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Aaron Coleman’s Ex-Girlfriend Says His Misogynist Abuse Didn’t Stop in Middle School

Taylor Passow tells GEN the Kansas congressional candidate attacked her in December

Jessica Valenti
GEN
Published in
4 min readAug 26, 2020

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Photo: Aaron Coleman for Kansas

Aaron Coleman, the 19-year-old who exited and then quickly reentered a race for a Kansas statehouse seat amid revelations of misogynist abuse, has consistently emphasized that he committed those offenses when he was between the ages of 12 and 14, and has not repeated the behavior since.

“From the moment I won, I have endured sustained attacks,” Coleman, a progressive whose platform includes single-payer health care and legalizing cannabis, said in a statement Tuesday announcing his return to the race. The Kansas City Star reported that Coleman had engaged in revenge porn, blackmailing one 12-year-old girl and sharing naked pictures of her to friends and family; bullied another to the point that she attempted suicide; and harassed a third — allegations he admitted to. “I obviously did not expect to have my entire personal life, especially what I did in middle school, put under that kind of national microscope,” Coleman said in Tuesday’s statement.

Now an ex-girlfriend has called his narrative about distant childhood acts into question. Taylor Passow said that Coleman violently…

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Jessica Valenti
GEN
Writer for

Feminist author & columnist. Native NYer, pasta enthusiast.