428. They Took Our Daughter | Todd & Krista Kolstad
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So hi everybody. I'm here with Todd and Krista Kolstad today and they're a couple from northeast Montana who've had the misfortune to have their sleeves caught in the Child Protection Services Maw and

Their daughter started making claims of variant gender identity in 2021 and then got tangled in online interactions that led to the arrival of Child Protection Service at the doorstep of the Kolstad's. And to say things went downhill from there is to say almost nothing.

I'd highly recommend that you watch this podcast, especially if you regard yourself, let's say, and your family as sort of typical middle-class Americans trying to live a quiet and normal life, because you need to know what might happen to people who are...

complacent enough to imagine that such a thing is possible under the circumstances that I obtain today. This is a cautionary tale and it's a rough one. So join us and go down the rabbit hole of state-mandated gender-affirming care.

Well, thank you for flying here and talking to me today. I presume we're going to have a difficult conversation. We are. Yes, I imagine so. So, we'll start really at the beginning. You have five children.

Todd has five children. Todd has five children. Okay, okay. And how long have you guys been married? We've been married seven years. Yes. And together about... Okay. Yeah. Now, how are your children doing in general? Our... The oldest daughter is in Canada. Um...

She moved away when she was over the age of 18. We have a daughter that's in Kalispell area. We have a daughter that's in the Navy that's a medic. She does fantastic in what she does. And then we have a son that's in Canada that's been with his mother the whole time. That one, they've had a lot of problems, I think. Hopefully he's on track now. And then we have our daughter. We have a daughter, Jennifer, that's been with us.

me her whole life. Every day I went to work, I took her with, took her to breakfast. Every day of her life for the first few years she was in school, that kind of relationship took her four-wheeling, you know, out seeing nature. And

probably a super close relationship because of that. Okay. Now it's Jennifer's the daughter that where, where difficulties emerged in 2021 and you were around then. Yes. Okay. And so, and so what was your view of what was going on with Jennifer in 2021? So in 2021, she was just 12, 12 and a half when, when the issue started and, and,

You know, she was a young girl. She had kind of come into puberty. She had struggles bullying and stuff. Her whole, since about, I came into her life when she was in, I think, second grade. And she'd always been bullied in school. So it's something we've always battled. So in 2021, she was about 12 and a half. And people from the church started saying to us, you know, your daughter is saying that she wants to be called Leo and be referred to as a boy. And she's saying that she's your son while she's at church. Right.

And so we sat down with her and we said, hey, you know, what is this about? What's going on here? And she said, well, I think I want to be a boy. And we were like, okay. So I had a conversation with her and Todd did too. You know, we had a family conversation about, well, why do you feel this way? Do you think it's because you've always been bullied? Do you think it's because you're not in contact with your birth mom? And as a girl, that would probably be very, very...

heartbreaking. You know, the person that loves you the most has never wanted anything to do with you. And so we went over trauma and losses and things like that. And I was like, how about if we go to counseling and you explore this with a counselor? Because she's not going to listen to her parents. You know, we don't, you know how it is with younger kids. Anyway, so I knew she wasn't going to take our advice. So we put her in counseling and we thought we were in a

with her saying that she wanted to be transgender until the day when all of this kicked off. Yes. Okay, so let's delve into that a little bit. So, Todd, you said that you spent a lot of time with Jennifer. Oh, a lot. Okay, and you also, both of you pointed out that she was bullied in school from a young age. So, did she have friends at school? Or was she...

Very few friends. Okay. And did you have any sense of what it was that was attracting the attention of the bullies?

Yes, kind of. Because prior to moving back to where we live now, the problem started at 12 and it was mostly lying, crazy lies. So the school, we met with their counselors there and they said what the kids are doing to be mean or wrong, but she's bringing it on herself with her actions. So she's partly accountable too. And where we live now, the school is fantastic. The counselors, the

principal, the staff is just fantastic. And so they would, she would come home and we'd find out that kids there told her to kill herself.

And, um, the school would require them to write a note saying, uh, you know, apologizing, the school apologized. And that's how she was treated. But she, we would check her status every single day, find out how every single day went with her. We're proactive with the school and things were really good, you know, um, with her life other than, uh,

Well, so what do you think was going on with regards to the story she was telling? You made some mention of lying that she was doing at school. And so what do you think was happening with that? It's strange. We wanted that diagnosed. It wouldn't just be lying. It'd be lying about good things and bad things, right?

We didn't know where it would come from. So our only rule with her was you have to tell the truth, and we'd explain to her the importance of telling the truth. So from the standpoint of how we got here, there was never—

Through these years, there's never been issues of transgender. There hasn't been issues of any of that. It's been lying, you know, that kind of thing. And I think with school, you know, just as a girl, I can say she's always been super, super smart, like always straight A's, off the chart smarts.

And I asked them, do you think she could be on the spectrum somewhere? And we're looking at some things going on there, but I've never got a diagnosis. Is she creative? Very, very creative. You see, the reason I'm asking about that, well, partly it's the lies. I'm curious about that with regards to like an active fantasy life, let's say. But it's also the case that I believe that the kids who are more likely to be attracted by these gender fluid ideologies are men.

likely to be creative, open kids who have, in some way, have a more fluid identity because they're creative. This is attractive to them. And you also portrayed your daughter at school, at least as a bit of an outsider. And so one of the attractions of this gender ideology is that it gives kids who are outsiders and who are uncertain about their identity, you know, a way of

a way of being and also a way of being outstanding and recognized for something new. Now, the school that she was at in 2021, is that the school you were referring to where you believe they are doing a good job? Yes. So where do you think she picked up these ideas about gender transition? Oh, that's easy. TikTok is one. I

I think there's predators on there that lead kids that are more the outsiders into a specific direction. That's a big one. And then there's other kids already in that boat that are also seduced by those kind of things, so to speak. And so the church was telling us and her counselors that she's running with a lot of those kind of kids is what we're being told.

And we had measures in place. She just didn't have free reign of the internet. We had apps on that controlled where she could go and stuff. But when she left our house, I know she was going to friends' house who don't have those measures in place. So she's getting access to social media. Even though it's not in our house, she's still getting access to it. Right. And these friends, did you have any sense of who they were or what they were like?

We met some of them. We tried to help them. They were kids. One of them would walk to a town 15 miles away in the winter without a coat, and we gave him a coat, and we tried to monitor that and monitor how her activities were with them. And it's a very tough balancing line once they hit 12. Right. Well, the thing is, kids of that age, they're trying to— the task of a child that age, really, is to stop being a child—

and to start associating with their peers, right? And so part of the reason that teenage children are so susceptible to peer pressure is because their job at that age is to become socialized into the world of their peers. And that helps them make the transition from being a dependent child to an independent adult, right? You go from your parents,

to your friends with your parents in the background, and then hopefully you get through your friends in some ways so that you can become independent and then establish your own family. So the susceptibility of teenagers to peer pressure is not only normative, but also in some ways desirable. But the problem is, of course, that it can go very sideways if the peer group is prone to

the sorts of behaviors that won't lead them into a productive and enjoyable adulthood. So, yeah, so that's a rough situation. And you said you tried to monitor her social media use, but there's a limit to... Well, there is a limit to how much you can do about that too, partly because for all the dangers that are inherent to smartphones and technology, children still have to learn to master it. And so...

It's not easy to figure out how to have your teenagers be expert in an electronic world without being exposed to all the catastrophes that come along with it. Okay, so now you said that, first of all, your church alerted you to the fact that she was toying with a male identity. Correct. And you thought, did you see any changes in the way she was presenting herself that had...

She's always been a tomboy, never been. My husband owns a tech company, and so she's never been into girly things. She's always been into computers and robots and things like that. She's never been a girly girl. I see, I see. Oh, I see. And so she had... So one of the biggest differences between men and women, masculine and feminine temperaments, let's say, is that men are more reliably interested in things and women are more reliably interested in people. But she sounds like she had...

at least to some degree, more male pattern interest, say. Now, that's not completely unheard of among women, obviously, either. So the mere fact that that occurs doesn't mean that you're born in the wrong body, let's say. But you said she was smart and she's creative and she was interested in... What exactly did you say? Robots and electronics. And with my husband owning a computer company, her and a bunch...

The techs all kind of raised their children together. You know, they would take turns taking them to school and stuff. So there were about three or four little girls and their interests were computers and what their dads were doing and taking apart the computer and learning about the computer. So again, with her being super smart, even with us putting measures in place to try and limit her internet activity,

super smart kid and would figure out a way around it, you know, so we're always trying to have to kind of get around that. Right, okay, so now you did sit down with her and you had a conversation about what you had heard at church, and what did she tell you?

She started crying. She was very, very upset and very emotional. And she said, you know, I just, I don't know what to do. Nobody likes me. So she came back to, nobody really likes me. I don't really have any friends. So maybe if I'm something different, this will help me. Yeah, yeah. Well, I interviewed this woman, Chloe Cole. I've heard of her. Yeah, well, Chloe is a G-transitioner and now an activist trying to stop

the early surgical transition, mutilation and sterilization of children. She had both her breasts removed when she was, I think she was 15, something absolutely awful. And she said to me, well, a couple of things that I thought were interesting. The first thing she said is when she was about 12 or 11 or 12, she realized or assumed that when she did finish her journey through puberty, that she would have a rather boyish figure.

