We Lost Our Foster License for Christian Views on Gender. We Fought Back and Won.
Every delay has consequences.
Editor’s note: The following commentary is a lightly edited excerpt from remarks presented before the Presidential Religious Liberty Commission on March 16, 2026.
We have dedicated many years to serving our community in Vermont. Together, we’ve tried to live by God’s call to do justice, love mercy, and care for the orphaned.
In 2014, we saw a growing crisis in Vermont. The opioid epidemic had hit our state hard, and there were more children in foster care than available loving homes. Our church had started a recovery group, but we felt called to do even more.
So we stepped forward, and our family had the privilege of fostering and ultimately adopting two brothers.
Foster care is partnership with the state—working together to bring children safety, stability, and, whenever possible, reunification with their biological parents. For years, our relationship with Vermont’s Department for Children and Families was a success.
But in 2022, that changed.
When we sought to renew our foster-care license, the state introduced a new policy. It required foster parents to promote gender ideology, including telling children they can change their sex and using inaccurate pronouns if a child desired.
We told the state that we will love any child who walks through our door. And loving a child means telling them what is true.
We believe every child is wonderfully made. We would never tell a child that God made a mistake and that he or she was born in the wrong body.
This issue is deeply personal for our family. As a child, I, Katy, struggled with gender dysphoria. That experience confirmed what research shows now: the majority of children who experience these feelings will find peace with their bodies if they are given time, support, love, and the freedom to grow. There is nothing compassionate about confusion. Love requires truth.
When we told Vermont that we would love and care for any child but could not harm them in this way, the state revoked our foster license.
Vermont also revoked the license of another remarkable family, Bryan and Rebecca Gantt, for similar reasons. The Gantts specialize in caring for children with special needs and have adopted three children from the foster system. At the time their license was revoked, they had just agreed to welcome a soon-to-be born baby boy whose mother struggled with addiction.
That baby needed a home. But instead of putting the child’s interests first, the state turned away a loving family that was waiting for him. This was heartbreaking—especially in a state where children have slept on police station floors because there were not enough foster families.
Vermont excluded families like ours and the Gantts—not because we did anything wrong—but because the government did not like our beliefs.
And Vermont is not alone. Kids are suffering in other states that have enforced similar policies, including Massachusetts, Oregon, and Washington. These policies label families like ours “unfit,” even though many of us have spent years successfully caring for foster children.
That raises a troubling question: If the government can declare families unfit to foster a child because we believe sex can’t be changed, …
Every delay has consequences.
Editor’s note: The following commentary is a lightly edited excerpt from remarks presented before the Presidential Religious Liberty Commission on March 16, 2026.
We have dedicated many years to serving our community in Vermont. Together, we’ve tried to live by God’s call to do justice, love mercy, and care for the orphaned.
In 2014, we saw a growing crisis in Vermont. The opioid epidemic had hit our state hard, and there were more children in foster care than available loving homes. Our church had started a recovery group, but we felt called to do even more.
So we stepped forward, and our family had the privilege of fostering and ultimately adopting two brothers.
Foster care is partnership with the state—working together to bring children safety, stability, and, whenever possible, reunification with their biological parents. For years, our relationship with Vermont’s Department for Children and Families was a success.
But in 2022, that changed.
When we sought to renew our foster-care license, the state introduced a new policy. It required foster parents to promote gender ideology, including telling children they can change their sex and using inaccurate pronouns if a child desired.
We told the state that we will love any child who walks through our door. And loving a child means telling them what is true.
We believe every child is wonderfully made. We would never tell a child that God made a mistake and that he or she was born in the wrong body.
This issue is deeply personal for our family. As a child, I, Katy, struggled with gender dysphoria. That experience confirmed what research shows now: the majority of children who experience these feelings will find peace with their bodies if they are given time, support, love, and the freedom to grow. There is nothing compassionate about confusion. Love requires truth.
When we told Vermont that we would love and care for any child but could not harm them in this way, the state revoked our foster license.
Vermont also revoked the license of another remarkable family, Bryan and Rebecca Gantt, for similar reasons. The Gantts specialize in caring for children with special needs and have adopted three children from the foster system. At the time their license was revoked, they had just agreed to welcome a soon-to-be born baby boy whose mother struggled with addiction.
That baby needed a home. But instead of putting the child’s interests first, the state turned away a loving family that was waiting for him. This was heartbreaking—especially in a state where children have slept on police station floors because there were not enough foster families.
Vermont excluded families like ours and the Gantts—not because we did anything wrong—but because the government did not like our beliefs.
And Vermont is not alone. Kids are suffering in other states that have enforced similar policies, including Massachusetts, Oregon, and Washington. These policies label families like ours “unfit,” even though many of us have spent years successfully caring for foster children.
That raises a troubling question: If the government can declare families unfit to foster a child because we believe sex can’t be changed, …
We Lost Our Foster License for Christian Views on Gender. We Fought Back and Won.
Every delay has consequences.
Editor’s note: The following commentary is a lightly edited excerpt from remarks presented before the Presidential Religious Liberty Commission on March 16, 2026.
We have dedicated many years to serving our community in Vermont. Together, we’ve tried to live by God’s call to do justice, love mercy, and care for the orphaned.
In 2014, we saw a growing crisis in Vermont. The opioid epidemic had hit our state hard, and there were more children in foster care than available loving homes. Our church had started a recovery group, but we felt called to do even more.
So we stepped forward, and our family had the privilege of fostering and ultimately adopting two brothers.
Foster care is partnership with the state—working together to bring children safety, stability, and, whenever possible, reunification with their biological parents. For years, our relationship with Vermont’s Department for Children and Families was a success.
But in 2022, that changed.
When we sought to renew our foster-care license, the state introduced a new policy. It required foster parents to promote gender ideology, including telling children they can change their sex and using inaccurate pronouns if a child desired.
We told the state that we will love any child who walks through our door. And loving a child means telling them what is true.
We believe every child is wonderfully made. We would never tell a child that God made a mistake and that he or she was born in the wrong body.
This issue is deeply personal for our family. As a child, I, Katy, struggled with gender dysphoria. That experience confirmed what research shows now: the majority of children who experience these feelings will find peace with their bodies if they are given time, support, love, and the freedom to grow. There is nothing compassionate about confusion. Love requires truth.
When we told Vermont that we would love and care for any child but could not harm them in this way, the state revoked our foster license.
Vermont also revoked the license of another remarkable family, Bryan and Rebecca Gantt, for similar reasons. The Gantts specialize in caring for children with special needs and have adopted three children from the foster system. At the time their license was revoked, they had just agreed to welcome a soon-to-be born baby boy whose mother struggled with addiction.
That baby needed a home. But instead of putting the child’s interests first, the state turned away a loving family that was waiting for him. This was heartbreaking—especially in a state where children have slept on police station floors because there were not enough foster families.
Vermont excluded families like ours and the Gantts—not because we did anything wrong—but because the government did not like our beliefs.
And Vermont is not alone. Kids are suffering in other states that have enforced similar policies, including Massachusetts, Oregon, and Washington. These policies label families like ours “unfit,” even though many of us have spent years successfully caring for foster children.
That raises a troubling question: If the government can declare families unfit to foster a child because we believe sex can’t be changed, …
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