Sage Blair highlighted in State of the Union as sage blair and her mother attend amid lawsuit and trafficking claims
President Donald Trump used his State of the Union address Tuesday to spotlight sage blair and press for a ban on secret teen gender transitions, drawing applause from Republicans and a refusal to stand from Democrats that he called "crazy. " The appearance put a local Appomattox family and a pending 2023 lawsuit at the center of the chamber's sharp reactions.
Sage Blair and the gallery invitation
Appomattox locals Michele and Sage Blair were invited to attend Tuesday's State of the Union speech as guests. In one account from the event, a caption identified Sage's mother as Michelle Blair and said the two stood in the gallery after the president highlighted her case involving alleged school gender transition policies.
Trump's remarks: 'These people are crazy' and a call to ban secret teen gender transitions
During the address, the president demanded a ban on socially transitioning minors without parental consent and said, "But surely we can all agree no state can be allowed to rip children from their parents’ arms and transition them to a new gender against the parents’ will. Who would believe that?… We must ban it, and we must ban it immediately. " When Democrats in the chamber remained seated rather than applauding, he pointed his finger at Democratic senators and House members and said, "These people are crazy. I’m telling you. They’re crazy. "
Real-time voter panel tracked by Maslansky & Partners
A live panel assembled by Maslansky & Partners tracked real-time reactions and displayed them as colored lines on a graph, with higher values representing positive reactions and lower values indicating negative ones. The panel included 29 Democrats, 30 Independents and 40 Republicans. As the president delivered the remarks, the Republican line in red climbed sharply into positive territory, Independents in yellow ticked upward, and Democrats in blue trended downward into negative territory. Republican reactions stayed elevated during the remarks, Democratic responses remained negative, and independent voters held relatively steady.
Details of the 2023 lawsuit and school allegations
The president highlighted Sage Blair, identified in media coverage as a Virginia teenager whose family filed a 2023 lawsuit alleging Appomattox County High School staff socially transitioned her without parental knowledge. The family alleges Blair began identifying as male at school, that staff used male names and pronouns for her and allowed her to use male facilities without informing her parents. The family has said those actions were concealed from parents and became the basis for litigation against multiple Appomattox County Schools officials in 2023.
Claims of running away, kidnapping, rape and sex trafficking; attorney comment
The family alleges the situation escalated after Blair ran away from home and later became a victim of sex trafficking, with the lawsuit alleging she was kidnapped and raped in multiple states. Michele said that after Sage ran away, she was kidnapped, raped and sex-trafficked across state lines. Vernadette Broyles, who represents Michele through the Child & Parental Rights Campaign, said in a press release that the invitation to the State of the Union address "highlights the national conversation on putting parental involvement and child safety first. " The president also told the chamber that Blair was 14 when school officials sought to socially transition her to a new gender.
