Multiple states have laws that allow kids to go across state lines to get “gender” mutilation surgeries while simultaneously protecting medical providers from being held accountable. To help put an end to such practices, citizens in the so-called “trans refuge state” of Minnesota initiated the call for a coalition to unify states and legislatures against child mutilation.
A pastor, a homeschool mother of six, and other Americans joined members from the Republican state delegation in 2024, launching an effort to form “The Cornerstone Standard Coalition of States.” The goal is to “unify this great nation” on the fundamental issue of “protecting children.”
Cornerstone’s “standard for such a coalition corrects the terminology used in our social discussion around these issues and the use of terms like ‘gender-affirming care’ and calls it as they see it: ‘child mutilation,’” Michael Adamovich, a liberal (but not “woke”) Democrat and one of the founders of the Cornerstone Group, told The Federalist. As such, the coalition Cornerstone advocates for would maintain it is “a serious criminal offense to administer so-called ‘transgender healthcare’ to minors,” and seek to enforce laws against those who “perpetrate these serious crimes.” Cornerstone seeks the formation of “a coalition among the States and Counties of this nation who hold these beliefs in common cause to protect children.”
In an April memo on “preventing the mutilation of American children,” Attorney General Pam Bondi directed the DOJ “to enforce rigorous protections and hold accountable those who prey on vulnerable children and their parents.” In part, she called for the “enforcement of laws outlawing female genital mutilation” and the establishment of a “federal and state coalition against child mutilation.” She said the DOJ was launching the “Attorney General’s Coalition Against Child Mutilation,” by which she would “partner with state attorneys general to identify leads, share intelligence, and build cases against hospitals and practitioners violating federal or state laws banning female genital mutilation and other, related practices.”
According to the memo, “Between 2019 and 2023, an estimated 14,000 children received ‘treatment’ for gender dysphoria, with more than 5,700 subjected to life-altering surgeries. The practitioners who provided this so-called ‘care’ profited while their patients were left permanently disfigured, scarred, and sterilized.”
“What [Bondi] is calling for is what we’re calling for,” Karin Miller told The Federalist. Miller is a homeschool mom of six, the author of Faith in Action on Substack, and one of the founders of the group advocating for this national Cornerstone Coalition of States. In a recent article, Miller noted how “the foundation for the formation of a Coalition of States has already been laid” in Minnesota.
The purpose of the Cornerstone coalition effort is to “end the harm against children,” one of the group’s founders, Pastor Daren Mehl, told The Federalist. Miller also said the purpose is to send “out an SOS from citizens standing up against this in Minnesota saying, ‘Please help protect the children of Minnesota and the children of America by creating this coalition.’”
According to the article by Miller, the effort was “spearheaded by [state] Representative Walter Hudson and joined by a large number of the members of the Republican delegation at the Minnesota Legislature.”
Bondi’s memo builds off of Trump’s January executive order Protecting Children From Chemical and Surgical Mutilation, which stated that the U.S. “will not fund, sponsor, promote, assist, or support the so-called ‘transition’ of a child from one sex to another, and it will rigorously enforce all laws that prohibit or limit these destructive and life-altering procedures.”
According to KFF, 27 states have implemented policies “limiting youth access” to gender mutilation services, mirroring the American people’s desire to protect kids from the ideology that profits off of their innocence. Florida, Idaho, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Alabama, and South Carolina have made it a felony to perform certain transgender interventions on minors, according to the Movement Advancement Project (MAP), a nonprofit LGBT advocacy think tank. Despite this, loopholes still remain.
Some states that allow child mutilation, like Minnesota, leave the door open for children to travel from other states to receive such procedures, skirting around laws that seek to protect developing children.
Twenty-three states have not banned harmful trans procedures for minors, MAP reported. Fourteen states currently have “shield laws” “protecting access” to so-called trans “care.” These laws “can protect the recipient and/or provider of that healthcare against civil or criminal charges from the state where healthcare is banned,” according to MAP.
The “gender clinic” at Children’s Minnesota reported that there was a 30 percent increase in 2023 “in new patient calls as states surrounding us restricted or outright banned gender affirming care.” The director of the clinic even bragged about a 6-year-old who purportedly identified as “transgender” and traveled from South Dakota to Minnesota to seek “care” in order to play soccer. Cornerstone’s “declaration of purpose” expresses concern that parents who object to so-called “gender affirming care” could “have their parental rights taken away by the courts in … Sanctuary States.”
The statement, located on Cornerstone’s website, also lays out how the government has a social contract with its citizens and “only when Consent is given can a government’s powers and their exercise be considered legitimate.”
“By not protecting our children, the government has broke the social contract and violated their oath in office,” Adamovich told The Federalist. He said Cornerstone is calling for a national coalition of states to “use the Cornerstone Standard as a ‘statement of principles’ that ground [its] legislation and other activities.”
Miller says many Minnesotans do not fully comprehend what is going on in their own state and hopes the group will help spread the word.
Cornerstone’s declaration of purpose notes that the “‘Sanctuary’ concept where one State unilaterally claims the right to undermine the laws of another” is unconstitutional. Meanwhile, “States which resist such unconstitutional powers being exercised upon their children are being undermined.” The coalition for which the Cornerstone Group is advocating seeks to be “a true sanctuary where children are actually protected from all corporate greed in league with extremist ideologies.”
“We believe that the persons who administer so-called transgender healthcare to minors are criminals … and should be punished to the full extent of the law,” the declaration of purpose says. “With the formation of the Cornerstone Standard Coalition of States, those who would perpetrate these crimes will be placed on notice that — if they are found within the borders of any of the Coalition States, having contributed materially … to effecting the mutilation of a minor who is a citizen of a Coalition State — they will be arrested/extradited, tried and [if convicted] punished to the full extent of the law.”
“Ultimately we would love to see the Coalition of States reshape the culture of America towards the next generation so that child gender mutilation would become unthinkable,” Miller said.
Despite sending a letter to Kristi Noem — the then-governor of South Dakota — and contacting other state leaders in 2023, the founders say they have not received a response. Mehl said they are “hopeful” that Noem, Bondi, and other leaders will hear about the Cornerstone Standard Coalition to spread the word and “put pressure on Democrat run states” to “protect the children.”
Cornerstone already has model legislation prepared and ways for everyday citizens and legislators to digitally sign their Declaration of Purpose so more people can join the fight.
Abigail Nichols is a correspondent for The Federalist. She was previously the opinion editor for the University of South Florida’s student newspaper, The Oracle. She is now working as the business manager at the University of North Florida’s student-run media outlet, Spinnaker Media, while obtaining a Master’s Degree in Social work.