And she had fantasized about being built like Kim Kardashian, you know, extremely curvy. And she thought that it's not going to go that way. And I won't make a very good woman. And so maybe I would make a better boy, which is, I suppose, something that's within the realm of fantasy for, you know, young women who are

battling with the complexities of puberty. But nobody ever told her, you know, none of the counselors she ever talked to, none of the psychologists so-called, or the physicians never told her that that kind of discomfort with that bodily discomfort is very, very, very common, normative even among 12, 13-year-old girls, and that virtually everybody grows out of it. And that the suffering that goes, see, the other thing that happens to girls too when they hit puberty is their levels of negative emotion go up.

And so that can also confuse them. And your daughter was additionally suffering from the fact, and this is a real problem, of her unpopularity, right? And so she's going to be casting around, looking for a way of being as a teenager that's going to pull her into the social group, right? And so you... I was just going to say, she always wants, she's always wanted to be like the pretty, ultra popular girl. And I get it. I'm a girl too. Like who doesn't want that when they're a kid? Right.

But instead, she's always been like the kid in math club and the kid who goes to math competitions and wins and the kid who, you know, super, super smart. So she's always struggled with that.

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she'll be able to fit right in with. And it's also at that time later where that kind of intelligence and mathematical ability and interest is really going to pay off. But that's not necessarily the case in junior high school, for example. Okay, so you talk to her and she's upset. She's crying and she's telling you that, you know, she's pretty sick of being unpopular and so forth. And you take her to a counselor, okay? And so, or you set her up with a counselor. And what sort of counselor was that? What

It was through our church. It was the director of the youth group who has some counseling credentials. And so we asked him if he would start meeting with her weekly before youth group and talking to her. Okay. And what was the consequence of that? Everything was really positive during that whole time. But what came out later, she said they put a gun to her head, which was, again, one of the crazy lies. And she meant it literally. So it was mixed. Okay.

Hmm. And so, but there was a counselor with someone you trusted. And you don't believe that the counselor was someone who tilted her farther down this road? Not at all. I don't think he did at all. So you had the conversation with her and then you thought things were essentially going okay. Was she still complaining at that time about not being popular at school? She was. She was. And what grade was she in at that point?

Seventh? Yeah. It started in seventh grade. That's a rough grade. So, yeah, yeah. Okay, okay. So, she sees the counselor for about how long? About six or eight months. Okay, and weekly. Mm-hmm. And did you see any changes in her behavior or anything? What were things like at home at that point? That's what... It was so hard to analyze because I drove her...

to school or to the bus, whichever she wanted, just a best friend relationship. I took her to school, picked her up. Her life was happy. If something bad happened, she would let me know it, right? You know, she would let me know right away. And she was in a hurry to do her kid things, get on her electronics or go see her friends. And she had a summer job.

Life was good. So you felt that things were good, and you believed that the communication channels were open. Yes. And you're watching this. I mean, they have a very close relationship. You're watching this. What do you think of the relationship between these two? You know what? They're very close. She's also very close to me because I'm the only mother figure she's ever known. So she actually calls me mom. You know, I'm her stepmom. Yeah. And so we were very, very close with her and very open communication. Definitely. Okay. So I...

But again, you have to remember, we also have a child that has behavior problems and has some other attention-seeking behaviors and stuff like that. So even though we were close to her and monitoring her and keeping an eye on her, she still kind of has this other life over here where she, I don't want to say gets in trouble, but she makes up stories and she does things. Then it comes back to her life over here. Well, that's tricky too, because, you know, you have,

You actually don't want your children, in some ways, to share absolutely everything with you when they're teenagers, right? Because they should be parceling off a part of their life that's private. I don't mean hidden exactly or secret. That isn't what I mean. But because they're starting to mature, they should have their right to privacy and their right to explore in that private domain. I mean, one of the things we do know about

pathway of childhood development is there are some children who act out all the time, let's say, and they often stay in trouble and get in more trouble as they get older. And then there's children who never do anything wrong at all, and they also get in trouble as they get older. They're more likely to be dependent and depressed and anxious. Then there's the kids in the middle who, you know, will experiment and cause a certain amount of trouble and trying to

see where the limits are as teenagers. And that does imply that they pass off a bit of a private life. But as far as you guys were concerned, after you had that initial conversation, while she was undergoing this counseling, things were...

No worse than they usually were, at least. And some of the signs were good. She had activities. She was going to school. She had a job. She had some interests. And she was still communicating with both of you. Absolutely. Okay. And what about her siblings? What did they... Were any of her siblings around at that time as well? She's the last one in the house. And so...

three of the older girls are kind of busy with their lives and they call maybe once a week or so. And she hasn't spoken to her brother who's been with a birth mom in probably seven or eight years. They just don't have phone contact.

Okay, okay. So in some ways, in your household, at this time, she was in the position of only child. Correct. She was the only child in the house. Okay, so now, all right, so you're going along and there's some problems, but they don't sound like they're completely out of the ordinary for, you know, a 13-year-old girl with some trouble socializing. And so what's the next event? So, well, two things. What do you think's happening at school?

Like, was your school a woke school? Was it a reasonable school? Was it still the case that

You think that most of the exposure she had to this gender ideology was online? Did the school play a role in this at all? The school played absolutely no role in that. Yeah, we live in a very, very small area. So I often tell people, if you Google middle of nowhere United States, that town that comes up, Glasgow, Montana, that's where we live. And so they're not very woke out there at all. And so the school, if she had demanded to be called by other names or other pronouns, they would have shut it down immediately. They wouldn't have done that.

Okay, so this, as far as you're concerned, this was something that was mostly occurring as a consequence of her, of a particular peer group she was associating with, and also information that she was obtaining online. And you mentioned TikTok in particular. Was there a reason for that specific mention? Yeah, because...

Well, we had seen a couple of times where we were just blown away because life was perfect at home. Relationship was perfect. And then we would see crazy posts online or through email and then some of the applications that she would go to on her computer. And these were some of the things she was posting. And what sort of things was she posting? Well, one time we were in...

For example, we were in Kalispell. She was in Glasgow, and she had posted she's in some kind of gang and that her parents would beat her ass was her words. And none of that. We were shocked when we saw that on her phone. And she said, I don't know why I do this. I don't know why I do this. So that was another manifestation of those fantastic fantasies and lies, essentially. Right. So she's toying with fantasy.

being a different person online. So that's one of the weird things about the online world is because you can be any... And we don't exactly know what this is doing to kids. You can be anything you want online, right? Because there's no one there watching you. And so any story you tell, you can get away with any story you tell, and you can also monitor the impact of that story, right? And if you're desperately seeking attention, then...

if you come up with a fantastical story that buys you a lot of sympathy, let's say, then that's an easy road to walk down. So, you know,

You know, I've seen other teenage girls get in trouble in exactly this way. Do you know, this is a very personal question and you're not obliged to answer it. Do you know if she was posting, do you know if any of the interactions she had online had any sexual component? Was she posting photographs or anything like that? No, I've never seen anything like that. It was more the fantasy and the lies. Like she would say that she had a twin brother that her birth mom,

killed and then her birth mom was in prison. Just crazy things that have never happened, you know? So it was more fantasy, but never really sexual. Right, and you didn't have any sense that there was like specific predators after her online? Did she have like, had she gathered around her a community of people that were attending to what she was posting that might have involved some of these more predatory characters?

She did gather a group of people from the trans community that gathered around her and was telling her, you know, how brave she is and how great she is. So she did gather that crowd. Now the crowd where she was saying she was a gang and stuff, no. Right, but in this other domain she did. Well, that's a very interesting form of reinforcement. Well, you see that in the culture at large, you know, that there

there's this insistence that these brave people who come out with their true identity are heroes of a sort, right? And part of the problem with that is that, well, there are confused people who struggle their whole life to come out from

what they're hiding behind to reveal who they are, let's say. But there's plenty of people who are narcissistic, as can possibly be imagined, who use that as a means of obtaining like a false status. And that's certainly, I would say something that's the

that the Biden administration has been particularly complicit in producing. And so if your daughter is unsure of herself and if she's unpopular and she finds a group of people who are congratulating her on her bravery every time she takes a step in the direction of this revelation of identity. You know, Cleo told me that

after a while too and i know another girl who is in this situation too you know after a while after you adopt a new identity like that say as a boy and you gather a bit of a community around you it's pretty damn hard to step backwards right because you feel like you're between absolutely you feel like you're the one girl i'm speaking of like she decided that she was a boy and then some of her friends afterward after

as a consequence of her influence, felt they were boys. And then when she decided maybe she wasn't a boy and that was a bad idea, one of the things that she found very difficult was stepping backwards because now she felt guilty that she had enticed other people down this road. So you start to produce these false identities and they take on a life of their own, like any lie does. And then if it's magnified by people

In some ways, the people online are doing exactly the same thing because they've taken dire steps in the wrong direction and are likely to encourage that in other people. Exactly. Right. Okay. So, but all things considered, you two weren't unduly concerned. You had some concerns about her popularity and about her storytelling. The teachers, are they reporting any particularly unacceptable behavior at school during this time? Yes, in that...

It just wasn't a daily problem. Once every month to sometimes two months, something would happen. We'd hear her version of it. So we would right away, because we're concerned parents, we interacted in the schools. They are just very good at interacting with parents. They're not woke. They're not all that. But they would say, are

Our daughter's version of that was not accurate. She actually instigated it or she caused the confrontation, even though what the other kids did was they're in trouble. You know, they're in trouble. Yeah. But she's got a part to play in this too. Right.

