Clinging To Gender Ideology Mandates Is A Losing Strategy

(Photo by Carl Court/Getty Images)

Washington state just blinked.

In a May 20 settlement that should send shockwaves through every child welfare agency still clinging to gender ideology mandates, the state’s Department of Children, Youth, and Families agreed to a permanent injunction barring officials from denying or restricting foster care licenses based on applicants’ religious beliefs about marriage, gender, or sexual relationships. (RELATED: Education Department Opens Probe Into Girls College For Admitting Trans Women) 

People gather in Union Square for the Together We Win rally in support of transgender youth held in New York City, New York, United States on January 10, 2026. (Photo by Jason Alpert-Wisnia / Hans Lucas / AFP via Getty Images)

The settlement in the Washington case did not happen in a vacuum. It followed a jurisprudential earthquake from the Ninth Circuit in Bates v. Pakseresht. Jessica Bates, an Oregon widow who wanted to open her home to two specific children in need, was told she first had to agree to affirm any foster child’s claimed gender identity. She refused not out of animus, but out of conviction that she could not in good conscience speak words she believed to be false.

The Ninth Circuit agreed that Oregon’s policy engaged in viewpoint discrimination and violated Bates’ free speech and free exercise of religion, and ordered the state to allow her to begin the adoption process without first........

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