One Montana lawmaker and mother in Billings is at the center of a routine harassment campaign from NBC News accusing her of preferring a daughter who pursued suicide over transgenderism.
As Montana representatives began to debate a bill protecting minors who suffer from gender dysphoria in March, Republican State Rep. Kerri Seekins-Crowe spoke about her own family’s struggle with mental health.
“One of the big issues that we have heard today, and we’ve talked about lately, is that without surgery, the risk of suicide goes way up. Well, I am one of those parents who lived with a daughter who was suicidal for three years,” Seekins-Crowe said on the House floor. “Someone once asked me, ‘Wouldn’t I just do anything to help save her?’ And I really had to think, and the answer was, ‘No.’”
In an interview with The Federalist, Seekins-Crowe explained she was drawing parallels between transgender behavior and other actions that suicidal people may threaten, such as self-harm. As a Daily Caller documentary out in February outlined, so-called “sex change” interventions advertised to gender-confused minors are akin to self-harm, leaving teens caught up in the transgender craze with permanent physical deformities and life-long health problems.
While the Montana representative said nothing about her daughter flirting with transgenderism, NBC News ran with the manufactured narrative anyway.
“A recent comment by a Montana state lawmaker who sponsored legislation to ban gender-affirming medical care for transgender minors has gone viral and drawn backlash online,” NBC reported last week. “State Rep. Kerri Seekins-Crowe, a Republican, suggested during a floor debate that she would rather risk her daughter dying by suicide than allow her to transition.”
Seekins-Crowe told The Federalist that NBC ran the story before reaching out for comment.
“Their interest right now is to damage me, to damage my family,” Seekins-Crowe said. “To them, destroying somebody who is against their agenda is a feather in their cap.”
The lawmaker’s daughter, now active in the military, wrapped up a deployment last week as her family faces a deluge of harassing messages sparked by the left-wing outrage machine.
NBC News later published a “clarification” at the bottom of the story to read, Seekins-Crowe “did not say that her daughter identified as transgender; a reference to her indicating that her daughter was transgender has been removed.”
Despite the clarification, NBC’s headline remains, “A Montana lawmaker suggested she’d rather risk her child’s suicide than let her transition.”
Other left-wing outlets, including Salon and The Advocate, regurgitated NBC’s fabricated journalism.
Footage of Seekins-Crowe taken out of context went viral amid the drama at the Montana Capitol, wherein the state’s first transgender-identified lawmaker was reprimanded for “hate-filled” comments on the House floor. Missoula-area Rep. Zooey Zephyr was banned from the lower chamber after encouraging a transgender “insurrection” to take over the House. Police in riot gear were compelled to clear the public gallery last week after pro-trans demonstrators interrupted a House session to demand Zephyr have debate privileges reinstated without apology.
Zephyr was censured by the Republican majority in April after the freshman representative claimed GOP colleagues would pray with “blood on your hands” over a ban on transgender medical interventions for minors. Last week’s disruptions led House Speaker Matt Regier to cancel an entire floor session altogether.
Zephyr, who was temporarily expelled while maintaining remote voting privileges, filed a lawsuit Monday to reclaim access to the House floor. A judge denied the immediate motion Tuesday night. The corporate press eager to make a hero out of Montana’s first trans-identified representative grandstanding on transgender medical interventions for minors capitalized on Seekins-Crowe’s March comments in response to make a villain out of the Republican lawmaker.
[READ: Legacy Media Back Transgender Mob’s Attack On Montana’s Capitol]
“This was a 3-minute story based on three years of life which was an intended response to Zooey Zephyr saying “don’t die, stay alive,’” Seekins-Crowe told The Federalist.
Left-wing gender therapists exploit the threat of suicidal ideation to coerce parents of children struggling with puberty to adopt “gender affirmation.”
[READ: Therapists Have Betrayed The Parents Of Gender-Confused Kids, And There’ll Be Hell To Pay]
Had Seekins-Crowe’s daughter actually been flirting with transgenderism, however, the data makes demonstrably clear that the best way to save her child was to resist hostage demands for affirmation over suicide.
A report from the conservative Heritage Foundation published last summer found that “easing access to cross-sex treatments without parental consent significantly increases suicide rates.”
Another long-term study out of Sweden showed individuals who were given “gender-affirming treatment” were 19 times more likely to die by suicide than the general population.
Montana Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte signed Senate Bill 99 banning transgender medical interventions for minors on Thursday.
“I think that the story is that our families are in chaos,” Seekins-Crowe told The Federalist. Our children need help, and this whole disintegration from truth here is meant to destroy the story instead of help those who are looking for help.”