AbstractThis symposium article examines important lessons that can be taken from the multiple ways in which children's interests, and in particular ideas about “harm to children,” are framed in the recent Fulton v. City of Philadelphia controversy. A close reading of the briefs filed after the U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari in the case reveals that both sides paid very different attention to LGBTQ youth in framing ideas about whether granting or denying religious exemptions from antidiscrimination laws in child welfare harms children. As explained, the different positionalities of LGBTQ youth in these discussions offer important lessons for child welfare law and policy in a post‐Fulton world. First, the analysis connects these discussions in Fulton to broader histories of child harm concepts being used to facilitate LGBTQ‐related discrimination against both LGBTQ adults and LGBTQ youth in the domains of family and child welfare law. It then considers lessons for lawmakers, policymakers, and child welfare actors relating to the institutional design of child welfare systems, and more specifically, how the special needs of LGBTQ foster youth are addressed within those systems. To examine these points, the analysis presents a typology of four models of LGBTQ child welfare. Finally, the analysis considers the lessons that discussions involving “harm to children” in Fulton offer for the direction of future empirical research that informs the debate over conflicts between religious exemption claims and LGBTQ antidiscrimination laws in child welfare.