Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2025
Abstract
Recent debates surrounding transgender children and the rights of their parents reveal a troubling development. When addressing state restrictions on vital medical care for transgender children, several courts have used possessive determiners, such as "its children" or "their children," to describe the state's relationship to these children. This language conveys subtle claims of state authority and control over children and a corresponding right of intervention in the parent-child relationship. This is neither syntactic phrasing nor grammatical framing; it is more. When courts allow states to act in support of "their children," they blur the boundary between the state and parents.
This development is not unique to transgender children. Through restrictions on abortion and claims of fetal personhood, states have sought to assert authority and control over unborn children, with a corresponding decrease in the rights of women. In the most intimate realm of procreation and family life, the state is arrogating power at the expense of the individual.
While the use of pronouns to describe gender identity has been studied, other grammatical categories merit critical reflection in debates over transgender rights. Discussions about possessive determiners may seem pedantic, but these words convey perceptions about identity, authority, and control over self and family. This Essay translates the coded meaning in the language used to restrict medical care for transgender children and its implications for their parents. Possessive determiners assert a subtle power. Through them, the parents of transgender children are marginalized, and their children are purged from society. In contrast, favored families are celebrated, and their children are protected.
Recommended Citation
William J. Aceves,
Whose Children?,
103
Wash. U. L. Rev.
477
(2025).
Available at:
https://scholarlycommons.law.cwsl.edu/fs/540