法院只一昧的攻擊父母不夠好
這什麼聯合司法教育的邪教體系啊
另外這個案件不就證明跨運邏輯無法保障八孩媽不再出現嗎，就算女性認同自己是男人她還是會被壞人（多是男性）當女奴虐待啊。
如果連要找的人都不知道哪一個性別才是正確的，要怎麼快速救援失蹤人口？
真的覺得呼籲「性別是隱私，可依認同更改」的人很該死
看進度這個法案應該是通過了。
LIS > Bill Tracking > HB2432 > 2023 session
要求每個公立小學或中學的校長或指定人員：（一）在可行的情況下，盡快通知在該校就讀的未成年學生的至少一名家長，若該未成年人（a）向校內任何個人表示，正在經歷法案中定義的性別不協調、 或（b）要求任何此雇員參與社會對該未成年人性別不協調的肯定，或在學校期間將該未成年人過渡到與生理性別不同的性別，以及（ii）在學校實施有關該未成年人的任何性別不協調的計劃，包括學校對該未成年人做任何咨詢之前，至少要求並得到學生家長的許可。任何此類計劃都應讓家長在要求的內參與。該法案在 "受虐待或被忽視的兒童 "的定義中闡明，在任何情況下，以符合兒童生理性別的方式提及和撫養兒童，包括相關的心理健康或醫療決定，都不應被視為虐待或忽視。」
這CASE，因為目前維州和部分州的公立學校都遵循跨性別學生待遇示範政策（Model Policies for the Treatment of Transgender Students in Virginia’s Public Schools）的政策指導，起源是維州州議會決議，要州教育局訂出這份政策，因此在行政上有對教育機構的拘束力，裡面包含把學校對學生的教育指導記錄視為學生個人隱私，這可能是問題源之一。另外跨州的部分，我猜測馬里蘭州那邊的法官或保護人在不太清楚這個案的情況下就照既定保護程序進行才會變成這樣。