New Hampshire police arrested transgender state representative Stacie-Marie Laughton for distributing child sex abuse images.
A mug shot of Stacie-Marie Laughton, a transgender-identifying man. (Courtesy of Nausha, New Hampshire's police department)
Laughton, a Democrat, was America’s first transgender state representative. Born male, he went through sex change procedures to resemble a woman.
This incident isn’t Laughton’s first brush with the law. Police arrested Laughton on Nov. 12, accusing him of violating a court order prohibiting him from posting on social media about another individual. According to court documents, prosecutors also seek to impose a suspended sentence of up to nine months he was given last year.
In that case, police accused Laughton of texting 911 “for no emergency or police related matter” a dozen times between May and July 2021. Prosecutors dropped nine of the 12 charges. On the others, courts ordered him to perform community service, participate in a peer support program and remain on good behavior.
A transgender flag sits on the grass outside the U.S. Capitol building in Washington on May 22, 2023. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
In 2012, Laughton, a New Hampshire state-level representative, was the first openly transgender person elected to a state legislature.
But he never took his seat, resigning after a prior felony conviction raised questions about his legal ability to serve.
New Hampshire politicians can only run for office after “final discharge” from prison. When Republicans noted that Laughton was still outside prison only on condition of good behavior, he resigned.
In 2020, Laughton ran for office as a state representative and won. He won again in 2022.
But at the time of his most recent arrest, Laughton wasn’t in office in his third Hillsborough district. He resigned in December 2022 after facing stalking charges.
The Epoch Times reached out to Laughton for comment but received none by publication time.
On the Nausha, New Hampshire, police records website, the press release describing his arrest wasn’t available and displayed an error message.
An officer told The Epoch Times that the website had been hacked and had problems displaying criminal charges.
The police supplied records that referred to Laughton with female pronouns as they charged him with four counts of child pornography distribution.
“On Tuesday, June 20, 2023, Officers responded to a local facility for a juvenile matter. They spoke with reporting parties that indicated Laughton distributed sexually explicit images of children,” the police report reads.
Daycare Worker Arrested
The police also sent The Epoch Times a press release on the arrest of 38-year-old Lindsay Groves on child pornography charges.
“Due to the nature of the investigation members of the Homeland Security Investigations were notified,” the police press release reads.
Groves is a Hudson, New Hampshire, resident.
According to a press release by the Massachusetts Attorney General, authorities arrested Groves for taking sexually explicit pictures of children at Creative Minds, a daycare in Tyngsborough, Massachusetts.
Groves, a daycare employee, sent these pictures to “an individual with whom she was previously in an intimate relationship,” according to the press release. However, the press release never names this individual.
A mug shot of Lindsay Groves. (Courtesy of Nausha, New Hampshire’s police department)
“Due to Groves’s case now being investigated federally, I cannot comment on the connection between the two cases,” Sergeant John Cinelli of the Nashua Police Department told The Epoch Times.
However, New Hampshire city of Nashua police public information officer Sgt. John Cinelli told The Union Leader that Laughton’s arrest stemmed from the same investigation that led to Grove’s arrest.
In office, Laughton sponsored and cosponsored a range of bills that included legalizing marijuana, decriminalizing psychedelic mushrooms, and prohibiting anti-union activities by employers.
Along with Democrats Rep. David Cote and Rep. Fred Davis, Laughton won office in 2022 in his three-seat district with 26.4 percent of the vote.
Voters also chose Laughton in the 2012 state election and 2020 state election.
“Democrats in the State House will always work to protect a women’s (sic) right to an abortion, push to adopt domestic renewable energy so we can lower energy costs and fight to keep public money in public schools so every student in New Hampshire has the opportunity succeed,” Laughton’s House Democrats campaign page reads.
From Prison to Preaching
Recently, Laughton was ordained as a minister, according to his YouTube page.
GetOrdained.org shows Laughton affiliated with Buddhism, Methodism, New Age, Oneness Pentecostalism, Pentecostalism, Protestantism, Rastafarianism, Spiritualism, Tibetan Buddhism, Unitarian Universalism, and Universal Life Church.
It’s not clear what Laughton’s position on child transgenderism is. On his Facebook page, he links to a video from Caitlyn Jenner, a man who says he is a woman.
In the video, Jenner condemns the “radical rainbow mafia.”
“Government’s basically trying to take over our children,” Jenner said. “This is an issue between the parents, God, and their doctor.”
Caitlyn Jenner arrives at the Elton John AIDS Foundation Academy Awards Viewing Party on Sunday, in West Hollywood, Calif., on March 27, 2022. (Willy Sanjuan/Invision/AP)
Experts and activists have voiced concern over men who enjoy dressing as women receiving access to children.
Jon Uhler, a therapist who treats sex offenders, said that in his experience if a man feels comfortable performing sexual dance in a skimpy women’s outfit for children, he’s likely extremely sexually deviant and “poses a significant risk to women and children.”
Some transgender-identifying men experience autogynephilia, a feeling of sexual arousal by thinking of themselves as female.
According to government surveys, nearly 3 percent of men experience this feeling, and increasing numbers of these men identify as transgender.
“Autogynephilia exemplifies an unusual paraphilic category called ‘erotic target identity inversions’, in which men desire to impersonate or turn their bodies into facsimiles of the persons or things to which they are sexually attracted.”
