Michele Blair opened up about her appearance at the State of the Union Tuesday, when President Donald Trump highlighted the story of her daughter, Sage, who reportedly became a human trafficking victim after her school hid her transgender identity from her mother.
“Sage, can you even believe we are here with the president of the United States?” Blair recalled telling her adopted daughter at the State of the Union. “The president picked my story.”
The mother spoke with Laura Hanford, a senior policy analyst at The Heritage Foundation, the day after the speech.
Blair adopted Sage, her biological granddaughter, upon the death of her son, Sage’s father. Blair recounted the harrowing story of how the school’s decision to hide her daughter’s transgender identity made her daughter vulnerable.
“She was 14 years old and she started at school and identified as a boy and the school glorified that point, but never told me, to the point where she got so severely bullied that she felt she needed to run away to save her life and her parents’ lives,” Blair recounted.
Sage running away “led her into the hands of sex traffickers,” Blair said.
She ended up in police custody in Maryland, where her transgender identity again separated her from her mother.
“We did not know she was going by a boy’s name, so when we called her Sage, the judge and the public defender shut down that session, so that they could have [Child Protective Services] investigate me and my husband for abuse because we weren’t recognizing her or using her correct pronouns,” the mother recalled.
Authorities put her in a boys’ home.
“I sent her cards and presents, they did not give her anything,” Blair added. “As a matter of fact, the lawyer told her that we didn’t want her anymore because she wanted to be a boy and she was arranging a foster home for her.”
“She said, ‘Nana, I didn’t even know you were at the jail,’” the mother recalled.
Sage ran away again, and law enforcement next found her in Texas.
Blair said she was glad to share her story at the State of the Union, to send the message to other parents that “it’s not just us,” and “we need to stand up together.”
She expressed hope that her prime-time appearance “may give lots of parents and children hope that there is a light at the end of the tunnel.”
Virginia lawmakers wrote a law, HB 2432, requiring any school professional who reasonably suspects a student is at risk of suicide or “is self-identifying as a gender different from the student’s biological sex” to contact at least one of the student’s parents, to notify the parent, and to offer counseling.
While the bill passed the Virginia House of Delegates, it failed in the state Senate.
