On the face of it, the RSPB picking Ned Stark as the host of the new series of their podcast seems odd. But it turns out he's been a birder since childhood, who crams in birdwatching between acting gigs. He's warm and honest in his first podcast, chatting to fellow ornithology lover Elbow's Guy Garvey about spotting different species while working abroad, recognising bird song and the meditative joy of watching the feathered creatures. Alexi Duggins Widely available, episodes fortnightly
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard - who was spotted yesterday in an FBI raid on the election offices of Fulton Country, Georgia (a county that Donald Trump targeted in his attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election) - has ties to anti-gay organizations in her home state of Hawaii, including one that promoted conversion therapy, the widely debunked practice of trying to change a person's sexual orientation or gender identity.
"I'm not broken. I'm not fixed. I'm just different," trans Kentucky resident Dr Bobbie Glass, who endured conversion practices in the 1970s, told the group. "Conversion therapy did not do anything to get rid of my transness. It made me feel super ashamed. It made me depressed. It sent me into clinical depression and years of anti-depressants and suicidality."
When Republican U.S. Senate candidate Mike Rogers unveiled the senior leadership of his campaign's faith leaders coalition in November, the announcement was pushed out as a statement of values - "faith, family, and freedom," in the campaign's words. A closer look at the people Rogers elevated into those roles, however, reveals a leadership team bound together not only by religious conservatism but by a long record of opposition to rights and, in several cases, efforts to undermine confidence in U.S. elections.
"I have to be honest with you, I bear some responsibility for this because it was me, 10 years ago - mainstreaming homosexuality in the Republican Party is the great regret of my life, more so than anything I've done to my own soul, which is a lot," he said. "I was not intending to give birth to this huge generation of gay Republicans who now think it's openly fine to traffic in babies and to be a gay Republican, and I feel a great deal of responsibility for that. I hate myself for that a little bit."
Yiannopoulos is a right-wing provocateur who once identified as gay but now says he no longer is. He posited several debunked theories about why people are gay, such as absent fathers, domineering mothers, and molestation. "In almost every case, and certainly in every male case, [being gay] is a trauma response. It is not a sexuality," Yiannopoulos said. Jewish people become gay because they have "nebbish fathers" and "larger-than-life" mothers, he said, while Black people become gay because of fatherlessness.
He feels deep shame about his attractions to other men and has tried without success to ignore these feelings. After years of struggling, he decided to seek therapy. Mark is told by his therapist, much to his relief, that he is not a homosexual, but actually struggling with " sex addiction" rooted in early life trauma. With intensive treatment, his therapist assures him he can get rid of his addictive same-sex attractions.
Conversion therapy is the discredited and harmful practice of attempting to change an individual's sexual orientation or gender identity. The therapist in the case (Kaley Chiles) argues that this law is an unconstitutional restriction on her speech: psychotherapy is, on her view, a kind of speech, and thus the state law violates her First Amendment rights. The state responds that psychotherapy is a medical procedure,
As part of the series, Gay, 51, will speak to former Mormon David Matheson, who has been described as the "Godfather of conversion therapy." Now out as a gay man himself, Matheson will detail the harmful teachings he once practiced. So-called conversion therapy is the medically discredited attempt to forcefully change one's sexuality or gender identity, often through traumatic psychological torture. It is impossible to change a person's sexuality or gender identity.
The group defending so-called conversion therapy before the Supreme Court has been accused if misrepresenting evidence by the very researchers it cites. In South Carolina, the home of a judge who ruled against the Trump administration burned down over the weekend, shortly after she had reportedly received death threats. Meanwhile, anti-trans, anti-woke media figure Bari Weiss has officially become the editor in chief of CBS News.
While the full extent of the report's conclusions remains unknown at this point, experts and advocates claim its initial recommendations have justified by using misinformation.
