Sex-trafficked teen's mom sues school for allegedly hiding kid's transition, leading her to run away

The mother of a teenager who was sex trafficked is suing the Virginia school district her child attended, blaming the school for allegedly hiding her child's transition from female to male and causing the teen to run away and be captured by a sex trafficker.

Appomattox County Public School officials hid Sage Blair’s transition from her parents, including that she was being bullied for dressing as a boy, the lawsuit filed last week by her mother, Michele Blair, states. 

The events and secrecy led Sage to run away from her home in rural Virginia and she was later captured by a sex trafficker who took her to Washington, D.C., and Baltimore, Md., where she was drugged and raped by multiple men, according to the lawsuit.

After the FBI recovered her, Baltimore public defender Aneesa Khan, who is a defendant in the lawsuit, told Judge Robert Kershaw that Sage was the "victim of emotional and physical abuse from her parents" and "she was unsafe at home."

"Based on Ms. Khan’s lies and misrepresentations, Judge Kershaw ordered that [Sage] remain in Maryland under the temporary custody of the Maryland Department of Juvenile Services," the lawsuit states.

Sage, who weighed less than 100 pounds at 14-years-old, was placed in a group home with teenage boys and was not given any trauma therapy or medical care, the lawsuit says. Sage was assaulted at the home and began doing drugs, per court documents. 

Additionally, Sage told her mother that Khan told her to lie about her situation with her family so the prosecutor could "win the case," the lawsuit said. 

Sage left foster care and went to Texas to meet with someone she met online, but she ultimately was abducted by another adult male predator who "sexually abused, drugged, starved and tortured her until she was rescued by law enforcement," the court document states. By January 2022, she was rescued by Texas law enforcement and her mother took her into custody.

The lawsuit asks for unspecified compensatory and punitive damages, as well as attorneys' fees and costs. 

Blair is being represented by the Child & Parental Rights Campaign, a non-partisan, non-profit public interest law firm dedicated to defending children against what it sees as the "harms caused by gender identity ideology."

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