Parents Locked in Battle With State Over Daughter’s Custody, Transgender Treatment

WORCESTER, Mass.—The trouble began around Thanksgiving 2024, according to Joe and Arlene Kutzko. Their daughter was staying late at school, purportedly to receive extra math tutoring. 

The parents now allege that school faculty were secretly facilitating the girl’s “gender transition.” The Epoch Times has not independently verified that allegation.

A few months later, according to the parents, her mother received a phone call from the school informing her that their daughter didn’t want to come home, but the school wouldn’t say why. Later that day, while the parents were still trying to figure out what was going on, police arrived to take Joe into custody, the family said.

The teen alleged that her father, her mother, and her 20-year-old brother had physically abused her. She also accused her father and brother of sexual abuse. The Kutzkos have denied the allegations. According to the family, she was sent to live with a sister at first and was then placed in a group home that also housed males. 

Joe and Arlene say they have not seen their daughter in nearly two years. 

The Kutzkos have been in court during that time, defending against the abuse allegations, trying to regain custody of their daughter, and seeking to block the state from administering testosterone treatments to their child. 

Parents’ Long Road

A judge at the Worcester Juvenile Court previously blocked the state from giving the teen testosterone. A full trial on those issues is now delayed until next March, and she turns 18 in April.

“So we’re running up against the clock,” Joe told The Epoch Times.

He said he fears the state will take guardianship of his daughter after she turns 18 and proceed with testosterone and transgender surgery. 

“That’s when the damage is done, and it’s not reversible,” the father said outside the courtroom on Oct. 29, shaking with grief.

The Kutzkos’ legal battle resembles accounts from other parents who previously told The Epoch Times that they believed state authorities were willing to facilitate gender-related medical interventions for their children against the parents’ wishes.

Like those parents, the Kutzkos said they had no idea their daughter was questioning her gender identity. 

She had been a lector, an altar server, and led the rosary at their Catholic parish in Southborough, Massachusetts, 27 miles outside of Boston, according to her parents. 

But she had become withdrawn and closed off from her family, they said. Her father said he thought it was normal teenage angst and decided to take a “wait and see approach,” even as his wife continued to probe the source of the problem.

“I said, ‘Mom, come on, leave her alone. Just give her some privacy.’ I regret that now,” Joe told The Epoch Times in October. 

He said he trusted his daughter and the “deep love” she had for him and the rest of the family. 

“Basically, she was my princess. Whatever she wants, she could have,” he added, choking back his tears.  

Arlene said that, in her view, the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families (DCF) seems to be trying to split up the family. 

“They don’t want to talk to my husband. They want only to talk to me, and always they insist: ‘If you want your daughter back, you have to kick out your husband,’” she said, adding that she understood this to mean she would have to divorce him.

Multiple Legal Battles

The case is complex, and has played out in multiple courts, jurisdictions, and government agencies, the family’s attorneys told The Epoch Times. 

One attorney, Vernadette Broyles, told The Epoch Times that she believes the school counselor who had been meeting with the girl was the person who contacted DCF. The Epoch Times has not independently confirmed who made the report.

Court documents show Joe was accused of punching his daughter and pulling her hair.

According to Broyles, DCF found after an investigation that those allegations were unsubstantiated. The Kutzkos have denied the allegations. 

Broyles said Joe also negotiated a pretrial probation last December. Under that arrangement, according to Broyles, he must refrain from contacting his daughter for a year, and in exchange, he can avoid a trial and his record will be expunged.

According to Broyles, that means his criminal case has been resolved, but the state still has not returned their daughter. Broyles said DCF has maintained its custody claim on the basis of an allegation of negligence, and the family says it has not been told what that allegation entails. Court hearings in the custody dispute have been repeatedly postponed.

Broyles said she also believes authorities are trying to run out the clock until the teen’s 18th birthday. The Kutzkos’ daughter has obtained a restraining order against her parents and older brother. 

Arlene is also accused of violating that order after giving a television interview about the custody case. She is scheduled to appear in court in November on that accusation. 

The family said the litigation has cost them around $150,000 so far; they have set up a GiveSendGo page to raise money for their defense. 

The Epoch Times reached out to Massachusetts DCF with questions about the case, but a spokesperson did not provide answers as of press time. 

Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey said the state didn’t take the child away to facilitate transgender procedures. 

“Let me be clear about the facts in that matter,” she said during an unrelated press conference in September.  

“First of all, DCF did not remove the child because of a health issue or a gender care issue. DCF removed the child after there were criminal charges filed against the parents, including the father, and as you know, DCF is responsible for the care and well-being of kids, and that’s what happened.”

