Late last week, Washington State Senate Majority Leader Jamie Pederson (D-Seattle) made bone-chilling claims during a now viral FOX News interview.
“Kids over 13 have the complete right to make their own decisions about their mental health care. Parents don’t have a right to have notice. They don’t have a right to have consent about that,” he said.
The comments came amid Democratic efforts, led by Sen. Pedersen, to roll back Washington’s parental bill of rights, which was passed into law in 2024 after a successful voter initiative.
Republican State Representative Travis Couture, an opponent of Democratic efforts to undo I-2081, took to X to explain how Pedersen is mischaracterizing state law to gaslight voters and escape widespread blowback.
His comments are reposted here with permission and edited for length.
Guest editorial | Rep. Travis Couture (R-Allyn)
Washington State Senator Jamie Pedersen claimed that parents have had no right to consent or even be notified about their child’s mental health services since 1985. He suggested that the uproar over parental rights today is misplaced – that nothing has changed in forty years.
This claim is deliberately misleading.
While it is true that state law has allowed minors 13 and older to access mental health counseling without parental consent since 1985 (RCW 71.34.530), the definition of “mental health care” has changed radically. What once meant talk therapy and substance abuse counseling has now expanded to include gender-affirming medical treatments, psychiatric medications, and reproductive services – all without parental involvement. This is not a minor technicality. It is a fundamental shift in how Washington treats parental rights, and it is exactly why parents are fighting back.
In 1985, when Washington first allowed minors to access mental health care independently, the law was narrowly focused on traditional mental health services. A 13-year-old struggling with depression or anxiety could seek therapy without needing parental approval. This was based on the belief that some children might be in unsafe home situations where parental consent was a barrier to necessary care. However, the system still recognized parents’ role in their child’s life, and there were appropriate limits built into law. For example, parents could still access medical records unless a provider determined it would harm the child. The law was intended to ensure access to counseling, not irreversible medical interventions.
Fast forward to 2021, and Washington Democrats radically expanded what qualifies as mental health care. Under SB 5313 and other recent laws (SB 5599), minors 13 and older can now obtain gender-affirming treatments, including puberty blockers and hormone therapy, without parental knowledge or consent. The state also barred insurance companies from informing parents when their child receives these treatments, psychiatric medications, or reproductive health services. This is not the same law from 1985 – this is an intentional effort to erase parental involvement in some of the most consequential medical decisions a child can make.
SB 5313 ensures that gender-affirming treatments are classified as medically necessary care, preventing insurers from denying coverage for these procedures. While the bill itself does not explicitly grant minors the right to consent to these treatments, Washington law, as previously noted, already allows minors 13 and older to make their own mental health care decisions. By redefining gender-affirming care as a form of mental health treatment, SB 5313 reinforces the idea that these interventions can be accessed under existing minor consent laws – effectively cutting parents out of the process.
SB 5599 takes this a step further by allowing licensed shelters and host homes to conceal the location of runaway minors from their parents if the child is seeking gender-affirming care or reproductive services. Before, shelters would notify parents within 24-72 hours of taking in a runaway, but under this law they are exempt from that requirement if the child claims they are fleeing for gender-affirming or reproductive care. This means that not only can a minor consent to medical interventions without parental involvement, but the state is now actively facilitating the separation of children from their parents in cases where the parents might disagree with or even be unaware of their child’s medical decisions.
When combined, SB 5313 and SB 5599 create a dangerous framework: minors can seek gender-related medical interventions under the broad umbrella of mental health care, and if their parents oppose or even question these treatments, the state can step in to protect the child from parental interference.
By pretending nothing has changed in four decades, Democrats are gaslighting parents who have had their rights systematically stripped away. The senator’s argument ignores the magnitude of these policy shifts. Parents were once simply excluded from routine therapy sessions; now they are locked out of decisions that can permanently alter their child’s body and mind. A 13-year-old in Washington cannot get a tattoo, smoke a cigarette, or take an aspirin at school without parental consent – but that same child can begin a regimen of puberty blockers or hormones without their parents ever knowing.
This radical redefinition of mental health care does not protect children – it exposes them to harm. Parents are their child’s most important advocates, the ones who know them best, and the ones responsible for their well-being. Stripping them of their role in medical decision-making is not progressive – it is reckless. The idea that these changes are just a continuation of a forty-year-old policy is a blatant lie meant to silence criticism and obscure the real issue. Washington’s laws have not stayed the same – they have transformed, and in doing so, they have pushed parents out of the picture entirely.
Parents are not upset because they suddenly decided to care about a law passed in 1985. They are upset because the government has moved the goalposts, expanding the definition of mental health care in ways that go far beyond what was ever intended. The fight for parental rights in Washington is not about rolling back access to therapy – it is about stopping the state from making life-altering medical decisions for children behind their parents’ backs. Washington Democrats can try to rewrite history, but parents know the truth.
Renewed efforts by Democrats in Olympia to erase voter-backed parental rights couldn’t come at a more perplexing time. Despite spending more money on public education per pupil than ever before, recent National Report Card scores show Washington state with the worst academic outcomes in math and reading in three decades. Despite spending untold millions to bolster mental health in schools, Healthy Youth Survey results show kids in public schools feel more hopeless and less safe.
Parents are a child's first teacher and are the primary stakeholders in the upbringing and safety of their kids. Washington parents do not co-parent with the government, and the state does not own our kids. It is time Democrats in Olympia cease promoting policies that keep secrets from parents about their kids – and stop passing radical laws that irreversibly harm children while keeping parents in the dark.
