Father Whose Son Had Transgender Surgery Despite Court Order Issues Dire Warning About Parental Rights
Tyler O'Neil /
FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—A California father has urged a court to find his ex-wife, her lawyer, his son’s lawyer, and a hospital in contempt of court after they went around a court order stipulating that his son would not receive transgender-related surgery unless the father approved it.
“This is not an accident,” Ted Hudacko, the father in question, told The Daily Signal in a phone interview last week. “This was intentionally done.”
He also warned that two of the figures in his story—the judge who revoked his visitation rights and the lawyer who represents the University of California, San Francisco (where the surgery took place), are pro-transgender activists who train custody attorneys to undermine the parental rights of “non-affirming” parents (parents who refuse to affirm their child’s decision to identify as another gender).
Hudacko exclusively shared the four contempt of court filings with The Daily Signal. The filings claim that his ex-wife, Christine Hudacko; her attorney, Nathaniel Bigger; his son’s attorney, Daniel Harkins; and the university violated an August 2020 order from California Superior Court Judge Joni Hiramoto.
Hiramoto had granted Christine Hudacko full custody of the son, Drew Hudacko, but restricted any transgender medical interventions Drew might receive to non-surgical alterations. (The son’s name has been changed in this article to preserve his anonymity.)
“Citees Christine Hudacko; her attorney, Nathaniel Bigger; minor’s counsel, Daniel Harkins; and University of California, San Francisco should each be held in contempt because each knew about, then collectively conspired to willfully disobey what is herein termed the ‘no surgery injunction,’ i.e. Judge Hiramoto’s valid August 26, 2020, court order explicitly prohibiting ‘any gender identity-related surgery’ upon the minor child,” the motions read.
Ted Hudacko’s motions note that the case “centers around the parties’ disagreement over whether it was or was not in the minor child’s best interest to undergo gender identity-related medical procedures,” with Christine Hudacko supporting a medical “transition” and Ted Hudacko opposing it.
The father “will establish that the law will hold non-parties liable for contempt when they know of the order and assist in its violation,” the filings read.
Ted Hudacko claims that “each of the citees was aware of the no surgery injunction, and that they individually and collectively decided to cause the minor child to undergo the gender identity related medical procedure of histrelin (brand name ‘Supprelin’) subcutaneous implant (‘Supprelin implant’), a surgery under the acceptable statutory definition, and by UCSF’s [University of California, San Francisco’s] own statements.”
The filings cite the Aug. 26 order’s two provisions on the issue:
[Drew] shall be permitted to pursue the services provided by UCSF as to [Drew]’s gender identity, and shall be permitted to commence hormone therapy, if recommended by UCSF.
[Drew] will not be permitted to undergo any gender identity related surgery until they are 18 years of age, absent a written agreement by both parties, Christine Hudacko and Edward Hudacko, or an order of the court.
On Feb. 17, 2021, Christine Hudacko took 16-year-old Drew to the University of California, San Francisco Child and Adolescent Gender Center. Doctors discussed experimental medical interventions often referred to as “puberty blockers.” They presented Drew and his mother four different options, only one of which involved any surgery. Drew and his mother selected that option, and the boy went under the knife on Aug. 4, 2021.
Ted Hudacko, who had a right to know about his son’s medical progress, did not learn about the surgery until Oct. 18, 2021, when his ex-wife notified him. He told The Daily Signal that he recalled wondering, “Why is there a $209,820.34 charge on my insurance?”
He cited a June 8, 2021, progress note from the court mentioning that the father is “not supportive” and he pushed back on the idea that he did not support his son.
“No, I’m supportive because I want to protect my child’s health. I don’t want to subject him to being a guinea pig in an experiment,” Ted Hudacko said. He mentioned a growing list of doctors in the U.S. and elsewhere who warn that medical interventions aimed at making a male appear female or vice versa—often euphemistically termed “gender-affirming care”—are experimental and not advisable.
“They easily could have avoided violating the court order,” the father added. “It’s not like this was a lifesaving surgery. This was completely elective, and they had nonsurgical options available, but they didn’t choose the nonsurgical options.”
The Daily Signal reached out to Christine Hudacko, Bigger, Harkins, and USCF for comment, but none responded by publication time.
