The mother of a Virginia teen praised President Donald Trump for shining "a light" on her daughter’s case during his State of the Union address and vowed to continue her lawsuit against the school she accused of secretly socially transitioning her child without parental consent.

"It meant the world. It was very surreal," Michele Blair, mother of Sage Blair, said Wednesday as she reflected on the president’s remarks.

Sage was recognized as one of Trump's guests during his address to Congress, where he detailed her story before a national audience. 

The president said Sage was 14 when school officials in Virginia "sought to socially transition her to a new gender," treating her as a boy and allegedly hiding it from her parents.

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Trump described how Sage ran away from home, was placed in an all-boys state facility after a ruling from a judge and was later returned to her family. He praised her resilience, calling her "a proud and wonderful young woman" who now has a full scholarship to Liberty University.

"I’m just so grateful that a light has been shown on this dark topic because it’s happening to so many children like Sage," Blair told Carley Shimkus.

"They [the school] glorified the fact that… she wanted to identify as a boy, and she was being horribly bullied… Had things been different, and they called me and brought me in and told me about the bullying, I could have saved her a lifetime of nightmares," she added.

Attorney Vernadette Broyles alleged that after running away, Sage was sex trafficked across multiple states before being recovered by law enforcement in Texas and later transferred to Maryland.

"It was a nightmare that… I don't know if she'll ever get beyond," Blair told "Fox & Friends First."

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Broyles said the family’s legal battle is already underway in federal court.

"We have a Title IX claim that is pending right now in the Western District of Federal Court in Virginia on behalf of Sage herself," she said.

She said the complaint is being amended to include a religious free exercise claim, arguing that Michele Blair’s parental rights to direct her daughter’s religious upbringing were violated.

"This is a deeply broken young woman that was kept in the system," Broyles said.

"So these are the consequences that can come about, the harms, when schools keep secrets from loving parents."

Fox News previously reached out to Appomattox County Public Schools for a statement but did not hear back.

A majority of the U.S. Supreme Court’s justices were absent from President Donald Trump’s 2026 State of the Union address Tuesday night — a conspicuous move coming just days after the high court struck down his signature global tariff policy.

Only Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Associate Justices Elena Kagan, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett attended the speech. Justices Samuel Alito., Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Sonia Sotomayor, and Ketanji Brown Jackson were not present.

The absences followed a 6–3 Supreme Court decision ruling that Trump’s sweeping tariff plan exceeded presidential authority under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act — a major setback for the administration’s economic agenda.

In the wake of the ruling, Trump sharply criticized the justices who sided against him, saying he was "ashamed of certain members of the court" and accusing them of lacking "the courage to do what’s right for the country." His criticism included members of the conservative bloc, among them two justices he appointed during his first term.

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Supreme Court justices are not legally required to attend the State of the Union. Invitations are extended as a matter of tradition, and participation is left to individual discretion. Those who do attend typically enter the House chamber together in their black judicial robes and sit prominently in the front row — a visual symbol of the judiciary’s coequal status alongside the executive and legislative branches.

Still, attendance has long been uneven, reflecting discomfort within the judiciary about appearing at what has increasingly become a partisan spectacle.

Alito has not attended a State of the Union since 2010, when he famously shook his head and appeared to mouth "not true" as then-President Barack Obama criticized the Court’s decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. Months later, Alito said publicly that sitting through the address made him feel like "the proverbial potted plant," and he suggested he would not return in the near future.

TO GO OR NOT TO GO? SUPREME COURT AT THE STATE OF THE UNION

Roberts at the time described the political atmosphere surrounding the address as "very troubling," and questioned whether it remained appropriate for the justices to attend if the event had devolved into what he characterized as a political "pep rally." Despite those concerns, Roberts has attended every State of the Union since becoming chief justice in 2005.

Thomas has also largely stayed away in recent years. After attending President Obama’s first address in 2009, he did not return, later describing the experience as uncomfortable for members of the judiciary given the partisan reactions inside the chamber.

While some justices have consistently opted out — including past members of the court — others have continued to attend as a matter of institutional tradition.

Fox News’ Shannon Bream and Bill Mears contributed to this report.