Right. It's almost like if, how can I put this? Like if I keep poking the top and then he snaps at me and then I'm like, oh my gosh, look what you did. It was like that type of behavior, that kind of attention seeking, victimizing. Provocativeness. Yeah. However,

However, there is always a sense, though, in what you said earlier, there's always a sense that this is going to be a short little battle because her brain is going to develop and she's going to become a very smart girl. And I have no doubt this is going to be a very successful young adult.

I never thought. So there was never a sense of this is, there wasn't such a strong, I want to be trans, or there was none of that really going on that would have led to us. So you had confidence in her long-term outcome? Absolutely. Why absolutely? Why were you so certain of that? Because if just given more time to grow up,

You know, because kids hit an awkward age. Yeah. She had a lot of attention when she was a kid. She was in our stores. Customers would bring her stuffed animals. And she's in an IT corporation and people treat her like gold. And she grows up and all of a sudden she's at an awkward age. Glasses, braces, and all that. Okay, okay. And...

with the wrong kids, but eventually there'd be good kids and becoming an adult, the brain develops and they settle into whatever gender they really are. And, um, right. So you guys were still thinking that this was just, yeah, you were prepared to wait it out. You'd had lots of children. Yes. You'd gone through this with many kids already. One, one, one of my daughters initially didn't was confused, but become an adult and wasn't said, boy, I can't believe I thought that way when I was younger. Good thing. Um,

I didn't make bad decisions. Yes, well, it's not uncommon. And you could imagine too, like you've characterized your daughter as somewhat of a tomboy. And I think that to some degree was confusing for tomboys forever. But they weren't also ever offered the opportunity of presuming that just because they had some aspects of their character that were more masculine, that what that meant was they had to surgically bring themselves into alignment with that. Exactly. Right, which is very...

Very, very, very bad idea. Okay, so, all right, so you're going along with this situation and you have some concerns, but you believe they'll reconcile themselves in the long run. And then when do things break? I'll let you tell most. We were coming back from Billings, Montana from a medical appointment. And the location that our daughter worked had called and asked if our son could come into work.

And it all took off from there. And there was nothing in the middle. Um,

There was just, for over a year, just nothing but a good kid, great relationship, complete trust. And all of a sudden, we find out that she had created this world where she works, where she's known as a boy. And that was Leo. We made a decision. We thought, okay, we don't want to say nothing. And I was bummed out. I was very depressed about it. We don't want to say nothing. We don't want to.

You know, because school's getting ready to start. I wanted everything on a positive note. But yet she had been lying to us and lying about this, about her. And she had been working there a year? No, she'd been there only a few months. Okay, a couple of months. And what was she doing? What was the job? It was at a local restaurant, just a little local dive restaurant.

Right, so she had gone there as a boy. No, they all knew that she was female. Okay. She went there and she presented this image that she's transgender and that they needed to buy into this and call her by a different pronoun and stuff. And they were all kind of like, I don't really know what to do with this. So they just played along with it. I see. So they allowed her to go by Leo. I see. So she started to...

Now, is it accurate to say that she started to take the persona that she was playing with online and now start to see what would happen if she was playing this out in the world? Yes, in the world. And so she built this little thing at her job. And again, that she was a boy and, you know, going by Leo and stuff.

So it all came to a head on August 18th. The next week school was starting and she was going to be a ninth grader in high school. And because of all of her past history was struggling in school, we said, hey, why don't we take a break from the summer job and go ahead and start high school, see where we can go with high school. And if at Christmas break, you're doing great, which you always do great. And, you know, things are under control and you're not feeling too anxious or too bullied or anything.

go back to your summer job. Maybe you can start working one day a week during, you know, like maybe one day a weekend on the winter hours. And she obviously didn't want to do that. We also talked to her about, hey, you know, they called and they said our son needed to come to work today. And, you know, what's going on with that? Or why are you doing this again? You know, do we need to have a conversation about that? And she was just mad. She's a mad teenager that day. Okay, so let's... Okay, so you guys...

You found out what she was doing at work, and you suggested to her that she stop the job temporarily. And if things went well, she could pick it up again in the winter, essentially. Okay, and which part of that do you think made her angry? Well, you also called her out on the fact that she had been

presenting herself as a boy at the job. So what do you think it was that made her angry? Did she really like the job? Did she feel you were interfering? No, it wasn't that. What do you think it was? I think it was the fact that we called her out. And this personality and this fantasy that she began living, she was now going to have to stop living. Good way to put that. It was, I think it was that she had a little world within the world where she could be what she wanted to be at that time.

And that was being imploded on her. And instead, she also did not want to start high school. And there were some instances prior to school, and this is just days before school starts, where some of the kids were already being mean. That's true. We took her to high school orientation, and some of the kids were already at high school orientation being mean to her. I see, I see. And so—

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How do you think she was doing at her job in her new identity? I mean, people were playing along with that. Was she being bullied at work? No. No, she did have a couple incidents where some people had said things to her at work and she came home upset. So not necessarily getting bullied, but there were people that were like, you're not a boy. We're not playing along with this. And she was being bullied at work.

That's not how when she came home and was upset. That's not what she'd say to us. She'd say, oh, the customers were really mean today, you know, things like that. But in hindsight, and kind of putting it together with her boss now, that's what was going on is people were like, you're not a boy. What is wrong with you? Why are you acting this way? And she would be very, very upset by time she got home.

Okay, so she's heading back to school and she's going into high school. So that's a big transition. And it looks like there's going to be some continuation of the same trouble. And she's not particularly happy about having had her new fantasy life at work exposed. Now, is there anything else going on at the time? What else is happening? Just a strange problem. She started having really, really bad headaches.

She started having vision problems and we had full medical insurance. We took her in for everything. We're having her eyes constantly checked. She was going through hair loss. She was wanting to wear ball caps all the time. She was having almost like, we don't know if they're hallucinations or what you would call it, but there was a combination of those things happening steadily and just terrible headaches and

And so that was a concern that we were having. It was adding to the other behavioral things. And they seemed to go in line with that almost. So in hindsight, we found out that one of her friends, who was another 14-year-old girl, was ordering her hormones off of Amazon and having them sent to her house, not ours.

And then giving those to our daughter, Jennifer. What were the hormones and how were those purchasable on Amazon? Do you know? They are purchasable on Amazon and you don't have to prove that you're 18 or anything. You can just go in and buy them. And they were female to male hormones. I could look it up and send it to you, the exact ones, if you want. But yeah.

So we found out that after all this happened, that that's what was going on at the time. Because we couldn't figure it out. I took her to the eye doctor three times. And I was like, something must be wrong with her glasses. You know, you must be wrong. She's having these headaches. And they were like, no, we can't find a secret thing. Was the hair loss noticeable? Mm-hmm.

every one of the things that we said was listed as a side effect, and that's if you're taking the right dosage and you're a teenager. And most likely when kids are prescribing drugs to kids, what's the odds of them following the prescription, that they're in a hurry to try to become something else? So that's what we're afraid of. Oh, yeah. Jesus, that's brutal. Yeah, because that, well, any, first of all, I had no idea that that was such an easy thing to do. And second, you just have absolutely no idea how,

what that might do to her mental health or physical health, generally speaking. Right. And looking back, I can see things like... Yeah.

She was acting more aggressive, really quick to anger. Her skin, her complexion just went terrible. And I took her to the doctor. I was ordering her Proactiv, all these things online. Just like, what is going on with this kid's acne? This is not normal for her. So in hindsight, I know it was now those hormones that she had taken herself. Yeah.

Right, right. We didn't find this out until after CPS had taken her away. Okay, so now she's off to high school. So continue the story. So on August 18th, what had happened is we had the discussion with her about stopping the job and starting high school and starting fresh.

And she was very angry with us and very upset with us that day. But she—even though she was angry, she was coming in and out of the room with us, you know. She'd talk to us and stuff, but then she'd be snippy, you know, and go back to her room. Typical teenager behavior. So it wasn't alarming.

So I got a call at exactly 148 from our local police department saying that our daughter had made text message comments to another child that she wanted to kill herself and that this was her intention. So I stayed on the phone with the police officer. I walked down the hallway to where she was. Who reported that? I'm sorry. Who reported the text messages? The other child that she made these comments to. The child reported it. Mm-hmm.

Do you think the child did that of her own accord? Or was that a plan? Or were there parents involved? I think she... That's very odd. She only met the child one time at a track meet, like seven or eight months prior. But she had spun this whole thing with this other little girl that she had terminal cancer and that Todd and I weren't letting her get treatments. Oh, I see. So this was part and parcel of a whole story. Yeah, so I do think that the child reported it because I think the child was like...

she's being terribly abused by these awful people. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So the police officer, like I said, he called. I went down the hallway and I talked to Jennifer. And she was in her room, but the door was open. And I was like, hey, you know, what's going on? The cops are on the phone. Like, what is this about? I've seen other girls spin fantasies like that online and make false reports to other people of abuse in the household.

And the social services teams come rampaging in like mad, right? And often the girls who have spun the fantasies, well, they're taken completely aback by the consequences of their actions. Right.

But, you know, that's another indication of that bit of tendency towards histrionic behavior, right? Dramatic and histrionic behavior that can produce these sorts of cascading consequences. Okay, so this was reported to the police. Right. And so I stayed on the phone with the officer and I spoke to our daughter. And I told the police officer, I'm like...