Asaf Orr, who served as the legal director for the Child and Adolescent Gender Center at UCSF at the time of Drew’s surgery and whose name appears on Drew’s medical documents, requested that Ted Hudacko remove him from the legal action.
“I do not represent UCSF or any of the parties in this matter. As a result, I cannot accept service on their behalf,” Orr wrote, according to Ted Hudacko’s GiveSendGo account.
“We believe Mr. Orr has been properly served, but you can see that these vandals don’t want to be held accountable for their acts of destruction,” Ted Hudacko wrote in response. “Ironic that this self-styled ‘civil rights’ attorney violated MY civil rights as a parent, sterilized my son, and now evades accountability.”
Orr has a long history of advocating for “gender-affirming care.” He worked at the National Center for Lesbian Rights for 11 years, directing the “Transgender Youth Project” from September 2019 to February 2023. Orr has lectured at the University of California, Berkeley Law School, served as adjunct faculty at Southwestern Law School in Los Angeles, and lectured across the country—and even across the world in South Korea—on transgender custody issues.
He was the lead author of the Human Rights Campaign‘s “guide for supporting transgender students in K-12 schools” and he taught a continuing legal education course sponsored by the Contra Costa County Bar Association in October 2022. The course satisfied California’s legal training requirements and aimed to equip attorneys representing minors when handling custody disputes when one parent of a self-proclaimed transgender child supports “gender-affirming care” and the other does not.
In that training (first reported by The Washington Free Beacon), Orr criticized “non-supportive” parents, saying their disagreement with the child’s stated gender identity causes “harm.”
“I think it’s really critical for the parent to recognize that their actions have been harmful and if they’re willing to change their behavior, it’s really critical that [the children] have those bonds with their parents,” Orr said.
“But if a parent is refusing to do the act consistent with the standards of care and what the providers are recommending, I think that’s really difficult,” he added.
He insisted that a parent’s First Amendment rights do not “include imposing that on their children.”
“There are going to be situations where, for example, a parent has deeply-held religious beliefs, political beliefs, that make it impossible for them to come to a position where they can be engaging in the kind of accepting behaviors the child needs,” he said. “When you’re talking about the rights of a child, their right to exist and be free of harm supersedes the right to speak about your beliefs.”
Orr did not respond to The Daily Signal’s request for comment by publication time.
Hiramoto, the judge who revoked Ted Hudacko’s visitation but issued the order forbidding any surgery for Drew without his father’s consent, also hosted the training with Orr.
Ted Hudacko told The Daily Signal that Orr and Hiramoto included legal documents from the Hudacko case in the handout for the training.
As Abigail Shrier reported in depth for City Journal, Hiramoto has a long history of advocating for “gender-affirming care” for minors, even if it undermines parental rights.
Hiramoto asked Ted Hudacko, “If your son [Drew] were medically psychotic and believed himself to be the Queen of England, would you love him?”
When the father answered that “of course” he would, but “I’d also try to get him help,” Hiramoto pressed the issue further.
“But if it were—if you were told by [Drew’s] psychiatrist, psychologist that [Drew] was very fragile and that confronting him—or, I’m sorry, confronting them with the idea that they are not the Queen of England is very harmful to their mental health, could you go along and say, ‘OK, [Drew], you are the Queen of England, and I love you. You are my child, and I want you to do great, and please continue to see your psychologist’? Could you do that?” she asked.
When the father replied that he could, but “that sounds like part of a process that might take some time,” the judge replied, “What process? What is the thing that might take some time? Accepting the idea that [Drew] occupies an identity that you believe is not true?”
Ted Hudacko told The Daily Signal that Orr and Hiramoto are “definitely activists,” and he warned that his story should serve as a warning to Californians and to Americans in general.
The father noted that some critics of gender ideology celebrate court rulings upholding Tennessee’s and Kentucky’s bans on experimental transgender “medicine” for children and California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom’s recent veto of A.B. 957 as “signs that the tide has turned,” but he warned that transgender activists are not slowing down.
“I don’t think they’re going to stop,” he said.
“This has really upended my family’s life collectively,” Ted Hudacko said. “I wish we’d had the opportunity to figure this out as a family. We would have come up with a better solution than what happened.”
He added, chillingly, “The kids don’t belong to you, the kids belong to the state. You’re just there to pay the bills.”
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