Nexus and Gender

The Fourth DCA has issued another gender-based nexus opinion in A.J. v. DCF. From the face of the opinion, the home consisted of three girls and two boys. Two of the girls were directly sexually abused. The Fourth DCA upheld the TPR of all the girls (including the third one who wasn’t directly abused) but reversed the TPR of the boys. The Court would have done better to lay out the testimony that led it to this opinion, because otherwise the implication is that sexual violence is so gendered that you have to prove it will happen to a boy but you can assume it will happen to a girl. That appears to be a fundamental misunderstanding of both gender and violence.