SC Freedom Caucus' RJ May facing "child sexual abuse materials" indictments

May and the Freedom Caucus have often leaned into the idea that children are under threat from "gender ideology" or "indoctrination".

Content warning: discussions of allged sexual crimes involving young children.

Updated to add [6/14/25]: As I’ve written before, the most significant issue raised by fake moral panics over “protecting children” is that they often target the people who are actually trying to help children, and from the systemic changes that actually need to be put into place to make children safer. While the hypocrisy of May supporting anti-transgender legislation in the name of “insur[ing] that our children have no harm done to them,” while allegedly distributing child pornography is of course compelling, the larger issue is that fake moral panics provide a smokescreen for real harm to children. In this case, May’s remarks might literally have been a way to deflect from his own actions.

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Robert John “RJ” May III, former chair of the South Carolina Freedom Caucus, was indicted by…