A Montana couple who lost custody of their 14-year-old daughter because they opposed her undergoing “gender-affirming” treatments transitioning her to a boy, has filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the state’s Child and Family Services (CFS).
Todd Kolstad, the girl’s biological father, and Krista Cummins-Koldstad, her stepmother, were told by state social workers that their “objections to transgenderism made them unfit parents” and “they would not regain custody of their daughter unless they accepted her transgenderism,” the lawsuit states.
The Kolstads’ attorney, Matthew Monforton, told The Epoch Times that the state of Montana took their daughter and “shipped her off” to Canada to live with her biological mother with whom the teen had little contact for several years.
“It was basically a kidnapping,” said Mr. Monforton. Given Canada’s liberal social policies, he said, “it is going to be almost impossible for them to get their daughter back.”
The Montana Department of Health and Human Services did not respond to inquiries from The Epoch Times about the case.
Dylan Jensen, the CFS attorney who filed the emergency custody order against the Kolstads, told The Epoch Times that confidentiality barred him from talking about the case.
He did confirm that the state dismissed the case after it arranged for the teen to be sent to Canada to live with her biological mother.
Documents including statements by one of the social workers named in the lawsuit show the state admitted that the teen had had very little contact with her biological mother in the past several years, but that the department recently contacted her and that she was agreeable to the recommended “treatment plan.”
In an email dated four months before the state took emergency custody of the 14-year-old, her biological mother emailed the same social worker and told her that during a recent phone call, Krista used “her/hers” and only her daughter’s birth name “while discussing him.”
She also told the CFS worker that she had advised Krista “to let the professionals guide them” with her stepdaughter’s “treatment and therapy.”
Statements by the Kolstads that the state noted in its report include calling gender changes “scientifically impossible,” and that transgendering a child is against their “moral and religious values.”
‘You’re Not a Unicorn’
In a Zoom call that the Kolstads recorded with CFS officials including Mr. Jensen, Ms. Kolstad compared the request to counseling someone to accept a person identifying as a unicorn.“... [Y]ou’re not a unicorn, and I’m not going to go to therapy to help me buy into your delusional behavior,” she said.
The girl was continuing to be hospitalized by the state on an earlier threat of suicide at the time of the call.
The Kolstads added that their daughter instead needs a mental health diagnosis for which they can obtain suitable counseling.
According to state records, the teen said she would kill herself if she were sent home, and that she felt disrespected by her father and stepmother because they would not use her preferred pronouns and used her birth name over her newly chosen boy’s name.
Records also show that the teen has a history of lying, including falsely telling a therapist that one of her sisters had died. She also told hospital workers she had just drunk toilet bowl cleaner and taken several Tylenol pills, but medical records show that neither was found in her system.
The state said it filed for emergency custody of the girl because she was in “immediate danger of hurting herself” and that the Kolstads were standing in the way of treatment that would alleviate her suicide threats.
In dispute of the claim, Mr. Monforton points out that two days before the state took emergency custody of the teen, a doctor wrote in a report that, “Patient is not an active threat to self at this time, but would become so if were to send home.”
Mr. Monforton says he believes the evidence “overwhelmingly” shows the state had a “woke agenda” from the start.
Among the more than 60 exhibits that are part of the 139-page lawsuit is a pro-transgender article the court-appointed guardian ad litem gave to the Kolstads.
The article is entitled “How Parents Can Support Their Transgender Teens” and it is marked “Transgender Research the Kolstad case.”
The Kolstads told The Epoch Times that the hospital staff was equally as aggressive in pushing transgender ideology. According to Krista, they discussed the use of a chest binder with her, provided her with only men’s products, and put her in an all-boys group therapy.
Ms. Kolstad told The Epoch Times that when she asked a nurse to cut back on the desserts until her daughter ate some of her meals, she yelled to another hospital staff member, “get this young man a banana split.”
“Our role and rights as parents were just totally written off,” she said.
The Kolstads were also slapped with a gag order when they posted a video they made on social media. It was lifted after the girl was in Canada.
In her ruling lifting the gag order, Valley County District Court Judge Yvonne Laird blasted the Kolstads for not embracing their daughter’s male gender identity.
“Unfortunately, during the pendency of this matter, the youth’s father and stepmother chose to focus on the youth’s struggle with gender identification rather than addressing the issues in the family home and ensuring a safe and supportive environment for the youth’s suicidal ideation,” Judge Laird wrote.
The Kolstads said they had expected to be protected by a newly enacted law that banned “gender-affirming care.”
“That’s why we were so shocked when this happened,” Mr. Kolstad told The Epoch Times.
On Sept. 27, 2023, just a month after the state took emergency custody of the Kolstads’ daughter, Montana District Court Judge Jason Marks issued an order blocking the enforcement of the newly enacted ban.
He ruled that it was “unlikely to survive any level of constitutional review” and that “barring access to gender-affirming care would negatively impact gender dysphoric minors’ mental and physical health.”
