A prominent Utah-based transgender activist has been arrested after allegedly abducting his 10-year-old son in order to take him overseas for “gender reassignment” surgery. Eric Ethington, 42, also known as “Rose Inessa-Ethington,” had reportedly “manipulated” the boy into identifying as a girl.
Ethington, originally from Cache County in Utah, was deported from Cuba earlier this week after a joint investigation by the FBI and Cuban law enforcement. Ethington’s partner, Blue Inessa-Ethington, was also arrested and removed from the country. Both were charged with the international kidnapping of Ethington’s biological son, and are currently being held in Richmond, Virginia, on federal charges.
According to court documents, Ethington and his partner took his son from his biological mother under the ruse of going on a camping trip to Canada. The 10-year-old’s biological mother shares joint custody with Ethington, and had given him permission to bring the boy into Alberta for what she believed was a short, safe adventure. But the group never arrived at the camping grounds where Ethington claimed they would be staying, and the child’s biological mother was unable to contact them from that point on.
On March 29, Ethington, his partner, and his son crossed into British Columbia, and then took a flight that day from Vancouver to Mexico City. Two days later, the group flew from Merida, Mexico, into Havana.
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Ethington has been a prominent trans activist in Utah for over 15 years. He is a former member of the National LGBTQ Journalists Association and a former Director at Political Research Associates, a social justice research and strategy center.
Ethington… pic.twitter.com/N9IPQlEgpe
Back in Utah, the boy’s biological mother and the rest of her family members began to have “significant concerns” about their whereabouts. Local police in Logan City were called after repeated attempts to contact or locate Ethington and the child failed.
Logan police began their investigation, which included executing a search warrant at Ethington’s home. Numerous “to-do lists” were discovered there, suggesting the trip to Cuba had been well-planned.
Disturbingly, Ethington’s 10-year-old son allegedly identifies as transgender. According the Department of Justice reports, this is believed to be “largely a result of manipulation” by Ethington, who himself only began identifying as “female” shortly after his son was born. Because of this, concerns were raised that Ethington’s intention may have been to subject the child to forced “gender reassignment” surgery in Cuba.
The concerns of the forced transition surgery were initially dismissed by Logan City Police, whose spokesman said that the family “just had the concern about it, no actual physical evidence.” Despite this statement, court documents show that a search of Ethington’s residence uncovered notes including “instructions on gender affirming medical care for children.”
After an Utah state judge ordered the return of the boy to his mother on April 13, she was granted immediate exclusive custody and a federal warrant was issued for the arrest of the pair three days later. On that same day, they were located by Cuban authorities in Havana. According to news reports, the child was swiftly reunited with his mother following Ethington’s deportation back to the United States.
Additional details on Ethington’s history have now begun to circulate.
After separating from the child’s mother, Ethington launched a fundraiser entitled “Help a Trans Mother Keep Custody of Her Child” in 2021. The fundraiser’s description noted that Ethington was attempting to raise the boy as “gender open,” another term for gender neutral.
“Rose helps find safe and inclusive medical providers and schools for the child in addition to organizing appointments, buying clothes, and ensuring good nutrition. She even trains providers and teachers to make sure her son has the best chances of not being discriminated against,” the fundraiser read, using feminine pronouns to refer to Ethington.
The fundraiser claimed that the child’s mother had relocated them several counties away, and that this had “negatively impacted” his ability to raise the boy how he saw fit. He also complained that he was at a “disadvantage against her cishet ex-wife.”
Since 2010, Ethington has been a prominent LGBT activist in Utah, formerly identifying as a bisexual male before his transition. He has written over 50 articles for LGBTQ Nation, an LGBT news outlet, often focusing his subjects on Utah and Mormonism.
Archived records of Ethington’s former social media accounts, as reviewed by Reduxx, show that he was affiliated with the National LGBT Journalists Association and held a directorial role at Political Research Associates, a social justice research and strategy center.
His bio on the website boasts that his work has been featured by MSNBC, the New York Times, and the Guardian, along with mentioning that he has worked as an “electoral campaign strategist” in Utah. In his fundraiser, it was noted that Ethington has often organized protests in Utah, dealt with lawmakers, and even taught “diversity training.”
In a 2012 video posted to YouTube, Ethington said that he became involved in the community after seeing one of the programs at the Utah Pride Centre for “homeless LGBT youth.”
He said he “remembered sitting there, watching those kids, who were 14 to 18, and thinking about how… they don’t have a place to sleep.” Ethington claimed he was thrown out of his house by his father at 17, after coming out as bisexual.
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