When Transition Ends in Tragedy 

Some parents who have been unable to prevail in similar disputes describe tragic outcomes for their children.

Elvira Syed, an Azerbaijani native living in Connecticut, told The Epoch Times her daughter Ilene was “pretty girly” all her life, until around age 15, when she began experiencing depression and anxiety. 

That was around the time when kids were returning to school after the pandemic, and the girl began to “go through different LGBTQ labels,” her mother said, passing from bisexual, to lesbian, then nonbinary.

Just before her 16th birthday, she declared she was transgender, according to her mother. 

Following advice she found on the internet, Syed said, she decided to support her daughter’s new identity; they legally changed her name from Ilene to Raven. She also tried to use male pronouns for her daughter, but said that was difficult because the family spoke Russian in the home. 

“I tried to play around my language. Let’s say instead of say like asking, ‘Did you eat?’ because the ending of the verb would indicate the gender, I would say like, ‘Was the dinner eaten?’”

That seemed to help, but only for a little while, she said.

“I tried my best. I did. … Initially, it was actually getting better, but then she became so sensitive when someone would misgender her accidentally,” Syed said. 

She said her daughter would throw tantrums or refuse to speak to the family.

But while the family was visiting potential colleges, Syed said, she noticed her daughter looking at a boy on campus and began to question everything. If her daughter was not really a lesbian, she thought, perhaps she had made a mistake by accepting her new gender identity so quickly. 

Syed said she stopped using male pronouns and told her daughter she would allow her to dress in “neutral” clothing, but only if it was purchased from the women’s section. 

In autumn 2023, Ilene began to attend Rider University in New Jersey, and, according to Syed, things escalated. Syed said her daughter refused to see her and posted on social media that she was trying to be legally emancipated from her. 

On Dec. 29, 2023, Syed said, she was ordered to appear before a judge after a home visit by Connecticut DCF. According to Syed, she was accused of being an “unsafe” mother who left her daughter destitute, which she disputes, saying she was still paying her daughter’s room and board at college; she said authorities were also concerned about her other child.  

According to Syed, after hearing the case, and noting that Ilene would turn 18 the next day, a judge dismissed the charges, but the rift between mother and daughter widened. 

Syed said DCF asked her to sign over custody of her daughter to the state. She said she agreed to do so, but only if authorities agreed to wait two years before attempting any medical gender interventions. According to Syed, they would not agree, and she decided she could no longer support her daughter financially.

The next day was Ilene’s birthday, and Syed said she tried to visit her once more to wish her happy birthday and offer to co-sign a student loan. According to Syed, her daughter asked campus security to escort her mother from the premises.

She never saw her daughter alive again. 

Decline After Testosterone

In June 2024, Ilene began taking testosterone and, according to her mother, subsequently experienced severe mood swings.

According to a detective’s report viewed by The Epoch Times, the young woman’s personality, hygiene, and interpersonal relationships began to deteriorate in the following period. Her friends told investigators she had multiple untreated mental health issues, according to the report. 

Ilene had been living with her boyfriend, but they had a falling out in October that same year and broke up. That night, Syed’s daughter took her own life by overdosing on pills. 

The loss left Syed “broken,” she said. 

“You wouldn’t want to see me at that point. I was at my lowest, honestly,” she said.

She processed the pain of her daughter’s death by writing a book about the experience, which she hopes to see realized as a movie someday.

“That was my way, actually, of not only showing my grief, but also to show what can happen when parents are isolated, when children are isolated from their parents by this society. What can it lead to?” she said.

Changing the Law 

Broyles said she is part of a coalition working with members of Congress to enact legislation that, in her view, might help prevent these kinds of situations. 

Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.) and Rep. Mary Miller (R-Ill.) have introduced legislation that would clarify that affirming a child’s biological sex cannot be classified as “child abuse,” and would prevent the state from taking kids away solely for gender ideology reasons. 

The legislation also restricts the use of federal funds for those medical interventions and allows parents to sue if the state violates their parental rights.  

The bill, known as the Yaeli Martinez Child Protection Act, is named after a young California woman who, according to her family and advocates, was encouraged by her school psychologist and other authority figures to enter foster care after her mother refused to affirm her new identity.

According to those accounts, the teen was placed on testosterone shots; the hormones didn’t resolve her ongoing depression, and she reportedly suffered severe bone pain as a side effect. At age 19, she took her own life. 

“I don’t want that to happen to our daughter,” Arlene said as she and her husband wept.  

Correction: A previous version of this article misstated the month in which Ilene began taking testosterone. The Epoch Times regrets the error.