Judge delays state plan to give testosterone to girl removed from Catholic parents
The trial on whether Joseph and Arlene Kutzko can regain custody of their 17-year-old daughter has been pushed back to March, one month before her 18th birthday, their attorney said.
A Massachusetts juvenile court judge has postponed the state’s plan to give testosterone to a 17-year-old girl in its custody over her parents’ objections and pushed back the start of a trial on whether they can regain custody to March, shortly before her 18th birthday, the parents’ attorney told the Boston Herald.
“Thankfully the court continues to demonstrate some good common sense,” Vernadette Broyles, the attorney for Joseph and Arlene Kutzko, told the Herald by phone after an Oct. 29 hearing. She said the parents are grateful to the judge for protecting their daughter, Sophie.
The custody trial had been scheduled to begin in November and finish in December, Broyles said. Since Sophie turns 18 in April, Broyles said it “seems like” the state is just “running out the clock” on her time as a minor. The Kutzkos will next appear in court in mid-March, the Herald reported.
The Kutzkos’ fight to regain custody of their daughter from the state and prevent the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families (DCF) from administering testosterone to her has gained national attention.
The Kutzkos, who are Catholic, say staff at Algonquin Regional High School began socially transitioning their daughter at age 15 without their knowledge. Her parents claim that the school provided counseling sessions after school to support the transition while they were under the impression she was receiving academic assistance for a math class.
Things escalated on Jan. 29, 2025, when the DCF took custody of Sophie at her school. On the same day, the DCF sent a letter to her parents alleging physical and sexual abuse against Joseph and physical abuse against Arlene, the National Catholic Register reported. Local police acted on those accusations and arrested her father the same day on misdemeanor charges of assault, assault and battery, and threatening to commit a crime.
Westborough District Court records obtained by WBUR indicate Sophie accused Joseph Kutzko of punching her shoulder, pulling her hair, and threatening to kill her for singing off-key at a birthday party the previous day.
Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey later publicly weighed in on the case to argue that the DCF removed Sophie after criminal charges were filed against the parents, not because they didn’t support her gender transition.
Two weeks after Joseph’s arrest, the DCF sent the family a letter saying that they found the allegations of abuse to be unsupported, while leveling a charge of neglect, without producing evidence.
Broyles explained to the Boston Herald that the parents reached a pretrial probation agreement with prosecutors, with no finding of guilt, after their legal fees topped $150,000. They are on probation for one year, as long as they commit no crimes.
The charges against the Kutzkos have not stopped there. Broyles told the Boston Herald that Sophie, with help from a department social worker and an attorney from the Victim Rights Law Center, applied for criminal charges against her mother for violating a restraining order after she made a plea for her daughter to return home on Fox News.
The complaint, filed in Waltham District Court, alleges Arlene Kutzko broke the order during a Sept. 14 Fox News appearance in which she pleaded for Sophie to come home. Broyles said Arlene Kutzko, an immigrant from the Philippines whose first language is not English, was answering an interviewer’s question.
>> Catholic parents press Massachusetts to return daughter as new DCF records emerge <<
She said the restraining order, which remains in place against the parents on neglect grounds, was obtained after an unidentified adult allegedly helped Sophie seek it when she had been in state custody for nearly a year.
A spokesperson for the state Executive Office of Health and Human Services told the Herald the claim that the department was involved in applying for the charges is false.
The case has drawn federal attention. The Education Department announced Sept. 17 that it is investigating the Northborough-Southborough school district under federal student privacy laws. The district’s superintendent has called the family’s claims “baseless.”
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