Washington state has agreed to revise its foster care licensing rules after a multi-year dispute with Christian foster parents Shane and Jennifer DeGross, who refused requirements that they use children's preferred pronouns and affirm gender identity policies they said conflicted with their faith.
The couple spent more than a decade caring for foster children before the conflict erupted during a 2022 license renewal. What followed was a partial license restriction, a legal challenge grounded in religious freedom claims, a settlement, and a proposed state regulation now in public notice and comment. Fox News Digital reported the couple's account in an interview conducted on a recent Wednesday.
At stake is who may serve as foster parents in Washington, how licensing agencies handle First Amendment claims, and whether the state can condition a license on speech and belief about sex and gender. The DeGrosses say they would love any child placed in their home. They also say they would not affirm views they believe contradict Scripture.
Jennifer DeGross told Fox News Digital the couple learned of changed state requirements when they sought to renew their foster care license in 2022.
“We were made aware that the state had updated and changed some of their requirements,” she said.
She added that the couple's willingness to care for children did not extend to every mandate the state attached to the license.
“While we agreed that we would love and care for any child in our home, they had specific things that we could not agree to as Christians.”
Fox News Digital reported that Washington licensing policies required foster parents to affirm and support LGBTQ children, including expectations about gender identity and the use of preferred names and pronouns. Shane DeGross framed those expectations as a direct clash with Christian teaching.
“Those views directly conflict with the biblical worldview of human sexuality,”
He continued: “So, as Christians, we just couldn’t accept that. Our allegiance is to God and the truth of Scripture. And we just couldn’t abide by what they were requiring us to affirm.”
The state later restored a limited form of their license, according to Jennifer DeGross. The restoration came with an age restriction that she said still punished the family for its beliefs and disrupted children.
“We felt like even when they reinstated a partial license to us that they were still discriminating against us,” she said.
She described the practical effect in plain terms. “When a child reached 5, they had to be removed from our home.”
She argued the rule harmed children who had already formed bonds in the household.
“If we had had a child for a couple of years, and then they have to be removed just because they turned or reached a certain age, it’s definitely not in the interest of children.”
She also said the arrangement was upsetting to the couple and “not good for kids.” Authorities have not publicly detailed in the available account how many children the age-5 cutoff affected in the DeGross home, or the full pre-settlement regulatory text that produced the restriction.
The legal battle ended in a settlement. Under that agreement, Washington agreed to revise its foster care licensing rules that had put gender identity requirements in tension with the couple's religious freedom claims. Absolute dates for the filing, the settlement, and the court caption are not stated in the reporting package. Neither is the full operative text of the settlement agreement.
Since the settlement, the state has advanced proposed regulation WSR 26-20-103 through a public notice and comment process. Alliance Defending Freedom senior counsel Johannes Widmalm-Delphonse described the proposal's core function for families in the DeGrosses' position.
“This new rule, in part, would give foster parents like the DeGross’s a religious exemption from any rule requiring them to violate their religious beliefs on gender or sexuality.”
Widmalm-Delphonse cast the outcome as a First Amendment warning to other jurisdictions and tied it to matching practices he said agencies had used for decades. He pointed to the settlement and to another matter, Bates v. Pakseresht, as reasons states should respect free speech and religious exercise in foster licensing. The reporting does not detail the holdings of that separate case.
“These foster care agencies, they have to respect the First Amendment rights of foster parents, as well as the children in the system and everyone that they work with.”
He said states should invite as many foster parents as possible on the front end, then match children on the back end based on individual needs, family abilities, and comfort level. “This settlement shows that they can continue doing that now,” he said.
The Washington State Department of Children, Youth, and Families issued a news release on the settlement. The agency stressed the range of backgrounds among caregivers.
“We are proud of the diversity of our foster parent and kinship caregiver community who have different cultures, religious beliefs, and lived experience.”
The same release added: “We are grateful that they all open their doors and provide a loving home to children and youth in foster care.”
DCYF Secretary Tana Senn described the agreement as a balance between parental religious exercise and placement standards for LGBTQIA+ youth.
“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.”
Fox News Digital reached out to DCYF for further comment beyond the release. No additional agency reply is recorded in the fact package.
Shane DeGross framed the result as both a religious liberty win and a practical gain for the foster system. He said more Christian families could remain available without fear of exclusion for their beliefs.
“It’s a great victory in the sense that more Christians can be available to love and care for foster kids without fear of being excluded because of their religious beliefs.”
He also put the focus on children waiting for homes: “It’s a huge victory for kids that need a loving home.”
The couple's account presents a consistent through line. They would open their home. They would not speak or affirm against their biblical convictions on human sexuality. When the state tied licensing to that affirmation, they pushed back. The settlement and the proposed WSR 26-20-103 process are the public markers of how far that push moved state policy.
Investigators and the public still lack several primary-document details. Authorities have not publicly attached an absolute calendar date to the settlement in this account. No court name, case caption, or docket number appears. The full settlement text is not quoted. The complete language of proposed regulation WSR 26-20-103, and any comment deadline, is not provided. The precise pre-settlement rule text on preferred pronouns and gender identity affirmation is likewise not reproduced.
City and county location for the DeGross home and for any administrative or court proceedings is not stated. Whether DCYF offered any statement after the news release remains unconfirmed in the package. Those gaps matter for anyone tracking how the exemption will work in real placements, how matching will operate for LGBTQIA+ youth, and how other states may write parallel rules.
What is established is narrower and still consequential. A long-serving Christian foster couple refused pronoun and gender identity affirmation mandates. Washington imposed a partial license with an age-5 removal condition, as Jennifer DeGross described it. Litigation produced a settlement. The state agreed to revise licensing rules. A proposed regulation now in notice and comment is described as creating, in part, a religious exemption from rules that would force foster parents to violate their beliefs on gender or sexuality.
Foster licensing is a gatekeeping power. When the gate includes compelled statements about sex and identity, families who hold traditional religious views face a hard choice: leave the system or speak against conscience. The DeGrosses chose neither silence nor exit without a fight. Their case now sits beside official assurances that religious caregivers remain welcome and that LGBTQIA+ youth will still receive safe placements.
Widmalm-Delphonse's matching model is the operational claim underneath the legal rhetoric. Expand the pool of parents. Sort placements by need and fit. Do not use a categorical speech code to shrink the pool before matching begins. Whether Washington's proposed rule delivers that model in practice will show up in future licensing decisions, placement data, and any later challenges. Those results are not yet public.
Jennifer DeGross's age-cutoff description keeps the child-welfare stakes concrete. A rule that removes a child at a birthday is not an abstract culture-war talking point. It is a placement break. She called that break contrary to children's interests. DCYF's public line is that the settlement protects belief and well-being at once. Both claims can be stated as given. Only implementation will test them.
When the state treats biblical conviction on sex as a licensing defect, it does not enlarge care. It narrows the household list and teaches parents that conscience is conditional. Settlements and exemption rules matter only if agencies stop using pronouns as a loyalty test and start measuring success by stable homes for children who need them.
