The state of Vermont has settled two lawsuits brought over the Department for Children and Families’ policies surrounding care for LGBTQ foster children.
The state has now revised its policies prohibiting those with anti-LGBTQ beliefs from receiving a foster license, according to court documents filed Friday.
The settlements come less than a week before plaintiffs in the two cases were scheduled for a hearing in front of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit. The parties have now moved to dismiss their pending appeals.
As part of the agreement, the department also rescinds its decision to deny the plaintiffs’ foster licenses.
Both lawsuits — Antonucci, et al. v. Winters, et al. and Wuoti et al. v. Winters — centered on the department’s policy that required foster parents to support and affirm queer youth in order to receive a license to take in foster children. In both cases, the plaintiffs were unable to demonstrate that they would be able to support queer foster children in their identities and were unable to secure the fostering license.
Both suits were brought against Chris Winters, the then-commissioner of the Vermont Department for Children and Families, who stepped down from the post in 2025 to become deputy commissioner of the Vermont Department of Labor. The district court denied the plaintiffs’ request for a preliminary injunction, and the plaintiffs then raised the appeals.
In a Friday press release, the Department for Children and Families said that it moved to settle the cases after consulting with organizations that support LGBTQ youth.
“Settling these cases is in the best long-term interest of the children and youth we serve and will allow DCF to focus our attention on supporting children and youth by thoughtfully matching them with the caregivers best able to meet their individual needs,” the statement reads.
In newly issued guidance, the department outlined its intention to place foster children in homes where they are safe, respected and supported. The state said it will focus its attention on placing queer youth in homes that are the right fit but will not bar parents with anti-LGBTQ beliefs from fostering.
The Center for American Liberty brought Antonucci v. Winters against the Vermont Department for Children and Families in February 2025 on behalf of Melinda Antonucci and Casey Mathieu. The department had raised concerns about the couple’s inability to support a transgender child and ultimately recommended that Antonucci and Mathieu’s foster license be revoked, according to court filings. The complaint maintained that the action was unlawful.
The national law firm Alliance Defending Freedom filed the Wuoti v. Winters case in 2024 on behalf of Brian and Kaitlyn Wuoti and Michael and Rebecca Gantt.
The two Windham County couples brought the complaint against the Department for Children and Families after it did not renew their licenses to act as foster parents. The department cited concerns that foster parents’ beliefs about LGBTQ identity would compromise foster children’s safety. The plaintiffs maintained that this prohibition infringed upon their Christian beliefs.
Both couples had kept their foster care licenses for years and adopted multiple children in the state, VTDigger reported in 2024. Both Michael Gantt and Brian Wuoti are Christian pastors.
Court documents show that in an email to a representative at the Department for Children and Families, Rebecca Gantt had written “we believe God created two distinct sexes and cannot lie to a child about their God given identity. We cannot attend events like pride parades because we cannot support what that type of event stands for and promotes.”
These beliefs, the lawsuit details, clashed with the department’s guidelines for foster care eligibility.
The Department for Children and Families formalized this stance when it updated its licensing rules in 2023 to explicitly prohibit licensed foster parents from discriminating against foster children based on their sexual orientation or gender identity, even if it diverged from the parents’ personal beliefs.
On Feb. 18, the department amended new guidance for foster parents’ licenses, a court document showed. The new guidance states that applicants’ “sincerely held personal, cultural, religious, moral, or philosophical beliefs shall not be considered in the licensing process,” reads the court filing.
In response to Friday’s dismissal, Johannes Widmalm-Delphonse, a senior counsel for the Alliance Defending Freedom, wrote in a statement: “We commend Vermont for putting children’s interests first while also respecting the religious diversity of foster parents who want to help meet the needs of children who have nowhere to call home. States should never put political ideologies above the kids’ basic needs to a loving and stable home.”
Dana Kaplan, who is the executive director of the LGBTQ youth resource group Outright Vermont, does not see the cases as political issues as much as matters of children’s welfare.
“This is about physical, social, psychological safety. We all deserve that,” he told VTDigger. His organization was not involved in the legal cases but has offered the Department for Children and Families guidance on how to best support young queer people.
Children in the foster system are more vulnerable to mental and physical health issues than children in the general population.
The foster system sees a disproportionate number of children who identify as LGBTQ, too, Kaplan said. Some enter the foster system because of family rejection based on their identity.
“We’re talking about young people that have already faced trauma, who have already come from rejection. It is paramount that when we’re looking at foster care, that there’s a duty of care that involves making sure that these young people are not further harmed,” he said. “The bottom baseline there is that we’re going to respect you for who you are, and we are going to acknowledge and validate your identity.”
In the general population, LGBTQ children already face higher risks of poor health outcomes.
Queer youth face higher rates of depression and suicide than their straight peers, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Discrimination and threats to their safety have been shown to lead to higher rates of anxiety, depression and suicidal ideation in LGBTQ youth, while gender-affirming attitudes from family and friends are linked to improved health outcomes, according to the Trevor Project, a group supporting LGBTQ youth.
In a press release sent to VTDigger in response to a request for comment, the Center for American Liberty’s lead attorney, Josh Dixon, said, “This case was never about denying care to anyone. It was about stopping the government from using its licensing power to coerce speech, penalize dissenting viewpoints, and drive good families out of foster care at a time when children desperately need placement options.”
Kaplan urged people to remember the humanity at the center of these cases.
“We’re talking about real kids who are being impacted and will continue to be impacted by these policies. And I think sometimes it’s easy to forget that,” he said.
