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A Massachusetts family’s nightmare should serve as a warning to Connecticut parents. This threat is not hypothetical. It has already touched Connecticut families known personally to Family Institute of Connecticut Action.
Joseph and Arlene Kutzko say Massachusetts officials removed their teenage daughter from their home after the parents refused to treat her as a boy. According to the family and its attorney, school employees supported the girl’s new identity without her parents’ knowledge. Massachusetts DCF later placed her outside her home and sought authority to give her testosterone.
The Kutzkos deny abusing their daughter. Their attorney says the physical-abuse allegation against the father was found to be unsupported. The parents nevertheless remain separated from their child and are fighting in court to stop the state from medically transitioning her. WCVB reported on the family’s ongoing custody battle.
This did not come out of nowhere. A Massachusetts state commission previously recommended changing the Commonwealth’s child-abuse laws to “explicitly include the withholding of gender-affirming care for LGBTQ youth.” It also proposed creating an LGBTQ-specific “maltreatment code” for the child-welfare system.
In plain English, the commission wanted the government to consider treating parents as child abusers if they refused puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, or other so-called gender-affirming interventions.
Could something similar happen in Connecticut?
It already has.
The Smith Family’s Connecticut Case.
FIC Action knows the Smith family personally. We know their story, and we believe them.
In March 2026, Connecticut father Charles Smith submitted written testimony to the General Assembly describing what happened:
“In 2019, the Connecticut Department of Children and Families removed my 14-year-old daughter from our home. Our home had been certified as safe and non-abusive.”
The Smith family’s ordeal began at E.O. Smith High School. Their daughter made accusations that her parents mistreated her because of a conflict involving sexuality and the family’s Catholic faith. The school reported the parents to DCF. The accusations were false and were ultimately unsubstantiated. Yet DCF removed the Smiths’ daughter and placed her with a school coach.
Even after the original allegations fell apart, their daughter was not returned home. A DCF worker told the Catholic parents that they needed “to evolve their religion” and “go with the times.”
While the Smiths were separated from their child, their biological daughter was told she was really male. The state and the adults who had gained control over her treated her as a boy. The government did not protect this family. It helped tear the family apart and undermined the parents’ faith, authority, and relationship with their daughter.
The Smiths sued school and state officials, alleging interference with their parental and religious rights. Their case shows that the danger facing the Kutzko family is not confined to Massachusetts. Connecticut parents have already faced the same machinery: school secrecy, accusations against religious parents, DCF intervention, removal from a safe home, and state-supported gender transition after the parents lost control.
Read Charles Smith’s testimony to the General Assembly.
Read the 2019 Associated Press report about the family’s lawsuit.
The Tragic Story Of Elvira Syed And Her Daughter.
The Smith family is not the only Connecticut family to face DCF involvement over gender identity.
Elvira Syed says Simsbury High School socially transitioned her daughter, Ilene, without her knowledge. Ilene was a brilliant but vulnerable young woman who had autism, a history of self-harm, and the trauma of losing her father to cancer.
Elvira initially followed the advice to affirm a male identity. She used male pronouns and even helped her daughter obtain a legal name change. But as Ilene’s distress increased, Elvira began asking questions and stopped treating affirmation as the only acceptable response.
In 2023, a transgender pastor met with 17-year-old Ilene and then reported Elvira to DCF for alleged emotional abuse. The supposed abuse included Elvira’s refusal to continue affirming a male identity because of her Muslim faith and her concern for her daughter’s mental health. According to records reviewed by Project Veritas, the pastor urged DCF to take guardianship and opposed family therapy.
DCF did not remove Ilene, but the report branded a concerned mother as a possible abuser and drove the family further apart. Ilene later obtained testosterone after turning 18. She died by suicide in October 2024 while attending college.
Elvira believes that the school, DCF intervention, gender-affirming professionals, and the adults who encouraged Ilene to separate from her mother contributed to the tragedy. Instead of helping a vulnerable child reconnect with her family and receive a complete mental-health evaluation, the system treated her mother as the problem.
Connecticut Already Has Troubling Policies.
Connecticut law does not expressly say that refusing “gender-affirming care” is child abuse. We have not found a published DCF rule that automatically classifies a parent’s refusal to use new pronouns or approve hormones as neglect. But Connecticut has already put several dangerous pieces in place.
DCF’s official practice guide says that children in its custody must receive care considered “medically necessary.” It specifically includes puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and “medically appropriate surgeries.” Requests for gender-related treatment may be submitted to DCF’s Medical Review Board. Read the DCF practice guide.
This policy applies after a child enters DCF custody. But the Smith case exposes the danger. Once the state removes a child, even on allegations later found to be false or unsubstantiated, DCF gains enormous power over the child’s placement, counseling, identity, medical care, and relationship with the parents.
Connecticut’s broad neglect law makes this even more troubling. A child may be considered neglected when denied proper physical, educational, emotional, or moral care. If DCF calls gender-transition treatment “medically necessary,” what prevents the agency from treating a parent’s refusal as medical or emotional neglect?
Massachusetts activists have now said openly what others may be doing quietly: refusal to authorize “gender-affirming care” should be treated as child abuse.
FIC Action Demands Answers.
FIC Action has submitted a Freedom of Information request to Connecticut DCF. We are seeking policies, training materials, legal guidance, and non-identifying information showing whether parental disagreement over gender identity has played a role in DCF reports, investigations, removals, or court proceedings.
We want to know whether Connecticut parents have been reported for refusing new names or pronouns, opposing social transition, or declining puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones. We also want to know how often DCF has authorized gender-related treatment after taking custody of a child.
We are not seeking children’s names or private medical records. We are seeking accountability.
Connecticut parents deserve to know the rules being applied to their families. They should not have to wonder whether a school counselor is keeping secrets, whether asking questions will trigger a DCF report, or whether requesting caution and a full psychological evaluation could cost them custody of their child.
The Smith, Syed and Kutzko families reveal a frightening pattern. Schools act without parents. Accusations bring child-protection agencies into the home. Religious beliefs are treated as dangerous or outdated. Once the state gains control, government officials claim the authority to affirm and medically advance a child’s new identity.
Children belong to their families, not the state. Refusing experimental and life-altering treatment is not child abuse. Seeking careful, ethical, and evidence-based care is not neglect. Believing that every child is created male or female and possesses God-given dignity is not a reason to break a family apart.
FIC Action will report what DCF provides in response to our request. Connecticut families have a right to know how often this has happened and whether the policies promoted openly in Massachusetts are already being applied here behind the closed doors of our child-welfare system.
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