Transgender Democrat’s child porn charges draw conservative outrage

The news that a transgender former Democratic lawmaker faces charges over allegedly colluding with a daycare center employee to obtain child pornography sparked an avalanche of conservative condemnation.

Stacie Marie Laughton, 39, of Nashua, New Hampshire, was arrested and charged with one count of sexual exploitation of children and aiding and abetting on June 22, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Boston. Federal prosecutors say that Laughton showed several people nude photos of children as young as three that she received from her “intimate partner” who worked at a daycare facility.

The arrest drew widespread Republican backlash on social media over the weekend where people slammed the Democratic Party over its support of the LGBTQ+ community.

Laughton, a Democrat, resigned from the New Hampshire House in December after she was charged with stalking her former partner Lindsey Groves, The Associated Press reports. Groves faces charges for allegedly taking nude photos of children for Laughton and sending them to the former lawmaker, according to federal prosecutors.

Newsweek reached out via email on Sunday to representatives for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Boston. No defense attorney was listed for Laughton in court records at the time of publication.

On June 20, Nashua police responded to a report that Laughton allegedly showed at least three people four images of what appeared to be child pornography, according to the affidavit shared online by the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Groves, 38, of Hudson, New Hampshire, was also charged in June with sexual exploitation of children and distribution of child pornography after she allegedly admitted that she sent the pornographic images to Laughton, according to an online statement from the U.S. Attorney’s Office. Groves confessed to taking nude pictures of several of the children in her care at Creative Minds Early Learning Center in Tyngsborough, Massachusetts, and texting the photos to Laughton, federal prosecutors said.

Investigators uncovered more than 10,000 texts exchanged between Laughton and Groves in less than a month, according to the affidavit. The messages, from May 10 to June 16, included graphic discussion about having sex with underage girls and “at least four sexually explicit images of children” who appear to be roughly 3 to 5 years old, prosecutors said.

The affidavit included several disturbing and graphic excerpts the text exchanges allegedly between Laughton and Groves, which show the pair talking about Laughton, who identifies as female but is biologically male, sexually abusing “little girls” that Groves worked with at the daycare center where she said she was employed for roughly six years.

Laughton’s arrest provoked a wave of criticism on social media, where conservatives lashed out at Democrats over their support of trans rights, including efforts to allow transgender people to use bathroom or locker room facilities matching their gender identities.

Right-wing commentator Steve Bannon weighed in on Saturday, blaming Democrats for “destroying” the county in a post on the social media platform GETTR where he shared a link to a Daily Mail article on Laughton’s arrest.

“Groomer Party @ Work Destroying America,” the former political adviser said.

People expressed outrage over the case on other social media platforms, including Twitter.

“The face of a ‘trans’ Democrat official, who was just arrested on child pornography and exploitation,” Fishing_Huuker tweeted.

Twitter user Bruce Fenton said on Saturday that Democrats “failed the victims,” saying the “entire ideology of the democrats is completely broken.”

Another Twitter user slammed Democrats in New Hampshire for voting multiple times for Laughton, who was first elected to the state legislature in 2012 and again in 2020.

“#Trans activist Stacie Marie Laughton was elected multiple times as a New Hampshire state lawmaker by Democrat voters,” MrAndyNgo tweeted. “Laughton has now been federally charged with aiding and abetting the sexual exploitation of 3–5-year-old children at a daycare.”

One person said anyone who voted for Laughton should be “barred” from voting.

“Democrats actually voted for this thing,” JammieWF said on Twitter. “Anyone who voted for it should be barred from ever voting again.”