Man seeking to ban LGBTQ books over sexual content accused of child molestation
Ryan Utterback said LGBTQ books should be banned because he had "intimate knowledge" of what was appropriate for children
A Missouri parent who wants LGBTQ books removed from school libraries due to sexual content has been accused of child molestation.
Ryan Utterback, a 29-year-old from Gladstone, has been charged with a felony count of second-degree child molestation and a misdemeanor count of fourth-degree domestic assault, KMBC reports.
Last year, Utterback joined a growing trend of conservatives across the country demanding the removal of LGBTQ books from school libraries, often under the guise of objecting to “sexual content.”
During an October 2021 school board meeting, Utterback attempted to convince North Kansas City School District to remove lesbian cartoonist Alison Bechdel’s graphic novel Fun Home, which chronicles her childhood in rural Pennsylvania, claiming it contained sexual material.
In video of the meeting, Utterback can be seen holding boards showing enlarged images from Fun Home while standing alongside Northland Parent Association president Jay Richmond.
Richmond demanded that Fun Home be removed from libraries and suggested that the board could be accused of solicitation of a minor for stocking the graphic novel due to its “descriptions and pictures of oral sex.”
After students protested the attempted book ban, Utterback told KMBC, “I definitely understand their struggles. It’s not lost on me. Those conversations are to be had at home and only I have the intimate understanding of what is and isn’t appropriate for my children.”
However, Utterback now faces multiple allegations of inappropriately touching children.
According to police, a child under the age of 12 accused Utterback of fondling them in December 2020. Utterback allegedly placed the child on his lap, rubbed against them, and touched the child’s thighs.
In a separate incident in September 2020, Utterback allegedly put his finger into a teenager’s ripped jeans and rubbed their leg through the hole in the fabric. The teen told police that they “didn’t like it at all.”
Utterback also faces a separate misdemeanor charge of furnishing pornographic material to a minor, after allegedly using his phone to show sexual videos to a child who was only four years old at the time.
He will next appear in court on March 10.
Richmond, the parent association president who spoke in favor of banning LGBTQ books, distanced himself from Utterback in a statement to KMBC.
“Ryan was an attendee at the board meeting, I needed help holding a presentation and he helped,” Richmond said, adding that he couldn’t comment on the charges faced by Utterback “because I have no knowledge about them and they have nothing to do with me or the Northland Parent Association.”
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