A couple in Montana claims that without a warrant, social workers took their teenage daughter, who wanted to transition to a boy.
As the couple, identified as Todd and Krista Kolstad, are mired in a lawsuit regarding the case, they sent a cease-and-desist letter on Monday to the state’s Lt. Gov. Kristen Juras asking that she stop making false statements and issue an apology, the Daily Montanan reported on Tuesday.
Images show the couple with their daughter:
Montana parents who lost custody of daughter after opposing gender transition claim 14-year-old was taken without warrant https://t.co/BaPuG9iPwJ pic.twitter.com/c5QdHdddle
— New York Post (@nypost) May 23, 2024
The couple’s attorney sent the letter the same day they filed a case in federal district court “alleging that social workers with the State of Montana’s Child Protective Services deceived a state court judge in order to seize the Kolstads’ 14-year-old child without a warrant, and, in the process, ignored their religious freedoms,” the article said.
The child was reportedly removed from her home in 2023 after threatening to commit suicide. The couple and the young teen had been “at odds” over the question of if the girl should be allowed to undergo a gender transition.
However, the couple said their religious beliefs do not allow transgenderism, while alleging that officials shoved their religious freedom aside:
In January, the couple accused Montana’s Child Protective Services of “kidnapping” their daughter once she began identifying as the opposite sex, Breitbart News reported.
According to the National Desk, the couple’s recent letter to Juras reads in part:
You have said that CPS’s seizure of the Kolstads’ daughter was lawful and have repeatedly accused the Kolstads of lying about their daughter’s seizure. You have it exactly backwards — it is your statements about the Kolstads that are unfounded, malicious and slanderous under Montana law.
You and Governor Gianforte could have stopped this injustice, but instead you allowed CPS to trample on the Kolstad’s civil rights and illegally remove their daughter to Canada.
The girl was sent to live with her birth mother in Canada, per the Montanan.
According to the Breitbart article, the mother, identified as Christine, reportedly had left the child with her father after she was born and removed herself from her life.