I don't think, I think she's just angry at us. She's having a day and this is something that she's doing to act up and act out for attention. I said, I'm not concerned. If I am concerned, I'll certainly call you back. I'll call an ambulance. I'll do whatever I have to do to make sure that she's safe, you know? And so that was at about 148. And then at

7:40 that night is when Children's Services showed up at our house because they said the police officer could not lay eyes on the child or speak to the child directly, even though he didn't ask. He didn't come over. He didn't ask to see her. He didn't ask for me to hand her the phone. None of that happened.

So at this point... So how many people from child services showed up? Just one lady. Just one lady. And so at this point, we're like, okay, well, this has never happened before. And this is weird. And you're really taken aback when child services, you know... Now you're in trouble. Yeah, you're like, what did I do? What's going on around here?

So we were very transparent because our attitude was being transparent, we have nothing to hide. So why not let them look at whatever they want to look at and then they can go about their day and go on their way. So we gave her a tour of the house. We showed her. What do you think you should have done?

So now in hindsight, I think we should have said, no, this isn't, get out of here. Like, you can lay eyes on the child if you want, but you're not coming to our house. You're not getting into our lives. There's no reason for you to be here. Like, we should have stood strong in the fact that. Yeah, it's tough, eh, because the natural proclivity is,

if everything is okay, is to do exactly what you did to cooperate and to believe that your cooperation will produce the best possible positive result. My suspicions are now that

for everybody watching and listening, if child services shows up at your doorstep, it's time to get a lawyer. It is. Right now. Absolutely. Before you talk to them, before you do anything with them. Absolutely. Not to presume axiomatically that they are on your side or that things are going to go well. Right. In fact, I would say quite the contrary. And that was where we at. We thought, oh, well, they're going to be on our side. They're going to see that we're dealing with a child who has some problems that we're addressing. Right.

And then they're going to go about their day. And that's not what happens. So you're showing this person around your house. We showed her around the house. What's the interaction like with the person? It was friendly. She was friendly. She was nice. I mean, yeah. Our home is very stocked. Very nice home. Um,

Our daughter spoiled rotten for technology in our room. The report was that she had taken 30 ibuprofen and drank. - We haven't gotten there yet. So what happened then, she said she had to talk to Jennifer alone. And we were, at that point, we were like, wow, this is getting really-- - Alone. - Yeah. But we said, okay, you can talk to her alone. And they went out on the porch. They spoke for about 10 minutes. And then Todd and I went out on the porch 'cause we were like, we're just not comfortable. - Yeah, right. - This is going in a weird way. We're not okay with this.

And at that point, that's when Jennifer had told a CPS worker that she had taken 30 ibuprofen earlier in the day at about three o'clock, as well as she drank toilet bowl cleaner in an effort to end her life.

And we're like, we know this didn't happen because she has no signs of chemical burns. You know, she's not lethargic. She's not sick. And plus, I had been in the kitchen that day with my laptop at the table working where the ibuprofen and stuff were. And I know she hadn't taken any. You know, she hadn't had any squirreled away. I knew she hadn't done it. But we were like...

We know that she tells stories, and this is not true, but we're going to go to the hospital and have her checked because we're going to be safe as you could possibly be. And then that's where all the problems really, really started when we got to the hospital. Okay, well, continue. Tell me what happened. So we get to the hospital that night. You take her. Does the social worker come along with you at this point? She does, yes. Okay, so all of you are going to the hospital. So we transport our daughter with us, and the social worker takes care of her. What sort of mood is your daughter in at that moment? Nobody spoke.

We weren't really speaking. We were really blown away by everything that just happened because we just had friends over and our daughter was having a really good time. She had a new puppy too that day. So she was really happy. And so we were really caught off guard by the whole thing. And the way there, it was very quiet. We were just in a hurry to get there. And the whole time,

Just wondering where all this came from so quickly. You know, how did we go from zero to CPS at our house and now we're on the way to the hospital. So now you also don't know, like this fantasy that came out about the ibuprofen and the toilet bowl cleaner. So you have no idea how far she's taken multiple fantasies in her imagination, right? And how...

Because this is what happens to people who wander off track, you know, is they start dwelling on fantasies and spend hours on them or hundreds of hours on them and develop a very elaborated alternative world or multiple alternative worlds. And so God only knows where the story of the ibuprofen and the toilet bowl cleaner came out. You know, because you made reference earlier to the fact that she had

shared some fantasies online with her online crowd, right, about having a twin brother. And I could just have no idea how much of that dreamlike world she's allowing to occupy her imagination.

Right. Because it's surprising because you say, well, you were having a perfectly, as far as you could tell, a perfectly normal day, a happy day, even she got a new puppy. And yet as soon as she talks to the social worker, there's this immediate fantasy of 40 ibuprofen and toilet. I mean, that's a dramatic fantasy, right? I mean, killing yourself is one thing, but killing yourself with ibuprofen and toilet bowl cleaner, that's pretty bloody brutal.

Okay, so you're on the way to the hospital. You don't know what's going on. The social worker is with you. What happens when you get to the hospital? So we get to the hospital and they right away hook her up. EKGs, blood work, you know, the whole gambit. And we're totally fine with that. Right away she says, I'm transgender and my parents don't accept me and everyone here needs to call me Leo. And the whole room was just kind of like crickets. Like no one really said anything. And so Todd and I stepped up and we said, you know...

She's done this in the past. We're not okay with this. So she picked the worst possible moment to announce that. Yes. Right, especially to announce the fact that you guys don't accept her. Right, so now she's really playing with fire. Yeah. Like, seriously playing with fire. And so our reaction was, you know...

She's done this before. We're not okay with it. You need to address her by her birth name and, you know, her regular pronouns. And that's what you told the people at the hospital? That's what we told them right off the bat. We said, we're not okay with this. You need to just not call her Leo. Her name is, you know, Jennifer. We'd like you to call her Jennifer. That's her birth name. And we all need to get her treated and move on with what needs to be done now was our attitude.

And so how many people are you telling this to? The whole emergency room crew. There were probably five people in the room, plus the social worker, plus us. And now, do you know, did you know then, or do you know in retrospect, how many of them, so to speak, were on your side and how many of them were on your daughter's side? Because, you know, increasingly in institutions, if a child goes into an institution and makes a claim like that, the hospitals, many hospitals now and many organizations are tilted towards

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Correct. And that is what happened. That is what happened. That is what happened. Jesus. So we were at the hospital for five days. Five days? Yeah. So we knew, they said the three-day hold, when someone tries to commit suicide or says they're going to, then they automatically go on a three-day hold. And we understood that. And we were like, okay. So the whole time, I'm going to the hospital for five, six hours a day because I don't...

Her birth mother abandoned her. And even I'm her primary mother figure now. And I don't want her to feel like just because you're acting up and you're being bad, it

we're going to abandon you. That's not how life works. You know, yeah, I'm not happy. I have to sit down here all day long. But this is the way that life is and family is. So I'm down there every day for five, six hours a day. And at this point, the hospital crew totally turns against me. So they start calling her Leo. And when I say, hey, that's not her name. I want you to call her by birth name. You know, I'm getting a lot of,

Rolling their eyes and sighing. Yeah, that's not good. That's the best predictor of divorce in married couples who are seeking counseling. Eye rolling. Yeah, well, it's a sign of contempt. It's not good. It's not good. So if that's the sort of response you were getting, that was definitely indicative of the fact that you were now put in the unacceptable mother camp. Absolutely. And so, right, and then, so...

And almost right away, there was one aide that sat outside her door, because now she's on 24-hour supervision. So, she's in a door, and the aide sits about, like, right there in that doorway, away from her, just to watch her. Right. So, she's getting a lot of attention. A lot of attention. So, our daughter's in the middle. Right. And then I'm kind of on the other side of the room there. So, right away, the aide starts saying things to her about how—

this particular aide herself is non-binary and is going to go have top surgery. And I'm like, hey, you know what? You need to shut this down. Like, this is not okay. So I stayed calm because I felt like they

they were trying to bait me into a fight. And then they could look and turn around and say, look at these, look at how these parents act. That's a typical tactic. Absolutely typical tactic. It's part of that provocativeness is right there. Poke and poke and poke and poke and poke and poke and wait for an explosion and then to say, well, I knew that you were the sort of person who would explode. Right. And I felt like that's what was happening to us. So Todd and I stayed very calm. And then you lose when you stay too calm because then they're like, well, now you're too calm. Right.

- No, no, the whole point of people who are manipulative like that, the whole game is to put you in a position where no matter what you do, you're wrong and they're right. You're wrong and bad and they're right and good. That's the game, right? And so, and what it costs you, that's irrelevant. It's completely irrelevant.

There's more and more studies of people who behave in this way because you get a kind of narcissistic manipulativeness, but that slides very rapidly into sadism. And so not only do they want to be right and good at your expense, but if you suffer as a consequence, so much the better.

Right. So, and if your daughter happens to have to be dragged along for the ride while they're proving their moral superiority. No, they're more than okay with that. That's just part of the fun. So, oh yeah. All right. So now there's five days in the hospital. Your daughter's getting a lot of attention. They put an aide in there who's going to be extraordinarily attentive to all of her whims. Right.

