When sexually explicit videos of House candidate Susanna Gibson surfaced online in 2023, John Reid — then a conservative talk radio host — was unapologetically blunt.
“Don’t get mad that I’m the only person in Virginia media who will tell the truth about this trash woman,” Reid wrote in a Facebook post, which included a still from one of the videos. “Say no to legislative hookers.”
Now, nearly two years later, Reid — the Republican nominee for lieutenant governor and the first openly gay nominee on a statewide ticket in Virginia — is facing his own controversy.
News broke last Friday that Gov. Glenn Youngkin asked Reid to withdraw as the nominee after a Tumblr account with the same username Reid uses on other social media platforms showed reposts of naked men.
While the situations share similarities, key differences complicate the comparison. Gibson herself was in the photos and videos that were posted online in 2023, and Reid was not.
The same party that condemned Gibson after her videos surfaced now appears to be largely more accepting of Reid’s situation.
Gibson says Reid is not being held to the same standard that she was less than two years ago. She describes herself as an optimist, however, and hopes the difference reflects growing awareness that such personal attacks on public figures are unacceptable.
“I do have to wonder,” Gibson said during an interview with Virginia Scope. “Is it because our understanding of what intimate privacy looks like, and that we’re understanding that online violence and sexual violence is never OK.”
Reid has repeatedly denied owning the account, but Youngkin has not reversed his call for Reid to step aside.
The governor canceled a planned appearance scheduled for Wednesday with the full Republican statewide ticket in Henrico County — and it appears the other nominees have also distanced themselves from the event.
Gibson, who now runs a nonprofit advocating for legislation to protect people from having their intimate images shared online without consent, said she first heard of the criticism from Reid while knocking doors during her 2023 campaign.
As she approached a home, she spoke to someone working in the yard for the owner.
The person was listening to the radio at the time, Gibson said.
“He was like, ‘they were just talking about you, John Reid hates you, he was saying some messed up things,’” Gibson recounted of the interaction.
Gibson said she reached out to Reid this week by sending him a text offering to connect him with resources if needed.
“I said, ‘I know what’s coming for you, and please know that I have resources that were able to help me, I’m happy to connect you,’” Gibson told Virginia Scope. “And he never responded.”
Reid did not respond to questions for this story.
Reid’s alleged Tumblr account was public, using the same username as his private Instagram and TikTok accounts, but it only showed photos of other people.
Gibson said the issue with reposting sexually explicit photos of other people is that it is not clear if their consent was given for the content to be created much less shared publicly.
“When you’re looking at online pornography, a large amount of content that you see is nonconsensually created,” she said. “It looks consensually created. It looks consensually distributed, but it’s not. A large amount is produced under coercion, extortion, and threats of violence.”
The media coverage of Reid’s situation feels different from how the press handled her campaign, Gibson said.
“I have looked at some of the coverage, it’s vastly different,” she said. “Some of the headlines are not necessarily supportive, but the phrasing, the way that they lead the public to digest and process the story, and lead the public in how to think about the truth behind a story, is vastly different.”
Misogyny in society could contribute to that difference, but Gibson remains optimistic that the public is recognizing that attacks on someone’s personal life are not acceptable.
“Maybe we are starting to understand that this is not okay, and that online violence quickly escalates to offline, in-person violence,” she said.
Reid has blamed homophobia for the backlash from the leaders of his party, while maintaining that the Tumblr account is not his.
“I’ve been attacked online and harassed in person, on and off for 30 years by the radicals in my own party, simply for being gay and by angry leftists who call me a traitor,” Reid said in a statement Friday.
Gibson did not back down from her 2023 election and eventually lost to Republican David Owen by a two-percentage-point margin.
Reid is seeking statewide office, and to date, Youngkin remains the only Republican leader who has publicly urged him to withdraw.
For Gibson, the hope is that society is beginning to recognize the importance of privacy and respect, and that the lessons learned from her experience will shape a more just political discourse.
“I am really optimistic that the reason people are coming out and defending him in the way that they are is because we’re starting to understand this is not okay as a political tactic, and that it will harm the quality of candidates we have running for office on both sides,” Gibson said.