Amended SB1150 Still Legalizes Kidnap of Children for Sex-Change

by Austin Martin, Chairman, Libertarian Party of Hawaii 

On February 11, 2025, I testified against SB1150 before the Senate HHS/CPN committees:

“This bill is about stealing children from states that don’t have that access. Buried in this bill is a provision that would legalize inter-state kidnapping by requiring judges to issue custody order in cases where the plaintiffs merely alleges the reason for the abduction was to obtain gendering-affirming care.”

Coming out of the hearing, an amended version, SB1150 SD1, is now posted on the Legislative website.  It is referred to JDC/WAM.  No hearing has been set.  The next deadline is ‘First Decking,’ February 28, 2025.

Do not be deceived.  

Two sections have been removed, but the SD1 version remains a kidnap bill.  This bill allows children to be legally stolen from the Mainland, and from American Samoa, Guam and other US territories where juvenile sex-change is not legal. 

The two removed sections would have allowed a kidnapper to obtain sanctuary in Hawaii having stolen a child from any of the other 49 states or the US territories—regardless of the home-state policy on sex-change for minors.  The four worst remaining sections allow a kidnapper sanctuary only from a state or territory which somehow ‘limits’ juvenile sex-change, whatever that means.  

18 U.S. Code § 1201 makes non-parental inter-state kidnapping a federal offense carrying a possible life sentence.

Parents do not need distant Hawaii courts meddling in and dictating outcomes in their most intimate decisions and relationships, under the false pretense to ‘prevent harm.’

But under SB1150 SD1, political or parental refusal of sex change procedures is still considered a full-blown emergency for custody-reassignment purposes.   The bill names ‘gender affirming care’ as an ‘essential health care service.’  Denial of ‘gender affirming care’ is therefore 'medical neglect', which is legal justification for Hawaii courts to assert jurisdiction. 

The State’s position is clear that it considers access and availability of sex change surgery and hormones a basic human right - so denying a child this ‘right’, in the State’s eyes, is a crime worthy of kidnapping a child from his or her family.

These are the worst sections:

Section 2 of the SD1 version of SB1150 renders any home-state court order or child welfare action removing a juvenile from a ‘guardian’ or ‘parent’ invalid in Hawaii if the child is parentally kidnapped to Hawaii and the parental kidnapper utters the magical words “gender affirming care.”  This will become a tactic in child custody disputes. 

Section 15 of SD1 forces out-of-state parents to come thousands of miles to argue their case--perhaps without a lawyer--in distant and unfamiliar Hawaii Family Courts, if a non-parental kidnapper utters the magical words “gender affirming care.”  Distance alone will be enough to defeat many disadvantaged single parents or parents with language, poverty, or substance abuse issues.  Many will default and Hawaii Courts will use their default to legally bless the kidnapping.

Section 16 of SD1 would allow molesters and sex traffickers, who often target disadvantaged parents, to kidnap children into Hawaii and not have the kidnapping held against them in Hawaii courts if these non-parental kidnappers utter the magical words “gender affirming care.”  The kidnap victim’s family need only reside in a state which does not allow juvenile sex-change.  The kidnapper need not demonstrate that the biological parents or guardians from who the child was kidnapped had intended to deny “gender affirming care” -- or had even been asked to consider it.

Section 17 of SD1 renders any ruling by home-state courts denying juvenile sex-change procedures unenforceable in Hawaii, regardless of parental will.

SB1150 SD1 is silent on children kidnapped into Hawaii from outside the USA, but the implication is that a claim of “gender affirming care” would legalize an international kidnapping in the eyes of the State.

The bill would prohibit the State from supplying other states’ courts or out-of-state parents with any information about sex-change procedures done on their children in Hawaii.

The bill would also make Hawaii a sanctuary for other states’ disciplined doctors--if the doctor claims the discipline was due to his performing “gender affirming care.”

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Here are the two sections that have been removed (and could easily be reinstated in Conference Committee), and four kidnap legalization sections which remain:

REMOVED:

1) SECTION 15. §583A-201 Initial child-custody jurisdiction.

“The presence of a child in this State for the purpose of obtaining gender-affirming health care services shall be sufficient to meet the requirements of subsection (a)(2)

NOTE: Subsection (a)(2) provides conditions under which “A court of another state does not have jurisdiction…."

2) SECTION 16. Section 583A-204, Hawaii Revised Statutes, is amended by amending subsection (a) to read as follows:

"(a) A court of this State shall have temporary emergency jurisdiction if the child is present in this State and the child has been abandoned or it is necessary in an emergency to protect the child because … The child has been unable to obtain gender-affirming health care services."

REMAINING:

1) SD1 SECTION 2 (old SEC 2)  §583A- Laws contrary to the public policy of this State.

A law of another state that authorizes a state agency to remove a child from a parent or guardian based on the parent or guardian allowing the child to receive gender-affirming health care services shall be against the public policy of this State and shall not be enforced or applied in a case pending in a court in this State."

2) SD1 SECTION 15 (old SEC 17)  §583A-207 Inconvenient forum.

(e) In a case where the provision of gender-affirming health care services to the child is at issue, a court of this State shall not determine that it is an inconvenient forum where the law or policy of the other state that may take jurisdiction limits the ability of a parent to obtain gender-affirming health care services for the child."

3) SD1 SECTION 16 (old SEC 18)  §583A-208 Jurisdiction declined by reason of conduct.

(d) In making a determination (that Hawaii courts have jurisdiction) under this section, a court shall not consider as a factor weighing against the petitioner any taking of the child, or retention of the child after a visit or other temporary relinquishment of physical custody, from the person who has legal custody if there is evidence that the taking or retention of the child was for the purposes of obtaining gender-affirming health care services for the child and the law or policy of the other state limits the ability of a parent to obtain gender-affirming health care services for the child."

4)  SD1 SECTION 17 (old SEC 19)  §636C-9 Enforcement of foreign penal civil actions relating to protected reproductive health care services or protected gender-affirming health care services.

(a) No judgment or other order arising from a foreign penal civil action or other penal law banning, restricting, burdening, punishing, penalizing, or otherwise interfering with the provision of protected reproductive health care services or protected gender-affirming health care services shall be enforced in this State.

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SB1150 SD1: Text, Status

Feb 8, 2025: SB1150 Would Legalize Child Kidnapping for Sex Change