"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