Right. Correct. There's one thing that's really important here, too, during this. To me, it's the biggest thing, is that right immediately, I've never heard our daughter ever talk about another state before. And there was talk about Wyoming. And then they said there are different facilities that she could be sent to. Almost all of them are in Montana, but there's one in Wyoming. But...

There was almost an unspoken language going on between our daughter and the nurse. And what are these facilities that she's going to be sent to? And why does that emerge as a discussion? They said she needed acute psychiatric care because of the statement she was making about killing herself. And we were like, okay. And they said it would be inpatient. Oh, God. We're saying, okay, like, we're...

if this is what needs to happen to help her, okay, let's get this done. So we were told there were six facilities in the state of Montana. And like Todd said, that one, they started talking about Wyoming kind of off to the side. And it was kind of like a,

Like a secret language, if that makes sense, between our daughter. Like an in-joke. Well, they said it like this. Because right away, while they're talking, I was just listening. And I went right to my phone and good old Google. Went to Google, what's different about Wyoming? And they show the map of Idaho, Montana, the Dakotas. They all have laws banning transgender care.

Wyoming does not. They just lost it on that battle. And the centerpiece of that is Casper. Well, and of course, lurking behind all this is your daughter's

unwillingness in all likelihood to go to high school. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Right? Because this gives her an out. Jesus. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. And so, at that point, you know, like Todd said, he had his phone, we looked up Wyoming, and we said to the doctor and the social worker outside the room, because I was very careful not to have these conversations in front of her, because I know she uses this information to be manipulative and get what she wants.

So outside the room, we had a conversation and I said, you know, we're not okay with Wyoming and here's why. And tell me if she were to go to Wyoming, what would be our rights? What's protecting us? What's protecting her? When someone goes to inpatient care, I was like, what's expected? Are we supposed to visit? Are you supposed to visit weekly? And how would we get from, I mean, we could drive, but we'd have to put our whole business on hold and drive the eight hours to Wyoming. And is this expected of us? You know, like, help me out here. Like, tell me what's supposed to happen.

And I'll never forget our CPS worker said to me, she said, oh, don't worry about Wyoming. The chances of that happening are so slim and we'll all have a conversation and work through it together if that's what's on the table. Yeah, and when that got said, you could see immediate discomfort in our daughter, like she had just been betrayed and you could see almost a, we're just telling your parents, that isn't what they said, but that's what the body language is. I see. So the notion here is that there's covert behavior

There's covert planning going on behind the scenes. Yeah, and I told her that right away. I said, they are going to send her to Wyoming. So five days go by because they couldn't find placement and they were having trouble. On August 22nd, we were told that she was next in line for a bed at a facility in Billings.

So when we left the hospital that day, we were thinking, okay, well, she's going to go to this Billings inpatient psychiatric care. And that's four hours from us. So if we're expected to visit or take things down there. So let me ask you about this, because as far as you guys are concerned—

Your daughter, apart from her texts, was not showing any signs of suicidality. No, no. She never has. She's not suicidal. As a matter of fact, she's always been like, I can't believe this. Any self-harm, any cutting, anything like that? No. She had one incident, and CPS jumped on this incident, where I walked in her room and she had a scratch on her arm.

And she had a counseling appointment the next day. And I was like, did you scratch yourself? Did you do that? And she tried to tell me, oh, no, the cat did it. And I was like, okay. But I took a picture of it anyways. And to this day, I have that picture. And I sent it to her counselor because she was going to counseling the next day. And I said, I just found this on Jennifer's arm. What should I do? How should I act? Should I be concerned? Do I punish her? Like, what does someone do in this situation? And he said—

Thanks for sharing it with me. I will review it with her tomorrow in counseling. But again, it was a scratch. It wasn't a big bloody gash. Okay, but there's no pattern here. No, none at all. Okay, but now, despite the fact that she's not showing, she's not depressed, she's not suicidal, as far as you guys can tell. She claimed that she was, she's acting out, that's for sure. But now the psychiatric community has decided that she's in such a dire condition that she needs inpatient treatment for her suicidality. Right.

Right now, they're undoubtedly covering their ass, so to speak, and going by the book, and have also decided that you're evil parents in the offing. But what are you thinking about, given that your daughter is now being pulled into the

well, into the workings of this system. I mean, obviously you want to be cooperative. So, but what do you, and you're concerned, obviously, that there's maneuvering going on behind the scenes. What are your thoughts in this situation? I thought the one thing that could come out of this that might be good, I said, now that she's in a bubble with them,

The same problem we were just having, they're about to get the focus of it. They're going to start seeing what we see. And they did. Right away, CPS. And we were hoping that we could get a diagnosis based on that. You know, based on if she goes in their care and starts telling these crazy lies and stuff. I see. That we would get some kind of diagnosis of what was going on with her. During that exact time, CPS even called and demanded that we turn over her cancer treatment records.

We said she never had cancer. And then CPS. Did they ever offer you a diagnosis that was associated with her tendency to lie? Never. Never. The diagnosis we've been given has been ADHD, PTS. There are, I can't tell you because you're not my clients, but there are diagnoses that are specific to the behaviors that she's manifested that you should have been told about.

And that's what I was thinking. There has to be. It's clear. So had they known what they were doing and being paying attention, you would have received a diagnosis. Because I've been building it in the back of my mind as you guys have been telling me the story. And to this day, we still don't have a diagnosis on the lying. They just said, well, sometimes she tells stories. I'm like, not like this. That's so appalling. Yeah, this is not someone who sometimes tells stories. These are outrageous.

Yes, like a ghost hovering over her bed to the cancer thing. And then it was a sister that died. It was one thing after another. Yeah. So we get to a point where August 22nd, they told us she was next in line for a bed in Wyoming. I'm sorry, Montana. Billings. And so we were like, okay. So we leave the hospital. We go to dinner that night. And then again, about 7, 38 o'clock, the hospital calls us. And it was a doctor from the hospital. And he said...

A bed has opened up in Wyoming and she needs to go.

And we were like, we were just, what? You know, how did this happen? We were told Billings earlier today. And he said- Yeah, there's nothing worse than being proved right when you're apprehensive. Yeah. Okay, so now it's Wyoming, eh? And so he said, well, she has to go. We're not doing her any good here. She can't just sit here forever. And I said, I understand that. But we were told she was next in line for a bed in Billings. We thought we had just a little bit of time. And so the call ended. And within 10 minutes-

CPS showed up at our house with a police officer and removed her from our care. They gave us paperwork saying that we were unwilling or unable to provide medical care for her. And that's not true at all.

And so... So what, okay, so what did you make of that? It said child neglect. They're saying that that act of not providing or not being able, willing and able to provide medical. Okay, now was that based on your objection to her being moved to Wyoming? Yeah, only that. She had only... I see, because, so they told you she was going to Billings. Then they told you she was going to Wyoming. You weren't very happy about that. And then they used that as evidence that you weren't willing to provide her with appropriate care. And that's when they took her from you. Correct.

Exactly. They called it recommended. We were declining her recommended health. Right. That's the way they worded that. Oh, yes. Oh, man. So there's a great setup for you. So this was pre-planned. She was going to Wyoming. Oh, absolutely. You know why it was pre-planned? Because they didn't go through the court. All that was pre-printed.

It was, they got there in 10 minutes. 10 minutes. We got served two weeks later. I mean, we live in a small town, but it's not that small. You know, I mean, 10 minutes from the time that we got off the phone to the time that you arrived at my house with the police. And they said, you guys can't talk to her again until we say. You can't talk to her. You can't call her. You can't see her. Yeah. How old is she at this point? 14. 14.

Oh, my God. So now she's fallen completely into the hands of the demented social workers. Exactly. So then the next day, which was August 23rd, after they told us we couldn't see her or anything, they had somebody, an employee from Children's Services, transfer her to Wyoming.

But on the way there, she was allowed to stop. She was allowed to stop and visit her friends. She was allowed to go to her summer job after we were told that we couldn't see her or speak to her. They made all these stops around town and visited with all these people before they left. She could tell them that she was transgender, suicidal. And her parents were abusing her. And I'm like, I don't care what people think of me in the town.

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So we were pretty upset about that. So she goes to Wyoming. Yeah, pretty upset. I bet you were. How upset? Extremely. They were just destroying, burning all of her bridges there. And it's like they were intentionally just burning all the bridges to her family at the same time. So how are you making sense of this? Because now— We're not. We're just totally kind of—we're mad. We're upset. You know, we're hurt. Our daughter's just been ripped away from us. Like, it was—our whole world was just kind of spinning.

Felt like we're up against the devil. That's what it felt like. Yeah, exactly. That's the face of the devil. That's what I thought. Yeah. That's what the devil is. And so, okay, so why did you, why did it appear to you, why did those appear to be the relevant terms to you, do you think? Because she's a child. She's a child.

When I was a child, I could not make any such decisions. I'm glad my mom and dad were there to tell me no, you know, to keep me away from those kind of people. Yeah, that's particularly true when you're like 13 to 15, boy. If you're able to...

You can imagine staking your life on the stupidest decision you made when you were 13. My God, you'd be in such terrible shape. Absolutely. Yeah. And I couldn't believe that they could do these things. That was so—we'd never been involved in this system before. We'd never dealt with that. Yeah, well—

You're fortunate in that, boy. Once you get your sleeve caught in the child welfare machine, you are in serious trouble. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Now we know. Yeah, yeah. I can tell. Okay, so now she's off. Now, so you can see, too, they're letting her stop off with all her friends and to say goodbye. They're showing her just how much...

