Longtime lurker here with a question about a situation with my sister's kids. Their father has cut them off from the rest of the family because he's worried about the influence we're having on them.

Sadly, my sister passed away about three years ago. She had a son that's now 21 and two twins that were born female at birth. Both twins have come out as trans four or five years ago (before my sister passed). They're both 17 now and live in Las Vegas (across the country) with their dad. The son moved in with my mother to get his life in order about a year ago, so he's no longer in Vegas. My sister's husband has never been a great guy or very emotionally available as far as I can tell. I think we've spoken less than an hour over the course of their 20 year marriage. My sister and I weren't super close and we just didn't really have any common interests. I didn't have anything against the guy outside of some horrible money management he had imposed on the family. But I never really held him in high regard.

About a year ago he got involved with a woman out in Vegas who has extreme MAGA viewpoints. We only know this because we looked her up on Facebook and she'll shout to everyone about anti-vaccine, pro-Trump madness. As you can guess, she's also not super supportive of the twins and their preferred gender identity. It's bad enough their dad stuck around with this woman for so long and they moved in with her for a while. Things did seem to improve earlier this year with him calling things off and moving out to a different apartment. The twins finally felt more secure.

They came to visit over the summer for a few weeks. They got off the airplane for a two week stay with a backpack and no other clothes. According to them, he hasn't taken them shopping. He hasn't been buying them feminine products or really provided any guidance so they were all confused on how to handle their monthly cycles. Their shoes were falling apart. We took them shopping and bought them some proper clothes. When they finally left, they got home to the worst news: their dad had used the two weeks to reconcile with this woman and they went nuclear on the kids when they got home.

Granted, we only have one side of the story but they've definitely cut them off from the rest of the family. Took all their phones and devices- except their school laptop- in an effort to keep them from talking with us. They've been given an ultimatum: get a job before they turn 18 or they get kicked out on their birthday. It also sounds like they threw out a lot of their masculine-leaning clothing or anything they thought was prompting them to "decide" to be trans.

We were able to get in touch with them for a while via a google document they shared to look like a school assignment. We've all been typing into it like a chat, but it doesn't work all that well because they're terrified they'll be found out and can't check it all the time. It's absolutely devastating to hear how depressed they are. We're struggling right now with the holidays coming up and no way to get them any gifts (we don't trust that their dad and his girlfriend won't just intercept it). His son is livid and has disowned his dad completely. He's changed his career goals away from anything to do with being an auto mechanic (his dad's trade) and keeps talking about how much he hates him. Needless to say, my BiL will likely never see his kids again once they get away.

We're not sure if there's much that can be done here, but I'm curious if there's something we're overlooking. The kids don't want us to report them to CPS because they're afraid that'll just upset things and make it worse. We don't have any view into what things are like there and are skeptical, but we also don't want to make that decision in the blind like this. Right now the thinking is to just wait it out another five months until they turn 18 and just pick them up from school to bring them back to live with us, but we don't know the legality of all that. Is there something we're overlooking here or are we really just stuck with him being a terrible dad and nothing we can do about it?

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