A federal judge issued a permanent injunction barring Washington's Department of Children, Youth, and Families from stripping foster care licenses over religious beliefs about gender, the culmination of a four-year fight by a Christian couple who spent nearly a decade caring for children before the state pushed them out.

District Court Judge David Estudillo entered the order Wednesday after DCYF agreed to a settlement in the case brought by Shane and Jennifer DeGross, who sued the agency in March 2024 with the help of Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys. The state will also pay $250,000 in legal fees and rewrite its licensing rules, The Center Square reported.

The injunction does more than resolve one family's complaint. It bars DCYF, statewide, from conditioning foster licenses on a parent's willingness to use prescribed pronouns or adopt language about sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression that conflicts with sincerely held religious beliefs.

Nine years of service, then an ultimatum

The DeGrosses opened their home to foster children for nine years before the trouble started. In 2022, the state told them their license would not be renewed unless they agreed to embrace gender transition language and policies for any child placed in their care.

When the couple refused, DCYF did not simply let the matter drop. Officials dragged out the renewal process, then refused to issue a standard license. Instead, they restricted the DeGrosses so they could only care for children under five, effectively sidelining a proven foster family unless they abandoned their convictions about biological sex.

The regulation at issue was blunt. Washington's administrative code required foster parents to "support a foster child's SOGIE by using their pronouns and chosen name and respecting the child's right to privacy concerning their SOGIE." SOGIE stands for Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity, and Gender Expression.

No religious exemption. No room for conscience. Comply or lose your license.

The court weighs in

Alliance Defending Freedom filed suit on the DeGrosses' behalf in March 2024. DCYF fought back and moved to dismiss. In late April 2026, the federal district court denied that motion, ruling that the state's policy requiring foster parents to socially "transition" children plausibly violated the First Amendment.

That ruling left DCYF exposed. Within weeks, the agency agreed to a settlement and the permanent injunction followed.

Judge Estudillo's order laid out the new boundaries in plain terms:

"DCYF is prohibited from denying foster family home license applicants, or licensed foster parents seeking renewal of their license, a full license consistent with the requests of the applicant/licensee or attaching any conditions or restrictions to the license solely because of their religious beliefs, including speech and actions pertaining to marriage, gender, or sexual relationships."

The injunction also addressed compelled speech directly:

"DCYF is prohibited from requiring foster parents to agree to use prescribed words or language, including chosen pronouns, to express views about sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression inconsistent with their sincerely held religious beliefs as a condition of licensure."

The settlement preserves DCYF's authority over individual placement decisions. The agency retains sole discretion to decide which child goes to which home, and it can still decline a placement or remove a child whenever doing so serves the child's needs, including needs related to gender identity. No foster family gains a right to have any particular child placed with them.

But the licensing gate itself can no longer be locked based on a parent's faith.

A pattern of state overreach, and taxpayer cost

The $250,000 fee award adds to what has become a staggering legal tab for Washington taxpayers. In 2025, total state tort claims hit an all-time high of $499 million, with DCYF-related cases accounting for the bulk of those payments. The agency's legal exposure is not an abstraction; it is a line item that keeps growing.

The DeGross settlement fits a broader pattern of state agencies losing costly legal battles after trying to force religious families and institutions into ideological compliance. Vermont recently had to pay $566,000 to a Christian school the state punished for refusing to compete against a transgender athlete, another six-figure reminder that the First Amendment still means something.

Rep. Travis Couture, a Republican from Allyn, Washington, did not mince words about the state's conduct. He called DCYF's approach "insane and unconstitutional."

"They're not even asking them, but actually they are by the force of government, like a gun to your head, telling you that you will affirm the pronouns, or you can't be a foster parent. I'm glad they lost, but sad that it ever occurred."

Couture's frustration reflects a wider concern among conservatives about DCYF's track record, one that extends beyond gender policy into the agency's handling of the Keeping Families Together Act and broader child welfare failures.

ADF's strategy: big tent, not culture war

ADF Senior Counsel Johannes Widmalm-Delphonse framed the outcome not as a victory over LGBTQ rights but as a common-sense expansion of the foster care pool. Every state in the country faces a shortage of foster families. Driving out willing, experienced parents over pronoun mandates does nothing to help children waiting for homes.

"They don't have to agree with the DeGross's religious beliefs to see the benefit of including them in the foster care system and inviting them in to help care for children in need."

Widmalm-Delphonse added that the lawsuit was never about settling the broader cultural debate over gender ideology.

"We're going to have disagreements about gender ideology and the truth about how God created us male and female. That wasn't the purpose of this lawsuit. The purpose was, despite these differences, can DCYF pursue a big tent strategy that's both in line with the First Amendment of the Constitution and that will promote children's best interest to make sure every child has a loving home?"

The federal government has also stepped into related disputes. The Trump Department of Justice recently filed a Title IX lawsuit against Minnesota over males competing on girls' sports teams, part of a broader federal effort to push back against gender ideology mandates in publicly funded programs.

What changes now

Under the settlement, DCYF must revise its foster care licensing rules. The administrative code provision requiring foster parents to use a child's chosen pronouns and name will be removed. The agency is already in the process of amending the relevant Washington Administrative Code section.

Foster parents who hold religious convictions about marriage, gender, and biological sex will no longer face a choice between their faith and their license. If an applicant fails to meet other, non-religious licensing requirements, DCYF can still deny the application. The injunction does not create a blanket pass.

DCYF Secretary Tana Senn offered a carefully worded statement: "This settlement agreement respects the religious beliefs of foster parents, while ensuring LGBTQIA+ youth are placed in an environment that is safe and supports their well-being." The agency, in other words, is not conceding its broader policy goals, just its legal authority to impose them through licensing coercion.

The distinction matters. DCYF still decides placements. A foster parent who cannot meet a specific child's needs, including needs related to gender identity, may not receive that child. But the state can no longer treat religious belief itself as a disqualifying condition.

Across the country, parents are finding new ways to resist government-imposed ideological mandates. Tennessee recently passed a major school voucher expansion, giving families more options outside systems that increasingly demand ideological conformity as a condition of participation.

The real cost of compliance culture

Washington state spent years and untold legal resources defending a policy that a federal court found plausibly unconstitutional on its face. DCYF fought the lawsuit all the way through a motion to dismiss before the inevitable settlement. The $250,000 in attorney fees is the price tag the public can see. The cost of lost foster families, experienced parents like the DeGrosses, pushed out of a system desperate for them, is harder to measure but no less real.

The foster care system exists to serve children, not to enforce an ideological litmus test on the adults willing to open their homes. For nine years, Shane and Jennifer DeGross did exactly what the state needed: they cared for kids who had nowhere else to go. The state's reward was to strip their license and dare them to sue.

They sued. They won.

When government agencies treat the First Amendment as an obstacle rather than a boundary, the courts exist to remind them which one bends. In this case, it was the agency, and taxpayers picked up the tab, as usual.