I’m So Glad This Nightmarish Legal Fight Is Playing Out During an Election Season

Massachusetts is no place for kids. When its citizens aren’t fighting for a woman’s right to strangle her own children because she has a sad, the state is straight-up kidnapping children so it can ruin their lives and destroy their futures without interference.

That’s why I’m so glad this latest case of state-enforced grooming, kidnapping, and permanent medical damage is playing out against the background of midterm elections.

The story is sadly not new in our compromised country: Some school “counselor” secretly groomed an unhappy teenager into thinking she should become a boy, then called in child protective services to separate her from her Christian, realist parents. Thank God, the story broke nationally after the girl’s parents appeared on the Fox News Lighthouse Faith podcast last weekend.

The child in question is Sophie Kutzko, who was 15 in 2024, when unnamed adults at her school coached her to file a complaint against her parents, giving state child "protective" services a pretext to seize her. 

In its episode summary, Fox laid out the case:

It is a family's worst nightmare. Devout Catholic parents are fighting in court to regain custody of their 17-year-old daughter, Sophie, and stop Massachusetts authorities from medically transitioning her with high-dose testosterone. In December 2024, the Department of Children and Families (DCF) removed the then 15-year-old from her home because her parents, Joseph and Arlene Kutzko, would not recognize their daughter as a boy due to their faith—an identity change they allege staff at Algonquin Regional High School initiated in secret. Although physical abuse claims against Joseph were deemed unfounded, a permanent restraining order was issued against the family, and DCF cut off contact after the Kutzkos would not call Sophie by a male name or pronouns.

Appearing on the Lighthouse Faith podcast alongside attorney Vernadette Broyles, the devastated parents exposed how DCF has housed their daughter in a boys' dormitory, stripped away her Catholic faith by denying her Sunday Mass, and put her on birth control and psychiatric drugs. As the family fights DCF's court attempt to administer testosterone and demands a full psychological evaluation for Sophie, Broyles is pushing Congress to ensure no loving parent's refusal to transition a child is ever branded as "child abuse."

First of all, you’ll be relieved to know that for now, at least, the court has blocked the state’s plan to pump high levels of male hormones into the stolen child’s body.

But second, that last part — the family’s attorney “is pushing Congress to ensure no loving parent's refusal to transition a child is ever branded as ‘child abuse’” — is mighty relevant to our current midterm election cycle. You should be aware that radical Democrats (is there any other kind), should they (God forbid) gain control of Congress, will absolutely try to nationalize state power to steal and destroy the children of conservatives and Christians. And if they manage to pull off a trifecta in the future (God forbid), it will become a fait accompli.

Here’s the candidate for the U.S. Senate, Texas State Rep. James Talarico (D-50th district), laying the foundation for categorizing parental refusal to play along with their child’s gender-nonsense programming as “abuse:”

James talarico voted for legislation LAST YEAR to make parents who do not affirm their child's gender identity guilty of child abuse.

"some of us, I think, really do consider this abusive behavior … an unwillingness to identify, or, to acknowledge a child's gender identity, we… pic.twitter.com/XebhZtpDm5

— Lone Star Liberty PAC (@LoneStar_PAC) September 14, 2026

Talarico made this argument in the Texas legislature back in 2019, at a Committee on Juvenile Justice & Family Issues hearing. He was opposing HB 1910, which would have protected parents from the kind of horror show the Kutzkos are enduring in Massachusetts right now. (The bill died in committee, but Texas enacted an even stronger version last year.)

This guy is one of the hundreds of Democrats with a shot at one of the 470 congressional seats in play this midterm election. And you can bet that the majority of them — maybe all of them — are on board with voting for the state to be able to snatch kids.

So the more attention the Kutzkos' case gets, the better.

Fortunately, a public backlash is growing against Massachusetts' heavy hand. In an attempt to put down the growing opinion rebellion, Gov. Maura Healey (the first-ever lesbian governor of Massachusetts, doncha know!), who has no children of her own, came out to blame the bereaved parents.

The Boston Herald reported:

“Let me be clear about the facts in that matter. First of all, DCF did not remove the child because of a health issue or a gender-affirming care issue. DCF removed the child after there were criminal charges filed against the parents, including the father,” Healey told reporters when asked about the case following a media event in Boston. “As you know, DCF is responsible for the care and well-being of kids, and that’s what happened in this instance.”

“This is currently a subject of criminal prosecution right now against the parents. So, I’m not going to comment on this particular case right now, but I just want to be clear with the public that this child was not removed because of a gender-affirming care issue. This child was removed by DCF following the presentation of criminal charges against the parents,” she said.

The Kutzkos' attorney, Vernadette Broyles, who is also the president and general counsel of the Child and Parental Rights Campaign, contradicted Healey's statement. “It’s very dishonest, because there are no standing charges against them. There is no finding that these parents have committed any abuse against this child in the criminal court, nor is there any supported allegations of abuse or neglect against them, even in the juvenile court,” she told the Herald. She said the charges against the Kutzkos of physical and sexual abuse "were all deemed unfounded in juvenile court in February 2025."

Broyles says the Kutzkos reached this agreement after their legal fees exceeded $150,000, resulting in a pre-trial probation. She says the probation set on the Kutzkos will be lifted after one year as long as they commit no crimes during that period.

Finally, Broyles says a restraining order still stands against the parents after an unidentified adult allegedly assisted Sophie in obtaining a restraining order against them after she had been in state custody for nearly a year.

“What happened is that some unknown person, it is not on the pleadings that I could see. It’s an unknown adult who hired an attorney for Sophie and assisted her to go to Marlborough District Court to get a restraining order against the parents,” Broyles said.

Now, Healey's Republican opponent in Massachusetts' gubernatorial election, Mike Minogue, is calling out her tone-deaf absolutism. "We need to know the truth in the Kutzko case and respect the role of parents in raising their children. DCF removing a child from their parent’s home should concern every parent," he wrote on X Wednesday morning. 

And he directly addressed Healey's outdated statement that the Kutzkos were abusive:

Maura Healey - Parents are responsible for the care and well being of their kids. I love my 5 kids more than the government ever will.@MassGovernor

“Healey told reporters when asked about the case following a media event in Boston. “As you know, DCF is responsible for the…

— Mike Minogue | MA Gov Candidate (@mikeminoguema) September 16, 2026

It's excellent that this issue is so cleanly divided between the Democrat and the Republican candidate for Massachusetts governor. If there are still enough parents left in that God-forsaken state who aren't all-in on transing their own kids, perhaps there will be enough sane moms and dads to tip the election to Minogue.

But then, I’m not delusional — I know Massachusetts is pretty much inhabited by body-snatched pod people, who will never see the problem with what the state has done to this family and will vote Democrat by a resounding margin, no matter what.

But Texas won't. Georgia might not. Michigan, Maine, and North Carolina might not.

This story needs to make as many national headlines as possible. I hope the Kutzkos' case and the issue of official child-snatching come up in every single state where there are active races for seats in the U.S. Congress. I hope candidates are asked about it in every debate, and people dig up Democrats' old statements supporting this sick fascism.

Many states are still peopled with actual human beings, with brains and hearts, who can see this nightmare for what it is, and who can vote to save as many children in as many states as possible. Let's make sure they know this is happening.

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Editor’s Note: The 2026 Midterms will determine the fate of President Trump’s America First agenda. Republicans must maintain control of both chambers of Congress.

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