Montana Parents Lose Custody of Daughter For Opposing Her Gender Transition

When the gender issue began to become inflamed by activists a few years ago, we were assured that the following scenario would never happen. We were told that anyone who believed a children and family services agency in any state could swoop in and with little or no cause remove a minor child from their parent’s custody because the parents opposed their child “transitioning” was paranoid.

It happened in Montana. Krista and Todd Kolstad’s daughter Jennifer (not her real name) was suffering from numerous mental health conditions, including a desire to engage in attention-seeking behavior. This is normal for a teen suffering from gender dysphoria. 

But when Jennifer told the CFS representative during a home investigation that she had swallowed toilet bowl cleaner and pain pills in an effort to kill herself. The state agency demanded she be rushed to the hospital. 

Tests showed that she had not ingested any harmful substance, but doctors kept her in the hospital anyway.

Notes taken by hospital staff say that the “hospital consistently mentions that Jennifer identifies as a ‘male and wishes to be called “Leo,”‘” according to Reduxx, which broke the story.

“We were very clear to the emergency room staff as well as [CFS] that this goes against our values, morals, and our religious beliefs,” she said, but the hospital staff refused to listen. “They told me to call their lawyer if I have an issue as they will do what the patient tells them.”

Jennifer was admitted to the hospital based on her threats to kill herself. The hospital and state did nothing wrong in that respect. But with nothing more than a cursory examination, they began to “transition” Jennifer to the male gender.

“I came one day and she was talking about having top-surgery and being non-binary,” Krista says of the aide. She complained to the on-duty doctor, who dismissed her. “He told me, ‘why are not you more concerned that your daughter is trying to harm herself, then what [the aide] is talking about?’” 

I don’t believe either parent ever said they weren’t concerned about the suicidal ideations of their daughter. They were well within their rights to question the treatment the hospital was giving her and the transitioning activities staff carried out against their expressed wishes.

Krista describes Jennifer’s time in the hospital as a period of constant efforts to undermine her and Todd’s parental authority. In addition to not respecting their wishes to refer to Jennifer by her birth name, hospital staff refused to abide by any other requests, such as limiting Jennifer’s TV and phone time, encouraging her to do her school work, and not allowing her to have copious amounts of junk food.

During this time, Krista and Todd had communication with Child and Family Services, and all agreed that Jennifer would benefit from specialized residential care for treatment and counseling. But during a conversation about where Jennifer could be placed, Krista says the possibility of her being moved to Wyoming was presented.

“They told us that there were 6 facilities in Montana, but that there was also a facility in Wyoming. And at that point, because we were already in such a state from the hospital disrespecting us and our wishes, we immediately looked up Wyoming’s laws on transitioning minors,” Krista says. “It looked to us like kids could go ahead and have procedures done and have hormones without parental consent.”

Montana authorities assured Krista and Todd that Jennifer would be placed in a Montana facility. But hours later, they were told that Jennifer was being sent to Wyoming.

“They called and told us that a bed had opened up in Wyoming and that Jennifer needed to go. [The Doctor] said ‘she has to go. she’s not doing any good here,’ and we were really blown away,” Krista recounts. “No one talked to us about the name of the facility — we had no one to answer our questions. We told them we wanted our questions answered before we accepted the bed.”

Ten minutes after being told that Jennifer would be sent to a Montana facility, the CFS showed up with police to take her to Wyoming.

“They showed up at our home to serve us with papers to take Jennifer out of our care,” Krista says. “They told me the reason was that we were ‘unable or refusing to provide medical care.’ That’s just not true.”

There followed several months of agony as neither the state nor doctors kept Todd and Krista abreast of anything that was happening to their daughter.

“We were told that letting Jennifer transition and live as a boy was in her ‘therapeutic best interest’ and because we aren’t willing to follow that recommendation, the court gave CFS custody of Jennifer for six months,” Krista says. “CFS is now going to place Jennifer in the care of her birth mother in Canada, who has never really been apart of her life. The judge said to us ‘you need to expect that reunification with your family may not be what you are expecting.’”

I wonder if we know the entire story of this case. We’re hearing one side of the argument, although we’ve heard other parents being hassled by family services agencies in other states for refusing to kowtow to the gender lobby.  

What we know is that a 14-year-old child, suffering from unknown mental health problems (some of them serious) has been branded a “boy” with little or no observation. This is exactly why quacks who are eager to get on the gender transition bandwagon need to have their licenses revoked. 

Gender dysphoria is real, and experts need to carefully diagnose it. The doctors in Montana seemed far more interested in creating a case study rather than treating a mentally ill child correctly.