Grandparents win teen custody case

CINCINNATI — A transgender Ohio teen’s grandparents have been granted custody and will be allowed to decide whether the 17-year-old can pursue hormone therapy at a hospital after he’s evaluated by a psychologist not affiliated with the hospital, a judge in Cincinnati ruled Friday.

Judge Sylvia Hendon’s ruling appears to have ended a legal battle that pitted the teen and his maternal grandparents against his parents, who denied he was transgender and sought Christian-based therapy for him. The teen, with his grandparents’ support, wants treatment at the transgender program run by Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center. Hendon’s ruling also gives the grandparents the right to allow him to change his name.

The four-page decision notes that the teen’s parents agree he should continue living with his grandparents and attending high school, where he excels academically and musically.

“Parents are granted reasonable visitation and encouraged to work toward a reintegration of the child into the extended family,” Hendon wrote.

The judge also called on the state Legislature to consider enacting laws that provide a “framework” for juvenile courts in Ohio to evaluate a minor’s “right to consent to gender therapy.”

The Hamilton County Department of Job and Family Services first sought custody of the teen in early 2017 after he emailed a crisis hotline and said one of his parents had told him to kill himself and that he could only receive Christian-based therapy, a complaint filed by the agency in Juvenile Court said.