A former Democratic New Hampshire state rep, believed to be the first elected openly transgender lawmaker in the US, recently pleaded guilty to child sex abuse charges involving children in daycare.
According to WMUR, Stacie-Marie Laughton, 41, a biological male who identifies as female, pleaded guilty to charges including sexual exploitation of children last week in a Boston federal court.
Laughton, who authorities identify using feminine pronouns, is accused of working with ex-girlfriend Lindsay Groves to exploit children at a daycare center called Creative Minds in Tyngsboro Massachusetts.
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Federal prosecutors said that four pictures of children thought to be around 3 to 5 years old were sent to Laughton by Groves, who took the horrific images in the bathroom of the daycare center.
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Fox News reports: Per the filing, Laughton and Groves “exchanged thousands of text messages” around the time that the images were sent. In the messages, Laughton expressed interest in having sex with the children, according to investigators.
When Laughton was elected as a state representative in 2012, she was considered to be the first openly transgender person elected to a state legislature. She was also the first one in New Hampshire’s history.
However, Althea Garrison, a former Massachusetts state representative elected in 1992, was technically the first transgender elected lawmaker, though not openly. She did not come out until shortly after the 1992 election.
Laughton’s political career was marked by complications and legal troubles. Shortly after Laughton was elected in 2012, she announced that she would not serve due to previous felony-level credit card fraud convictions.
She tried to run again in 2014, but the New Hampshire Ballot Law Commission denied her request on the basis of the suspended sentence. In 2020, Laughton ran to represent the New Hampshire House of Representatives for District 31 and won.
She represented Nashua’s Ward 3 until 2022, when she resigned after being arrested over a stalking incident.
