Mother Testifies That Child Was Sex Trafficked After State Removed Her From Home Over ‘Misgendering’

The mother of a raped and sex-trafficked teen detailed in a Monday hearing how the school kept her child’s gender identity a secret and a court then withheld custody for months.

Michele’s testimony was offered during a period of public comments as the Virginia legislature considers Sage’s Law, a bill which would require school officials notify parents if a student is identifying with a gender inconsistent with his or her biological sex. The bill also clarifies that the definition of child abuse does not include so-called “misgendering.”

The bill is named after Michele’s adopted daughter Sage, who was brutally sex-trafficked and gang-raped after school officials, and then the state, intervened after accusing her parents of abuse for “misgendering” Sage. They kept Sage, who claimed to identify as a boy at the time, in a male children’s home for over two months where she was “repeatedly assaulted” and given drugs.

Michele, who is Sage’s biological grandmother, adopted Sage after her son died. Neither woman’s last name has been publicized.

Sage suffered from depression and anxiety when the COVID pandemic began, concerns which her teachers shared with Michele, she testified.

“The transparency ended in August 2021 when Sage started high school,” Michele said. “She started a public high school and she told me that all the girls there were bi, trans, lesbian, emo, and she wanted to wear boys clothes and be emo. Because I saw it as just a phase it was fine with me. But at school she told them something different, she was now a boy named Draco with male pronouns. Sage asked the school not to tell me and they did not tell me.”

“No one told me but boys followed her, touched her, threatened violence and rape. Something happened in the boy’s bathroom but for two days the school told me nothing. They kept meeting with Sage alone, and she became so distraught they called me to pick her up,” she continued.

That evening, Michele found a pass that listed Sage’s name as Draco. Sage then told Michele she was a boy.

“She’d been jacked up against the wall by a group of boys, she was crying, terrified. I said just stay home, we’ll figure it out,” Michele said during the hearing. “That was my last conversation with Sage for five months. The night she ran, she went with a young friend she met online. She left a note saying she was scared of what would happen if she stayed.”

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