Montana's Republican Governor Greg Gianforte is pushing back against criticism lobbed at him amid claims that his state removed a teenager from parental custody because they did not indulge the minor's gender dysphoria.
Understandably, in cases such as this dealing with a minor, Gianforte and his administration are somewhat muzzled in what information they're allowed to divulge and what is prudent to say. (More broadly, of course, Gianforte has been outspoken and taken direct action to protect minors in his state from situations such as the one now being claimed.)
Montana media outlets, however, have been able to gain court records, emails, and other documents that shine more of a light on things. Specifically, they found that criticism leveled at Montana for supposedly "kidnapping," as some accounts have claimed, a gender-dysphoric teenager from their parents to allow the minor to undergo irreversible "treatments" is a narrative that "is largely unsupported" by such documentation. Here's what the Montana Free Press found out "over the course of several months" about the case:
According to an affidavit filed in state court by child protective workers last fall and later shared with MTFP by the Kolstad parents, state child protective workers and local police originally responded to two confidential callers in August who expressed concern that the teenager living at the Kolstad residence was depressed and suicidal. Both reported that the youth had begun publicly identifying as transgender in 2021 and had not been supported by their parents. After arriving at the house to interview the minor and the parents, child protective workers determined that the reported concerns about the youth’s mental health were justified and asked that the minor be transported to the local hospital. The Kolstads agreed and proceeded to drive the child there.
Once at the hospital, the affidavit stated, the medical team recommended the youth be admitted to a residential psychiatric facility anywhere in the region as soon as a bed became available, based on a medical assessment of the minor’s continued suicidality.
Four days after admitting the teenager, on Aug. 22, hospital staff told child protective workers that a bed had become available at a psychiatric facility in Wyoming, according to the legal filing, but reported that the parents were not allowing the minor to be transported out of concern that the neighboring state does not have laws prohibiting gender-affirming medical care for transgender youth.
When child protective workers went to the Kolstad’s home to discuss the situation, the affidavit stated, the parents reiterated their objections.
“Stepmother and Birthfather became upset very quickly and voiced concern of the state of Wyoming mutilating [the teenager’s] body and giving [the minor] medication” for transition-related care, the affidavit read.
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Two things can be true. First that parents — everywhere — are right to have concerns about the way entities such as public schools and health care systems are working to "affirm" gender-dysphoric minors without parental notification or consent. Public health officials, from the top levels of the Biden administration to Democrat appointees in state and local offices, have advocated for such parental rights to be stripped, after all. But second, that Montana's health officials did not make the decision to get the teenager in this case care out of state in order to arrange for "affirming" the minor's gender dysphoria against their parents' wishes.
On the first, Gov. Gianforte shares concerned parents' worries. In addition to rejecting the idea of biological males competing in women's sports, he signed a law to ban life-altering "treatments" (read: irreversible hormone spiking and mutilating surgeries) for minors. A woke gender-fluid-koolaid-sipping Democrat Gianforte is not. In fact, Democrat gubernatorial candidate Ryan Busse recently smeared Gianforte's agenda as "fascism."
Notably, Gianforte's ban on irreversible gender dysphoria care was supposed to go into effect last October but was enjoined by litigious leftists, meaning that while Wyoming might not have a ban on such procedures, Montana currently doesn't either — but not due to Gianforte's lack of trying.
In a thread posted to X earlier this week, Gianforte explained, as much as he's able, his thoughts on this "tragic case" of a conflicted teenager who needs help — not hormones and mutilation, to be clear — and Montana's efforts to ensure that minor received the critical care needed at the time to ensure there's an opportunity for them to get better and move past the current crisis:
To give them their best shot at reaching their full potential, children deserve to grow up in happy, healthy homes with loving families. Sadly, this ideal is not always realized.
Unfortunately, our society finds children whose life, health, and wellbeing are at serious risk from abuse and neglect, and only as a last resort, should they be removed from their home.
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.
I have asked the lieutenant governor to continue monitoring the case as it progresses.
Further, 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.
Our administration will continue to advance policies that strengthen our families and protect Montana kids, like what we have done to promote adoption and to ban permanent, invasive, life-altering medical procedures on children, like puberty blockers, hormonal treatments, and sex-reassignment surgeries.
Gov. Gianforte's press secretary also reiterated in a statement that "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." And, like many public officials grappling with how to enact policies to preserve sanity amid the left's attempts to rewrite human biology, Gianforte is learning from this case. As his office noted, Gianforte has instructed the 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."
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