"I investigated child abuse in Iowa for decades. Kim Reynolds is wrong about the threats."

[progressoid]

Laura Hansen
March 3, 2024 at 11:00 AM

Gov. Kim Reynolds, Republican legislators, and their anti-LGBTQ+ supporters are protecting pedophiles and placing children at risk of sexual abuse by advocating and advancing their predator-protection agenda.

I was a child abuse investigator for the state of Iowa, primarily in Polk County, for 34 years. In over three decades of investigations conducted jointly with area law enforcement agencies, I never investigated a child sex abuse case perpetrated by a drag queen. Never, in over three decades, did I ever hear a child report during a forensic interview at the Regional Child Protection Center that he/she was assaulted in a bathroom by a drag queen or trans stranger. Never did I even read such an account when reviewing thousands of case histories over decades. Although, I heard many children’s accounts of being groomed by a sexual predator, not one child mentioned being groomed by a school library book.

Why? Because the overwhelming majority of child sexual abuse is perpetrated by male members of the child’s family (fathers, stepfathers, mothers’ paramours, uncles, grandfathers, siblings, cousins) or the family’s inner circle (pastors, youth leaders, coaches, babysitters, neighbors). I investigated hundreds of such cases.

The vast majority of child sexual abuse, like most violent crime assaults, is perpetrated by those who are close to the child/family and have easy access. These are the predators who are grooming children, not the author of a memoir or a book with a LBGTQ+ character.

more...https://www.aol.com/investigated-child-abuse-iowa-decades-170033634.html

[AllaN01Bear]

1. thank you for this peice .

i didnt choose this , it is the way it is . don t like it ? too bad. i had no choice in the matter and i wasnt groomed as some of u rs think.

[patphil]

2. Scapegoating the LGBTQ community for political gain is a Republican party platform plank.

This is what you do when you don't really give a shit about solving the problem. It's all about maintaining control of the government so they can control people's lives.
The Republicans are very good at creating fear, anger, hatred, and violence in their base.
Hitler used the Jews as his focal point. Republicans use LGBTQ people as one of theirs.

[erronis]

3. Well said. They have to manufacture some "other" to instill fear in their flocks.

[Ford_Prefect]

5. It is well known that much of the Trump GOP playbook came from Putin's trolls. They had direct and significant

influence over the planning and policies used during the Trump campaign 2014 through his time in office. it has been observed that he used much the same strategies and actions as Putin and his representatives did to destabilize the Ukraine government in the years leading to the 1st invasion.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

6. The RW propaganda machine keeps the rage up to keep thinking down.

[LoisB]

7. Hear! Hear!

[liberal N proud]

4. Republicans are expert at vilifying those who do not fit their mold

[sop]

8. "The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to

safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." - H. L. Mencken

[progressoid]

9. The GOP has used this stategy well in the past.

Not surprised they would continue it today.