They are on her side. Yes. Right. So now that's the substitution for the parents. It's like, well, your parents don't care for you. They're abusing you. Look at how nice we are to you. We'll give you everything you could possibly want. Exactly. And more. Oh, yeah. One of the attorneys involved in our case said, I don't know.

a smart thing. He said, "They took your daughter and they taught her how to weaponize the system. And now, you know, you've got this super smart kid who has learned that she can get what she wants just by saying a few key words. And what do you think, since August 18th, those are her keywords. I'll kill myself if you don't let me." You know, I mean, she has like, now she knows. So how do you work around that or come back for that? I don't know.

But she did go to Wyoming. She was there for a month. While she was in Wyoming, we were given very little information. But we did email them constantly and say things like, we want to make sure she's not being called Leo. We want to make sure you're not letting her live as a boy. We're not okay with this. We want to make sure that you're not transitioning her to—

And, you know, no men's products, because that was another thing. At the first hospital, I started giving her men's hygiene products to use. Even after I was like, no, I'll bring her stuff from home. She doesn't need Old Spice. You know, she needs. And so. So what were they doing and what were they telling you?

They told us that they're going to do what the patient needs them to do to get well. They said therapeutically they had to meet her where she was, and if she was a boy right now, they had to meet her as a boy. And I was like, I'm not... Yeah, well, they're basically... It depends on the state, but they were likely mandated by law to do that. I mean, I know in Canada, for example...

under the dictates of so-called gender-affirming care, that therapists are punished. It's a punishable offense for a therapist not to affirm the stated gender of a minor. Even if there were some sensible therapists there, and those are becoming very hard to find, by the way, the probability that they would be able to go against her stated wishes in an institutional setting, even if they thought they should, is low.

Right, because that's exactly what the... And these bills that ban so-called conversion therapy, they're aimed precisely at ensuring that a child who's possessed by an evil whim, as is the case in your daughter, and then being egged on by narcissistic and cowardly psychopaths, the therapists are...

and physicians, for that matter, are required by law to continue with the lie. Right. And so everyone who's watching and listening should know that, too. So you bring your child who has gender dysphoria and associated conditions to a therapist or a medical professional at your peril. Right. And theirs, too. And so, I mean, what do you do? How do you treat these kids? Yeah.

But I mean, so she stays in Wyoming for a month and they bring her back to the state of Montana. And at that point, she went into a group home called it was run by an agency called Youth Dynamics.

Youth dynamics. Yep. And at the group home, they socially transitioned her. They allowed her to be called Leo, he, him. And what had they done in Wyoming in that regard? Same thing. So she's well on the pathway now. So she's on the path now. Right. Now she's surrounded by people who are also bolstering her story that you guys...

aren't to be trusted, that you've alienated her, that you likely abused her, that the fact that you wouldn't go along with her true identity means that you're not to be trusted, all of that. Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah. And so now that's where we have her. She's very, very angry. Yeah, I bet. You know, and more of the manipulation and the lies and stuff are coming up. And what sort of lies are you seeing at that point?

They were actually, like we mentioned earlier, she had already turned their sights on them. So CPS would call and say that your daughter, Jennifer, just told me off, just cussed me out on the phone. And she said there's apparitions floating around and those kinds of things. The same stuff was starting all the way. She had called CPS. She said, you're in a cult and I'm never coming back to Glasgow because I'm not going to live in your cult. And just more of...

Right. Of what she was doing before, only on a bigger scale. Extreme limit pushing. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And one thing during both the Wyoming time, and at first it seemed like a coincidence, but it just kept going on and on. We were given the wrong contact information to her where she was at in Wyoming, cut off, and every number we'd be given, we couldn't contact her. And then when they moved her again, it was the same problem all over again. That did happen.

And it was strange how we're given the wrong number everywhere. Yeah, right. Strange. Absolutely. That's exactly the kind of behind-the-scenes manipulation you'd expect from people who are narcissistic psychopaths. Even the court-appointed attorney's numbers we were given were completely wrong, and they gave them out-of-country phone numbers for her and I.

Yeah, it was a lot of work. So they didn't even start interacting in it until weeks into it. Okay, so she's in Wyoming for a month, then she comes back to Montana. Now she's in this group you said... She's in a group home? Run by... Youth Dynamics. And they're continuing with the transition. I imagine you did some background research on that group. What

What did you find out about them? They're in a very woke area of our state. Montana's pretty broken up. But the area that they are is particularly woke. Okay, and what do you mean by that exactly? And how did you know that? Well, they allowed... They believe that you can transfer your gender when you want. Like, today I want to be a girl. Oh, tomorrow I'm going to be a boy, so call me this name. And then some of the other things that they believe in and that they kind of tout are...

Just not our beliefs. Okay, well, we can leave it at that. That's fine. That's fine. And so, in this group home, she's allowed 100% socially transition. She is called Leo. She's been given a chest binder. Oh, yeah. She's allowed to wear men's clothes, straight down to the boxer shorts. I mean, everything. Yeah. And so, we would visit down there. And she's 14. She's 14. She shaved her head, so she had, like, this really masculine, you know, haircut. Yeah.

At the school program, which was run by an agency called New Day, she was allowed to be in all the boys groups and present herself as a boy at school. Right. Now she's in a different school. Do you have any idea how life at that school is working out for her?

We went down there together to see her, and everything was great. The visit was great. She seemed excited about coming home, like, when can she come home? The visit was fantastic. However, she was, you could see, being socially transitioned, but pieces of...

who she really was was apparent. Like, you could tell she missed being with us. Okay, so you went to visit her when she was still in the group home? Twice. And the second time, I went for a long walk with her in the back, and she said she don't know why she tells these lies. She was like, can't wait to come home. And I was almost in tears. I was. I was crying. She said...

I can't wait. I want to come home. I'm so sorry for the problem. I'll never do these things again. And I promised her that. Well, you can imagine that there's a part of her, you know, imagine her split in some ways into two parts. And so there's the part that's new that's,

that's excited about her new identity and attracting all this attention and toying with this idea and these fantasies. So that's the fantasy world. And then there's the true part of her that's like pining like mad for her actual life and missing. I mean, how long has she been away from you guys now? At that, the... August...

We're looking at like October, November. Right, so number of months, and she's 14. And so all of this hospitalization, everything descended on her with the same rapidity that it descended on you with even more disruption. Because at least you guys got to go home and you had each other. And all of a sudden she's like in, she's in serious no man's land.

And we knew we were in trouble, though, when we went to see her because it went so good. The place where she was being housed at, they were all excited how good everything just went again. And we were supposed to come back and take her to dinner that night. So we were all excited about that. And she was excited. And then they called us about an hour before that and said, CPS in Glasgow called. And they said, absolutely not. The parents are not allowed to be alone with her.

And we're like, wow. How the hell did they find out? Every time things would be where she wanted to come back home and things were good, CPS would step in and block it. Do you have any idea who was doing that and why? The counselor. The counselor, the one that had come to your house? Yeah, the one at the group home. So in the group home, they have like an in-house counselor that she saw.

So you think that counselor was contacting CPS? Yes. Absolutely. Because he was saying, you know, when the parents are here, they will only call her Jennifer. They won't call her Leo. Oh, yeah. And that you could tell it was upsetting CPS.

Those people. There's a special place in hell for him. Yeah. So you could tell that they were not happy with us, even though we were very polite to them. But we wouldn't buy into it. We'd be like, okay, Jennifer, show us your room. Okay, Jennifer, let's look at not Leo. We would never say Leo. And I even told her, I'm like, the haircut looks really masculine. Is that the look you were going for? And she was kind of like, you know. So things like that continue to go on.

Okay, okay. So, all right, so now she's in the group home and hypothetically she's going to come home. What does happen? So during this whole time, we're having monthly court meetings to see, so the judge could just see where we're at, you know, where CPS was at with everything. And everyone has a lawyer. Todd had a lawyer. I had a lawyer assigned to me. Our daughter has a lawyer assigned to her. CPS has a lawyer. Then there's a CASA guardian. There's all these people. And so almost every court

thing was about a half hour long and during that they all kind of talked to each other you know I'm like are we going to get to the point here like shouldn't we be talking about our daughter and what's going on with her not what you did last weekend because I don't care you know and so um

And finally, our public defenders told us, just keep your head down, play nice. And at the end of this group home program, which is about six months, you'll have your daughter back in your care. Yeah. And then you can go on with your life. So we were like, OK, well, it all came to a head because finally we're like, no, we're not OK with this. We don't want to play nice anymore. We don't want to do any of these things anymore.

And at that point, this was on January, I believe it was January 19th. And the guardian came over? Yeah, the 19th. Well, the guardian came over in October. But on January 19th, basically, CPS wanted to step out of the case and place our daughter with her birth

mother who now lives in Canada with her new husband. Probably important not to skip past the Guardian coming in October. The reason that's important is that's when we knew what the game was. Okay, the Guardian. Tell me about the Guardian. The Guardian and Lydam came to our house. It was a very pleasant meeting. She was...

And who is this guardian? State-appointed guardian of your child? Okay, she comes to meet with you. Okay. Meeting went great. We sat in the kitchen, visited. Everything was great. Very friendly. Very comfortable with her. And when we're walking out, she stopped and she said, I need to know what's this going to look like, you raising, having a transgender child. Are you going to...

