A California mom alleged her daughter’s school and LGBTQ groups are responsible for her daughter’s suicide after gender reassignment surgery.
Abigail Martinez, 51, says Arcadia Unified School District persuaded her confused, depressed teenage daughter, Yaeli, to believe she was meant to be male.
Martinez described her daughter as a “girlie girl” during her early childhood who loved to dress up like a princess, during a panel discussion hosted by The Heritage Foundation.
Yaeli started to display signs of depression while attending middle school, her mother said. Martinez added she asked school officials for help and to “keep an eye on her.”
When she started high school, the doors opened to what she was talking about, like transgender, going to meetings, going to all the support that they think they have for these children … which is not,” Martinez recalled.
The Arcadia High School Counselor, employees of the Los Angeles office of the Department of Children and Family Services and LGBT groups worked together to transition Yaeli to become Andrew, the mother said. Martinez added she was accused of not wanting to open her eyes because she was told her daughter was a girl who was really a boy, something Martinez said was not true.
“She was not even close to a tomboy,” the mother said, adding “she was the girlie girl in the house.”
Martinez said she met with the school principal and counselor but claimed they made things worse.
“The school psychology and LGBT told DCFS that my daughter would be better off out of the house,” the anguished mother said. “They took away my daughter when she was 16-years-old. I tried my best to get her back.” She explained she was in court every month trying to get her daughter back.
Arcadia’s Superintendent of Schools David Vannasdall did not immediately return a call requesting comment.
Martinez said an LGBT group encouraged her daughter’s decision to transition to a male identity, informing her the state would pay for her surgeries.
“‘This was the best time to do it,”‘ the transgender advocacy groups allegedly told the teenage girl, ‘”because if you don’t do it right now, nothing is going to make you happy.”
“You’re unhappy with your body — you hate your body — so you go for it.'”
After a failed suicide attempt, her daughter was placed in foster care and then started going by the name of Andrew.
“When I went to court, I asked the judge to please let my daughter have a psych evaluation,” Martinez said. But since her daughter’s social worker said she needed to be acknowledged as transgender, the judge denied the mother’s request.
Martinez said her daughter committed suicide by kneeling in front of an oncoming train, in September 2019.
“I want everyone to know the truth because it didn’t have to happen,” Martinez said. “I don’t want this to happen to any other family or to go through all this pain.”
“There’s a lot of pain.”
UPDATE: On March 22nd, 2022, Arcadia Unified School District Chief Communication Officer Ryan Foran issued a response to Resist the Mainstream post-publication of the original story.
“We share in the sorrow and grief of the Martinez family and continue to offer our sincerest condolences. While we are unable to provide personal information or comment regarding a specific student due to state and federal laws protecting the privacy of student information, any claim or assertion that would suggest our school encouraged one of our students to take hormones and undergo gender reassignment surgery would be categorically false,” Foran wrote in an email statement.
“Furthermore, a claim suggesting our school or a staff member did not properly treat a student’s severe depression is both completely inaccurate and troubling as our schools and staff would not be authorized or medically qualified to treat clinical depression. However, our staff works tirelessly to provide and suggest resources, when appropriate, to help connect students and families with licensed mental health professionals to treat conditions such as clinical depression. We have a very caring staff that is dedicated to providing a safe, nondiscriminatory school environment for all students. We also continually provide resources to promote the healthy mental, emotional, and social well-being of all students.”
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