Reduxx, Feminist News and Opinion
written by Jennifer Seiland
Friday October 7, 2022
A popular transgender TikToker in Australia is facing multiple charges related to the repeated sexual abuse of a child.
Rachel Queen Burton, 44, has been accused of crimes including the production of child exploitation material and gross indecency. In total, Burton is facing 8 charges, all of which appear to stem from a child victim who was repeatedly abused throughout 2019. While Burton is from Australia’s Northern Territory, the crimes were committed in the Southern state.
Burton’s case was first reported by The Advertiser, which referred to Burton as a “woman” and utilized feminine pronouns for him.
Burton was best known for his popular TikTok account, which had over 36,000 followers and boasted 418,000 ‘likes.’ On his profile, he describes himself as a “proud trans woman” who is “living my best life with no regrets.”
His birth name has not yet been verified, but it is known that Burton is the father of four children, all of whom seem to be tattooed on his chest. He does not appear to have lived with the children at any point in the last year, which is when his TikTok account was launched.
In January, Burton posted a video announcing he had been on hormone replacement therapy for 1 month and providing his viewers an update on his physical health.
“I [thought] I was supposed to get moody. But I haven’t been moody since starting the testosterone blockers … I got a little bitchy — just a little bitchy, that was when I was straight on the estrogen,” Burton explains, “I still cry. I still cry heaps. I’m still an emotional wreck. But it’s a nice emotion.”
Burton’s arrest is reflected in his account’s history, as he abruptly stopped posting regular content in June, apparently after being taken into police custody.
Comments on all of Burton’s TikTok videos have been disabled. But in an update video posted by user mairbear_67, commenters can be seen expressing their suspicions that something had not been quite right with Burton.
“That’s why [he] never spoke of [his] kids!” One viewer replied, with another writing: “Always had an off vibe about [him].”
While prosecutors moved to postpone Burton’s case by 10 weeks in order to conduct an electronic analysis of his laptop, his defense lawyers objected, complaining that Burton had already been detained for four months pending trial. Burton has not entered a plea on any of the charges.
Magistrate Simon Smart opted to remand Burton to custody. A hearing on the charges is expected in December. It is currently unknown if he is being housed in the male or female estate, but Australian law is notoriously lax on gender self-identification.
According to Women’s Forum Australia, the state of South Australia, where Burton is being tried, has no straightforward policies on where to place transgender inmates, but individuals are usually accommodated on a case-by-case basis.
Prison gender self-identification laws have become a significant discussion in Australia following a recent protest by female inmates against a trans-identified male they were being incarcerated with.
In August, female inmates at Australia’s largest women’s correctional facility in Victoria launched a petition to have a trans-identified male sex offender removed out of fears for their own safety.
The women advised media that they had no prejudices against transgender individuals, but were concerned for their safety as the transfer had a “working” penis and a history of violent sexual assault. According to the petition — after learning of the convict’s transfer, “the mental well-being of many of the women was severely compromised. They became visibly upset as they were triggered and traumatized.”
While the name of the transferred inmate was not released to the public, Reduxx determined that the details from the criminal’s background mirror that of Lisa Jones, a trans-identified male who had been sentenced to 3 years and 3 months in prison for sexually assaulting a woman last year. During his trial, it was revealed that Jones also had a prior record for sexually abusing a 6-year-old girl in Germany.
Reduxx, Feminist News and Opinion
written by Reduxx Team
Thursday October 13, 2022
An Australian man who identifies as transgender has pleaded guilty to three offenses related to possessing “extreme” child sexual exploitation materials, including videos he created of himself performing sex acts next to a sleeping 5-year-old.
Josh Dean French, 25, who goes by the name ‘Jayda Dean,’ confessed to twice filming himself masturbating next to his friend’s sleeping child, opportunistically exploiting the 5-year-old while her mother ran an errand. French had been work colleagues and friends with the girl’s mother, and she had trusted him to keep an eye on the house while she went to the grocery store.
French first came under police scrutiny during a separate investigation into an unnamed individual suspected of child sexual abuses. Law enforcement became aware of communications between the suspect and French, who was using his “female” name to communicate with the other pedophile. On November 9, 2021, police raided French’s home and seized his electronic devices.
In total, authorities found 73 “extreme” videos and images on French’s devices, 49 of which contained aggravated child sexual abuse, and 24 of which contained non-aggravated child exploitation media. Among them were the two videos of French masturbating by the sleeping girl.
In a statement made during sentencing on September 15, Judge Julie McIntyre highlighted the depraved nature of the material, noting that the abuse images found by police were among the most serious kind.
“The material found in your possession, whilst not extensive, excludes some extremely deviant and depraved material involving the sexual abuse of children, ranging from teenagers to very young children and babies. To describe this material as ‘disturbing’ is an understatement,” Judge McIntyre said.
She emphasized that the possession of child sexual abuse materials “are not victimless crimes.”
“When you access and possess child exploitation material, you access the physical pain and emotional trauma of children being subjected to sexual abuse,” Judge McIntyre elaborated, noting that such abuse causes long-term physical and mental health issues.
“Moreover, the victims live with the knowledge that the images and videos of their abuse exist in perpetuity on the internet. The existence of that material and the continual fear of being identified adds to victims’ feelings of shame and humiliation,” she added.
During a psychological evaluation, French apparently insisted he did not have a sexual attraction to children. He also blamed the child sexual abuse material possession on his male persona, whom he apparently suggested was a separate entity.
French pleaded guilty to one count of aggravated producing child exploitation material, two counts of possessing child exploitation material, one of which relates to material depicting children under 14 years of age, while the other concerns material depicting children over the age of 14.
French was sentenced to a total of 4 years, 10 months, and 8 days after Judge McIntyre imposed a discount on his time served. She noted that he will be eligible for parole in May of 2024. It is unknown if French will be serving his sentence in the female estate, or if he will be ordered to a men’s institution.
According to Women’s Forum Australia, the state of South Australia, where French was convicted, has no straightforward policies on where to place transgender inmates, but individuals are usually accommodated on a case-by-case basis.
French is the second transgender pedophile identified in South Australia, and the third in the country, over the past 30 days. A 2016 report from the Australian Bureau of Statistics reported that there were only 1,260 “gender diverse” people in the entirety of Australia.
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