What's the Story? Montana Girl Being "Transitioned" in State Care

UPDATED Statement from the Montana Governor's Office Sent Wednesday Jan 31

While the State of Montana is limited in disclosing the specifics of cases involving minor children in its care due to their sensitive nature, broadly speaking, the state does not remove minors from homes to provide gender transition services or use taxpayer funds to pay for those services while a minor is in the custody of the state.

As outlined in its statement of purpose, Child Protective Services protects children who have been or are at substantial risk of abuse, neglect or abandonment.

Furthermore, the Governor has asked his Department of Public Health and Human Services to codify a formal policy and/or develop a regulation to clarify and ensure the definition of abuse or neglect does not include a parent’s right to refuse to provide gender transition services to his or her minor child.

ORIGINAL POST

From the "LibsOfTikTok" to the Manhattan Institute's Chris Rufo- conservative commentators are piling on: we understand something like this would happen in California...but it's happening in Montana?

I've had a bunch of people sending me messages on Twitter asking if I had seen this story. Yes, and in case you missed it- we actually interviewed the mom on the radio last week.

For those of you who were already tracking this story, the governor has now responded with a full thread via Twitter. Here's the part that stood out to me:

Gov. Gianforte: Upon hearing recent allegations related to a child welfare case, I asked Lieutenant Governor Kristen Juras – an experienced attorney, constitutional conservative, mother, and grandmother – to review it. Consulting with the director of DPHHS and personally examining case documents, Lieutenant Governor Juras has concluded that DPHHS and the court have followed state policy and law in their handling of this tragic case.

The governor also says that additional protections like SB 99 are meant to ensure that dangerous medical interventions are not taking place. (Line edited after initial publishing)

Gov. Gianforte: Senate Bill 99, which I signed into law in April 2023, prohibits medical and surgical treatments to treat minors with gender dysphoria and also prohibits the use of taxpayer resources for such treatments.

Sounds to me like we need some additional protections on the books to prevent this harmful "social transitioning" from taking place also. (I discuss more in the audio further down)

For those who missed our original report from last week, here's some key excerpts.

Several listeners were sending me a video that has now been removed from Facebook following a court order by a judge here in Montana. In the video, the Glasgow, Montana family talks about how they had their daughter taken from them by the state, and placed into care that started "transitioning" their daughter into another gender without their consent.

The mom, Krista Kolstad, joined us Monday morning (Jan 22nd, 2024) on the radio to share her story.

Krista Kolstad: Our point is, if you're going to be transgender, and you do it as an adult- that is fine. But we're talking about a child who has problems, and you've allowed her to transition socially. They have not given her hormones or puberty blockers, but they allowed everything but. For instance, she's allowed to wear a chest binder, she's allowed to have men's clothes, change her name, change her pronouns...

Kolstad said the state child protective services removed their daughter from their home after she faked a suicide threat, and since that time the state has placed her in a program that isn't addressing the core challenges facing their daughter.

Krista Kolstad: Our stance is simply- she's a child. She's a child that has problems. Why are we not addressing the problems first and treating- why are you not looking at someone and saying, why are you so unhappy with your life that you want to change everything about you, including your sex? Why haven't we started there? Why we just jump to- okay, you can be a boy and everything's gonna be great.

We also had some callers talk about this story Tuesday morning January 30th and went over the latest updates in the below podcast.

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