Patriots' Henderson defends family in gender identity custody dispute

TreVeyon Henderson, a running back for the New England Patriots, took questions about his football readiness on Thursday during media day at the team facility in Foxboro. But the reporters wanted to talk about something else entirely: a social media post he had shared defending a Massachusetts family locked in a custody battle with the state.

The family at the center of the dispute is Joseph and Arlene Kutzko. In January 2025, charges were filed against them after they refused to consent to medical procedures related to their daughter's gender transition. The state's Department of Children and Family Services moved to take custody of the teenager. The Kutzkos have been fighting to regain custody ever since.

Henderson, who describes himself as a devout Christian, had posted a video clip from Fox News along with a Scripture passage. His message was direct: the parents deserved support for trying to raise their daughter according to their faith and their understanding of what was right for her. By Thursday evening, the post had accumulated 3.5 million views.

When pressed by reporters about his reasoning, Henderson explained what he believed he had seen: a state removing a child from her parents because they would not affirm her as a boy, and a school attempting to facilitate a transition without parental permission. He framed his position in terms of parental rights and religious conviction. The Kutzkos, he said, had acted rightly by refusing to affirm their daughter as a boy and instead affirming her as God had created her.

Reporters then raised allegations that had surfaced in local reporting: the child's father was accused of pulling his daughter's hair and threatening to kill her. These allegations had not resulted in criminal findings. All charges against him are scheduled to be dropped if he maintains distance from the girl. Henderson's response was to treat the allegations as unproven accusations. He invoked the principle of innocent until proven guilty, drawing a parallel to accusations that have been made against himself. If the father had not been found guilty, Henderson argued, it was wrong to use those allegations as justification for removing the child from the home.

The attorney for the Kutzkos, Vernadette Broyles, has noted that a restraining order now stands against the parents. An unidentified adult helped the child obtain the order after she had been in state custody for nearly a year. These legal developments did not shift Henderson's position.

Instead, Henderson framed his advocacy as something larger than a single case. He described a shift in how he sees the world—through what he called a Biblical lens. He said he felt called to something beyond football. In his view, being a child of God comes before being an athlete. He acknowledged that his stance might carry a cost, but he expressed willingness to pay it. Football, he said, is what he does. Faith is who he is. And he intends to honor God above all else, regardless of what it might cost him in his career or his finances.