That is, if your mother pushing you to transition to the opposite sex, as is claimed by Dennis Hannon, a 32-year-old former banking executive now working in the Tech industry, can ever cease having negative impacts.
“When he does find a partner later in life, and they’re going through school photos of him, it’s going to be a very difficult discussion for him to have,” Hannon said on American Family Radio Monday. “But he’s a strong little boy. I am proud of him. He’s a lucky one. Some other kids out there aren’t as lucky, and that’s why I’m coming forward.”
Hannon told show host Jenna Ellis that his son is now 9 years old and is confident and comfortable with his male gender.
For Hannon, though, the legal fight has continued, and the Daily Mail reported last Friday that Erie Supreme Court in Buffalo has ruled that Dennis Hannon no longer has a say in medical decisions made about his son.
It’s a legal battle that has gone on for seven years, and now Hannon cannot afford the legal help necessary to appeal the ruling. He’s hoping to raise the money through outside assistance. He’s been told it will take “about four appeals to undo all of the damage that’s been done” through court rulings to this point.
How does a father not know?
Dennis Hannon didn’t learn the extent to which his ex-wife, Amy Hannon, sought to transition their son until he filed a lawsuit against her in 2020.
He was first alerted to a problem when he received a letter from school addressed to the parent or guardian of “Ruby Rose Hannon.”
“I thought maybe they had the wrong child, but the address was correct so I opened it. It was one of the worst days of my life. It crushed my soul,” Dennis Hannon said.
“They had assigned my son a female name that I didn’t recognize. They referred to him exclusively using female pronouns. Essentially, I was the last to know.”
When Hannon began the divorce process with his wife, visitation with his son was just two supervised hours twice a week.
“When I picked him up during this whole time he was just a regular boy. I had no reason to think any different. He showed no indications of having any kind of gender confusion. There was nothing I could see that would have prompted me to think he was confused about his identity at all,” Hannon said.
Through the discovery process of the court case, Hannon learned that his ex-wife had begun encouraging transition for the son between the ages of 2 and 3.
“She was dressing him up in girl clothes. She even had him in different beauty pageants, virtue signaling, trying to climb her social ranks within her groups,” Hannon said.
The son was attending sessions with a self-described gender-affirming therapist, Andrea Binner, Hannon told The Daily Mail.
Hannon said his son “was actually going to a therapist who was affirming gender care, a self-described gender-affirming therapist that specializes in adolescence, and he was going there between 2-3 years old. Even before I got that letter (from school), nobody had reached out to me. Nobody had notified me. Nobody had offered for me to be a part of this treatment.”
Hannon said Binner referred the son to a pediatrician who recommended “the potential for puberty blockers” for the son at age nine.
“The courts ordered that he still go to a gender therapist," the father said. "I was taking him at times once a week. It was $145 a session out of pocket, and he was never diagnosed with gender dysphoria. So he went there a year and a half, and they called it essential medical treatment.”
The pattern led Hannon to finally say “enough is enough. He's been here a year and a half with no diagnosis. I said, ‘I want you to discharge my son.’”
Hannon wrote an email and copied all the necessary parties.
In February 2020 Amy Hannon field an Enforcement of Custody Petition which is used when one parent is not obeying a custody order.
The son was never discharged by the therapist and the court ruled against Dennis Hannon.
Mother denies dad’s version of events
In an interview with The New York Post, Amy Hannon denied Dennis Hannon’s version of the events.
“There are two sides to every story,” she told The Post. “After having read the (Daily Mail) story the amount of lies in that story are quite appalling. It’s the child that’s important here.”
Dennis Hannon said the court process has cost him $150,000 including his ex-wife’s attorney fees. He told The Daily Mail he’s “spent every dime” of his retirement.
It’s all worth it to see his son thrive.
“I feel blessed in the sense that although I may have lost in court, as it stands right now, I saved my son in the process. He’s awake and he understands. He’s at a point where he can stand up for himself,” Hannon said.
Hannon hopes he can continue the fight.
“If I am afforded the opportunity to appeal, that’s what I’m going to do. I’m never going to stop fighting. I hope to continue to tell this story, so that others may learn from this experience. If this doesn’t happen to another parent or child again then I feel accomplished at the end of the day,” he said.
