What’s Current: Convicted child rapist set to be released from prison because he ‘identifies’ as a woman

  • Convicted child rapist Joseph Matthew Smith, now Josie Smith, is set to be released from prison because he identifies as a woman. The Iowa State Attorney General claims Smith no longer has a “male sex drive” after undergoing hormone replacement therapy and is at low risk of reoffending. Smith was jailed in 2014 for raping 15 children whose ages ranged from one to 15.
  • Two former Parole Board of Canada members say changes to the board’s nomination procedures that resulted the hiring of inexperienced members may have been a factor in the murder of Marylène Levesque. Levesque was killed by a man convicted of murdering his former spouse after he was allowed to have his “sexual needs met” while on parole.
  • A group known as Gender Critical Vermont is under fire for alleged transphobia. Lesbian founder Peggy Luhrs cancelled a planned meeting after people protested the “group for Vermonters who oppose the subversion of women’s rights by the transgender agenda.”
  • Scotland Yard has more than doubled the number of officers investigating online child abuse following a 130 per cent increase in offences.
  • A 15-year-old with terminal cancer testified weeks before her death against a drug dealer who sexually exploited her in exchange for crystal meth. 
Meghan McCarty

Meghan McCarty is an undergraduate student and aspiring journalist living in the United States.