Two parents in Switzerland could face criminal penalties if they do not help the government facilitate a sex change for their teenage daughter who last year was removed from their custody, according to an appellate court order issued last week.

The parents, who have not publicly disclosed their names, have been embroiled in legal battles with Swiss government bodies for about three years to prevent officials from transitioning their daughter’s gender.

The court order requires the parents to provide government officials with legal documents that will allow the state to officially change their now-16-year-old daughter’s gender.

According to the parents’ lawyers at Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) International, the girl told her parents she wanted to become a boy about three years ago when she was 13. After doctors recommended puberty blockers, the parents declined to give them to her and obtained private mental health care for their daughter.

The girl’s parents informed her school of the situation and how they were approaching it, but the school began to socially transition their daughter against the expressed wishes of her parents, according to ADF International. The school then contacted the government child welfare agency, which accused the parents of “abuse” because they would not facilitate a sex change for their daughter.

A Swiss court ordered that she be taken to a government-funded youth shelter in April 2023, according to her parents’ lawyers. The courts stripped her parents of the authority to make medical decisions and halted the mental health treatment they had gotten for their daughter because the parents refused to help facilitate a sex change for their daughter.

“We are deeply saddened that this nightmare situation continues,” the girl’s father said in a statement provided by ADF International. 

“Not only has the state separated us from our daughter because we objected to her ‘transition,’ but we are now being threatened with criminal charges if we do not aid in her ‘legal transition’ by handing over legal documents,” he said. “The state should not have this power. If this can happen to us, it can happen to other parents. We will not give up trying to protect our daughter and will seek to appeal this decision.”

Under Swiss law, minors aged 16 and 17 can change their legal gender without a parent or guardian’s consent. The law also permits minors aged 16 and 17 to obtain sex-change surgeries. Although consent of a guardian is normally required for surgeries, 16- and 17-year-olds can obtain these surgeries without consent when the parents are stripped of their legal authority.

The parents are appealing to the Federal Supreme Court of Switzerland, which is the highest court in the country. They have 30 days to file their appeal.

Felix Böllmann, the ADF lawyer representing the parents, said in a statement that the decision is “a grave injustice” and that the court refuses “to recognize the fundamental rights of these parents to care for their daughter.”

“They have every right to withhold their consent to a so-called ‘sex change,’ given the vulnerable state of the minor concerned and that such a step could pave the way for harmful and potentially irreversible physical ‘transition,’” Böllmann added. “The court should uphold the rights of parents acting in the best interest of their child instead of weaponizing the law to advance dangerous ideologies that drive a wedge between parents and children and increase the likelihood of psychological and bodily harm.”

Less than three weeks ago, California became the first state in the United States to enact a law that prohibits school districts from adopting parental notification policies to inform parents if their children begin to identify as a gender that is different from their biological sex. In some states, departments of education have policies similar to this law, but no other state has enacted a similar law as of yet.

In about half of the states in the United States, there are no laws restricting the ages for when a minor can obtain sex-change drugs or surgeries.