If you're not going to agree to call her by her preferred pronouns and raise her as a boy, then you're not going to like what I have to say in court. That's what she said. That was her wording. So much for the niceness. I was blown away. And she even brought us an article that said how we should be supportive. Like, we should use the pronouns that she wants. And I was like, no. I said, I don't need your article. We're good. Pamphlets on how to raise a transgender child, okay.

whole band. No, no, you guys were, no. You were either going to go along with the lie or you were going to get like raked over the coals. That was the game. And all the niceness is there just so the people who are doing it don't have to face who they actually are. Yes. Yes. So what happened?

was we released our video that was 17 minutes long saying this is what we've gone through with the system. Okay, tell me about that. When did you do that? January 17th. Okay, you released it where? I released it on YouTube. And Facebook. And Facebook. Okay, so what made you decide to do that? We had no choice. We're at the end of our line. I see. You transitioned our daughter. You're destroying our lives. So you thought...

We're just going to make everything transparent and public, and we're going to take our chances. Because everything that we've talked about so far, we were not allowed to even breathe a word of in court. Everything that's been said so far, they— What do you mean you weren't allowed to? Anything we would tell the court appointed attorneys, but we just told you and we talked about so far, and none of it would come out in court. Why?

We have no idea. We'd have to sit there and just shut up. They would talk, and none of it would ever come out. How did you control your temper? It was more shock all the time. I was pinching him under the table. I'm a common, and I'm like pinching him. I married well. I married well. That's all.

Yeah. She keeps me at it. But it was hard. Well, you said, no, I think your answer is good, that you were so shocked that you didn't actually know what to do. I'm sure that's true. Absolutely. You think it's like being in a movie. Right, right. And we couldn't believe that they would sit there and say things that were completely the opposite of the truth. And even things we would point out saying, okay, this is an outright lie. You have this completely backwards. And they say, we know it can't be changed, though. That was their...

For instance, like on the affidavit, they submitted an affidavit to court and it says, you know, we weren't providing housing, clothing, food and all this stuff. And we said, hey, you were at our house. And this report over here that you made says our house was clean, well stocked and no dangers. We were told, oh, well, that's a template that we use for affidavits. So just ignore that part. Oh, I see. Oh, that's very convenient for you guys. Yeah, but it's listed. It's...

In the record. Anybody, if you saw that, how would you know? I mean, it looks like we're these terrible people who live in squalor and run like a meth den or something, you know, with this poor kid in it. And that's not true at all. Wow, wow, wow. Okay, okay. So you've had enough by January 19th. I bet you've had enough. January 17th. You released a 17-minute video on YouTube. We did. What do you tell? We tell our stories. In very good taste. We don't use any names.

None of that at all. Yep. We didn't mention it. And where did you release it? I put it on YouTube as well as Facebook. Just on your social media? Yes. I see. So it was just a local thing, essentially. And what happened? It started to catch fire. So that was on 17th. On the 18th, our daughter's attorney...

filed a motion in court that said they have to take their video down and they're not allowed to talk about anything. - Yes. - And so this was on the 18th. And so I was like, "Okay, I see your motion." They emailed it to me. So I was like, "How serious do I take this? I don't know." So on the 19th, we go to court

And the judge literally— For this? Yeah. So it's that fast, two days later. The court system can move pretty quickly when they need to. When they want to. But before, this is an important lead-up, too. There's plenty of witnesses to this, too. And we were told prior to that, the purpose of this is the judge is going to put you in your place. The attorneys said that to us about eight times. Her attorney? Her attorney.

Our public defense. Yeah, they said. They said, you've really made this judge mad. She's going to put you in your place. Over and over. Yeah, over and over. She's going to really come at you. You shouldn't have done that. We're glad you did in one way, guys. But on the other way, you really shouldn't have done that in the video. And so when we got to court on the 19th, CPS wanted out of the case. They wanted to place Jennifer with her birth mother in Canada. And

And they just wanted— Why did they want out of the case? It was getting too hot? I think it's getting too much attention and too hot. I see. So it's just time to foister off somewhere else. Yes. So what they did was the judge and the attorneys intervened, and they said, well, what have you done to investigate this mom in Canada who hasn't been with this child in seven years, hasn't really spoke to her, hasn't seen her? Right.

how have you done? And they said, well, we got a background check. So then they were like, okay, well, she's in Kitchener, Ontario. So in the other providences, if she got in trouble, would it show in Kitchener? And they're like, probably not.

So the judge was like, I want you to do more looking into the birth mom and making sure it's an appropriate step. Okay, so let me separate these. You have a court case for January 19th about your video. This case that you're referring to is separate from that? Nope, it all happened on the same day. Oh, I see. Okay. So the judge was going to put you in your place, but also was attending to...

the safety of your daughter in relationship to this transfer. Okay, okay. So it was like a dual, she addressed a couple issues in that. I see. And she told us that day, the judge said that we needed to accept that reunification with our daughter wasn't going to be what we were expecting. That it was going to be that she probably didn't live with us, but we had a chance to rebuild a relationship with her. Have a question or need how-to advice? Just ask MetaAI.

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is what she said to us. - Yeah, and regarding the video too, the judge never watched the video, had never seen it. The judge even admitted to that court, never watched it, didn't even want to take the time to watch it. And she did ask the county attorney if he had watched it.

Nothing alarming. They didn't use any names, unless there's other copies that are longer. And there wasn't. There was only the one. So what did they tell you you had to do? We got 10—remove it right now. You got 10 minutes, or you go to jail. On what grounds? Contempt of court. Oh, my gosh. So we had to do that. But what had you done wrong before the contempt of court? Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.

I see. So if you didn't take it down, that was contempt of court. But there was no reason that you had to take it down apart from that, as far as you can tell. No, it was done in taste. It was done very polite. So did she offer any explanation at all for her? Just anger and put us in our place. Nope. Yelled, screamed at us. Oh, wow. So, okay, now you've...

You've lost your daughter and you've been through the social work meat grinder, legal meat grinder, and now you make this public because you actually have the right to freedom of speech and all you did was tell the truth. And apparently you annoyed a judge for reasons that you don't understand and they told you that you either take it down or you're going to go to jail.

That's the situation. Oh, yeah. So that's fun. So what are you thinking about your place in the world at this point? We're blown away by that because it was so simple. We see other people put way more stuff up. We did not name our child. And they also, their attorney, the attorney for our daughter that was, she's very woke, said, um,

He said he was born, he lives in Glasgow. In the video, I said, I'm from Glasgow, Montana. And I've lived there. I said, I was born in Glasgow, Montana, and I've lived in Montana much of my life. So that was a big crime, they said. That was a big one because then everybody can figure out where our daughter's from. So we thought that's on everybody's Facebook profiles already, right? Yeah.

That's a crime? So we took the video. We did take the video down in 10 minutes. This is a Friday, and I don't really want to sit in jail over the weekend, which I know was her intent. And so I'm like, okay. So I took the video down, but somebody else had already copied it and released it on Rumble and other places. And I don't know who did that.

Right.

All throughout the girls' lives, we had three of the girls in our care when they were minors. And I had them in counseling right away because they told me horror stories about this birth mother and terrible things that supposedly happened. So as soon as I married Todd, I put them all in counseling. One of those counselors wrote a letter stating that if...

the birth mother wanted to be reunited with Jennifer that she needed to go through reunification therapy, have visits, all the claims that the kids had made needed to be looked into. So right from the get-go, I gave CPS those letters from that counselor back in 2008.

17, I think it was, maybe 18. And they were like, well, she's not doing that now. And I'm like, well, no, she's not doing that now because she hasn't seen our daughter in seven years. Yeah. So we don't know. They didn't care. They don't care. So we don't know what's going on. No, you definitely have them confused with people who cared. Yeah. Quite the contrary. Yeah, it is. Right, right. And so that's where she is now. And so what do you guys face now?

practically and legally into the future. So when was the last time you were in communication with your daughter? Not in probably over a month now. It's been a while. And that's because we had the weekly where we talk on webcam with her, with a counselor. Right. So that's monitored. So we haven't had that anymore at all. How come? And also her sister, who loves her, her sister is in the Navy, loves her to death. And

They, CPS blocked communication with her too. So she cannot talk to her sister Jennifer. So now it's your communication with your daughter blocked? Blocked. And then also during this time, well, they've hit her too. My, like her grandparents that aren't blocked, they kept forgetting over and over, they kept saying it was an oversight that she wasn't allowed to call them and wasn't on the call list. And we would keep going through the attorneys and,

So what do you think is in the offings for your daughter? Is she living as Leo at the moment? Yes, she is. And what's the plan? Her birth mom is in Canada with her and supports her being transgender, supports her being called Leo. I don't know what health care she can get in Canada. She can get, you know, the double mastectomy and stuff. I don't know what's available to her. Anything. Anything.

And that's very... And not just available, recommended. Yes, that's very, very scary to us. And, you know, our greatest fear is that she will, I don't know, if you want to say grow out of this phase or come around from this phase, she's 14. 80% of kids or more really grow out of it by 18. Yeah. And at that point, what damage has been done? And at that point, what if she really does want to kill herself then? Like, what have we done to support her and help her

through the basic mental crisis that she had. I don't feel like the system helped her at all. Yeah, well, you can say that again. Montana, we found out just recently, leads the U.S. according to an article on child takeaways by CPS. That is true. It's the capital of it in the whole United States. Montana. So how do you guys reconcile yourself with your situation as citizens in the United States now? I mean...

Like, this is—I've heard stories like this before, unfortunately. I've watched people who were perfectly good parents fall into the maw of Child Protective Services, often because their child was foolish enough to make a false complaint. And then, like, all hell breaks loose. And you're lucky. Like, while you guys weren't lucky, you know, things really got out of hand for you. But—

Anybody whose life isn't destroyed by that completely is fortunate. So now you're in a dire situation, and so is your daughter. What's your next move? And what's your status legally? Because you guys, you weren't supposed to put up this video, but here you are talking to me. So my suspicions are this is going to make you very popular. No, so one of the lawmakers that actually...

pass the law said. They're not following the laws correctly. And that's the whole problem here. It isn't the lawmakers. The lawmakers have the right laws up, but CPS, and I don't know if woke is the word or whatever the word is to use that kind of evil, but they're able to just go right around the laws like, oh,

They're going to ban this in Montana. We're going to send her to Wyoming. Everything has been that way. And the lawmakers are commenting on our video, the video they made us took down. The people that were commenting on it were the lawmakers from the state. And they're saying, yeah, this is wrong. They're doing this 100% backwards.

So our situation now, to run back to it, is we are in contempt of court. We have a court hearing on Wednesday. And you're in contempt of court for what? For speaking. We're not supposed to speak about our case or anything like that at all. Again, everything that we talk about. So why are you? Because...

I keep telling people, our family has been destroyed. There'll never be a family unit of Krista, Todd, and Jennifer again. That is done. Our life that way as we know it is destroyed. But the best thing that we can do is make sure that this doesn't happen again, at least in the state of Montana. I mean, we have to get the word out. We have to do whatever we can do to make sure another family— Why are you willing to take that risk?

Because it's the right thing to do for one. And for another, we don't want another family to go through what we've gone through. Oh, absolutely. And also, it'd be a crime not to. Exactly. Because when did the U.S. shift to a country where CPS can say, you don't even get a voice? 2015. What have we said here today that is harmful to anybody?

That it has to be gag-ordered, banned, and more jailed. It's going to be harmful to you. It is. Well, I can see, you know, to some degree, you've already had everything that can really be taken away. And that's another thing. You've already taken our child. That's right. What's next? That's exactly right. You're going to take my house? Well, I would also say, like, you're...

your best determination is to go out with guns blazing. And that's where we're at. Right, absolutely. Make absolutely every bit of this as public as you possibly can. And assume even if you get nailed on Wednesday, if you get nailed for contempt, which you likely will, more of it, more of it. Because the more attention that you attract to what's happened to you,

the more effective your stance is going to be. So I would say my family has been under attack many times for things not quite as dire as what you're going through. But...

Your silence is what's required. Exactly. Yeah, and you have the weapon of your voice. Right, and if we're quiet, then we're helping the system. Absolutely. How is that helping another family? Or you, for that matter. Or you. I mean, you know, there's still some possibility that you could see your way through this. Like, I've seen families who've gone through situations similar to yours, or worse even, still...

weave things back together eventually, you know? So people grow up, things change. And we are open to that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, that would be the best possible case scenario. And you know, what your daughter's really going to want in the depth of her heart is to see that you are doing absolutely everything you can to fight 100% for her, you know? And to whatever degree the part of her that's still oriented in her own favor isn't

completely buried it's going to be that part's going to be looking to see what sort of commitment you have to her long-term thriving so wednesday eh wednesday yes and we have a first amendment attorney involved you know they filed appeals in the supreme court and stuff and well you're lucky in the united states you have pretty powerful free speech protection yeah so with any luck

That will actually protect you. In Canada, the situation's much worse. We have a Charter of Rights, but that bloody thing is worth the paper it's printed on. And so basically in Canada, it's already been decided that any half-wit, mid-level bureaucrat of exactly the sort that you guys have been tangling with can put pretty much any restrictions whatsoever on freedom of speech and freedom of association and, well, those two in particular.

for whatever reason they deem reasonable. So, but you do have First Amendment protection in the U.S., so my suspicions are if you keep fighting this that you'll probably win. How are you affording this? We have a give-send-go. Yeah. You know, I mean, we're trying to rally and to raise money. We, at one point, not to jump backwards, but at one point we were told, you know, see

CPS has a budget of like 3.5 million dollars. And so, we're like, why can't—why does our family unit—because they're saying that we have to have a treatment plan. Which their treatment plan is they want us to go to marriage counseling and accept Jennifer for what she is. And I said, "No, you're not going to make me go to—you didn't—you just socially transitioned my daughter, and now you want me to go to counseling to accept it." You bet! It's time to transition you! No! The answer is no.

No way. That's not going to happen. Go and record it. They did. They actually did...

want us to go to counseling to learn how to raise that. They want me to go to counseling in Canada too to be re-educated. No, like, no. They said we have to. Yeah, yeah, no, I understand. Yeah, so they're saying, no, you don't understand. They were laughing at us the other day. They're like, you don't understand. You have to go. And I'm like, I don't have to go to counseling to accept something that's not true. Like, if you told me you were a unicorn, I don't have to go to counseling to accept that. I didn't tell you that before this started. Hey!

It's a hell of a time to bring it up now. That's just crazy, you know? No, it's not just crazy. It's mandatory and it's illegal not to do it. Right? That's how crazy it is. And so we're working with people who are like, why? Okay, this is the first transgender case in the state of Montana. So why can't they work with us a little bit and say, let's bring in an expert and say, how do you read it?

reunify this family that you've, you know, you've torn apart. That is definitely not the goal. And they're not open to it at all. That is not the goal. The goal is exactly what happened to you. That was the goal, right? And the goal is the eventual full transition of your daughter. That is the goal, for sure, and publicly. And hopefully it will cause you a lot of pain along the way. Right, that's the goal. Make no mistake about it.

Yeah. Well, good luck with your court case. Keep me posted. We will. Yeah, maybe what we should do, you guys can decide this, but maybe we should do a brief follow-up by Zoom after your court case. You know, think about it for a couple of days because they're going to come down like a ton of bricks on you, I imagine. And so then you'll have to decide, you know, what you're willing to do.

Well, we were told by an attorney before we walked out here that the press is filing action to be in the courtroom on Wednesday because they want to be able to report on the contempt of court charges and see what happens to us. So we were told that they're trying to do that. And at this point, I think the judge said no. So Monday is a court holiday. So on Tuesday, the press has lawyers that are going to file action

now being a little more persistent. Like, no, they have a right for freedom of speech. The press has a right to report on this. You have to let them in. One quick thing, though, that there's that

They're not playing by the same rules, though. We have the governor's office making comments about us that are wrong. Yeah, yeah. And not only that— Forget—you guys are way outside the domain of rules. Yeah, we were— This is no man's land and war. Oh, yeah. You're way outside the rules. We've been accused of having, like, meth labs and living in squalor and all kinds of stuff like that.

Well, if you're going to have a meth lab, you might as well live in squalor, you know? You might. We were out for dinner. We were actually out for dinner while they had our daughter. And we had one of the staff members from the hospital—we think it's one of the nurses—

that evidently interviewed our daughter or something, actually approached us in front of a crowded, we're at a crowded place out for dinner and started raising our voice and saying, we should have, and they called her by name and we should have allowed her to transgender, that we should have,

promoted that we should have laughed her on what she wanted and everybody heard it now they did suspend have you had have you had okay so let's end with this let's end this section I'm going to continue talking um for another half an hour on the Daily Wire plus side just so everybody who's listening knows and I think I'm going to talk to this couple about um

about, well, their feelings about the country they live in now, I would say, and what's happened to it, because I would like to delve into that to some degree, and what they think is going to happen to them in the future. And so, join us for that. Join us for that. Okay, so I do have one question for you. Well, you know, you guys have been under a lot of pressure to admit to your

to the wrongdoing that you've committed, right? The fact that you didn't abide by your daughter's demands, the fact that you're unfit parents as a consequence of that, the fact that now you're doubling down so hard that you're willing to divide the courts. It's like, to what degree have you had periods of time where you wondered whether you were in the wrong

It's happened. Yeah, well, I imagine. I can't imagine. Sometimes daily. Like, sometimes I say, gosh, is this worth it? Should we just walk away and, you know, go live quietly somewhere? But no, that's not the right thing to do. That doesn't help anybody else. So we're going to keep fighting. It just enables it to get worse and worse and worse. Oh, yeah, it'll get worse. There's, you know, that's...

Hell is a bottomless pit because no matter how bad it is, there's some stupid something somebody can do to make it worse. And so, yeah, yeah, this is, well, you've definitely seen a long way into the abyss, but there's many layers below that if you really want to visit them. And silence definitely increases the probability that those additional layers will make themselves manifest.

So, I mean, we're already pretty far down the rabbit hole, right? Once we've got to the point where the state can take your child on the grounds of your abuse to mutilate, castrate, and sterilize them, and to claim that that's virtuous. Right. That's a long way down the rabbit hole. But there's more distance yet to go. For sure. Yeah. Brutal. Well, I'm very sorry to hear what's happened to you. That's...

And congratulations on your courage. That's rare. Way rarer than you think. Way rarer than you want to think. Most people, they retreat into silence, you know, or they explode. And you can certainly understand that. And so you've managed neither of those. And so, well... Rather be in contempt of their court than God's court, though. Yeah, well, that's right. That's for sure. That's right. All right. Well...

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