It has been a joy to deconstruct my religious trauma alongside 32-year-old comedian Taylor Tomlinson. Four years ago, as I was coming out as queer to my family, I found her Netflix special Taylor Tomlinson: Look at You to be a warm welcome into the community of formerly Christian queer kids and purity culture survivors. Dark humor gave all of us a silly sort of grace, a space where we could grieve and grow.

Tomlinson, who was raised in a conservative Christian household in Temecula, Calif., got her start in stand-up through the church comedy circuit. But as she grew up, she began deconstructing how her conservative Christian upbringing was hurting her mental health and sexual development, deciding instead to be a “secular” comic.

Her new Netflix special Prodigal Daughter was filmed inside Fountain Street Church in Grand Rapids, Mich., which welcomed her not despite but rather because of her comedy. On her aptly named “Save Me” tour, Tomlinson builds on a foundation of jokes about toxic Christian culture to call out not just people who weaponize religion as a tool for bigotry but also the people who make fun of those who still believe in God.

“Because if God does exist, he does not exist to make you feel better than other people. He exists to make you better for other people,” she said. “We judge each other’s coping mechanisms. Like, ‘You’re a quitter if you get on antidepressants. You’re stupid if you believe in God. B—-, I’m on mood stabilizers, you’re on Jesus. We’re all trying to get to ‘dead with Daddy.’”

In fact, Tomlinson recognizes the people in her life—her grandparents, aunt, and uncle, himself a pastor—“who are using religion correctly.”

“There are a lot of people who are using religion as a tool for community and connection and compassion and comfort,” she says, “and when I was writing this hour, I was thinking about those people.”

Cheekily, Tomlinson compares her own stand-up specials to her uncle’s Christian services. “We’re both out here on the weekends, changing lives.”

But the comedian is not here to absolve all the sins of Christianity or its effects on her.

“When you grow up in a religious environment, you spend a lot of your young adulthood untangling who you are from who they wanted you to be,” she says. For Tomlinson, this is best represented by her “late” coming out at age 30.

Tomlinson explains that she has so many queer friends who are open and free about their sexualities—the “Samanthas” of the group—but she didn’t see anyone else who, like her, was nervous entering the queer dating scene. “We need more gay prude representation,” she chuckles, making those of us coming out at an older age and experiencing a real queer second adolescence feel less alone.

A second adolescence refers to how many LGBTQ+ people didn’t have the chance to experience the joys of teenage years. Because of rampant queerphobia inside and outside religious communities, we didn’t have access to the romantic and sexual “firsts”—first crush, first kiss, first sexual encounter—that many heterosexual people did because we were told repeatedly that our love and our bodies were shameful and had to be hidden.

While she doesn’t explicitly name “second adolescence,” the significance of coming-of-age as a queer person runs throughout her special.

According to Adam James Cohen, a therapist specializing in helping LGBTQ+ patients, adolescence is critical to developing and cementing a person’s identity and sense of self. For those who missed out on that true identity formation earlier in life, second adolescence offers a mental and physical stage of healing and liberation, often involving people deconstructing their internalized anti-queerness and religious trauma. Sometimes this liberation happens through comedy, sometimes through therapy, or as Tomlinson discusses in her special, sometimes both. During this formational time, adults reckon with the grief of missing adolescence, and make up for lost time.

Second adolescence isn’t just a uniquely queer experience. Many people raised in far-right Chrisitan environments experience a new phase of psychosocial development after they leave their conservative Christian homes. For people raised in purity culture, their second adolescence can be a time of sexual exploration, experimentation, and liberation during and after deconstructing harmful theologies of the body.

For the queer Christian kids like Tomlinson, we were robbed of moments of bodily and social experimentation and generation, so experiencing our second adolescence is like coming home to our bodies, an emotional rebirth or reversion, to put it in Christian terms, of learning and loving to be a queer child and queer teenager again. For trans and nonbinary people undergoing gender affirming medical care, second adolescence can be even more physical, as hormone therapy brings about a second puberty.

And for many of us, this second adolescence is characterized by an eagerness—and joy—to accept and share the possibilities that many never questioned. As Tomlinson joked, “When I started dating women, it was the closest I’d come to feeling religious in a long time because my friend would complain about their boyfriends and husbands and I was like, ‘Have you heard the good news? You don’t have to live like this. There’s a better way.’”

Second adolescence is especially common among people who have a later-in-life realization or acceptance of their LGBTQ+ identity, often called a “queer awakening” or “second coming out,” just like Tomlinson. There is no time limit on coming out or discovering and affirming gender or sexuality, but as Tomlinson jokes in her special, “coming out as bisexual at 30 feels like saying to a waiter, ‘By the way, it’s my birthday.’ They’re like, ‘Cool, sing to yourself. You’re a grown woman.’”

Tomlinson’s special portrays this second adolescence with a humor, grace, and visibility I hadn’t encountered before but am deeply indebted to. Prodigal Daughter, and her comedy as a whole, carries special poignancy for the formerly queer Christian kids coming of age through humor and deconstruction.

Let’s talk about Trump blocking the DHS deal and then fumbling his own response….

As Belle says tRump started a war and is blocking the funding for the very department in charged with securing the country against foreign threats until the all important trans people playing sports are banned. tRump is putting paid unmasked ICE agents in airports so why can’t they go unmasked on the streets of our towns and cities to stand around watching TSA agents work for free all because his feelings are hurt by trans people. She said something similar about FEMA but it all comes down to tRump using the scape goat of trans people and the Christian nationalists need to have a white male straight cis nation to live in even though those people are not representative of most of the nation nor of all Christians. But to not fund FEMA during horrific flooding and wildfires, to not fund DHS and TSA for security, to not fund the coast guard for our protection and assistance in local waters, and more just because he has a hard time understanding the truth that trans people exist and are normal members of society that deserve full unconditional civil rights and equality. Hugs

No Kings, Comics, & Stuff

No Kings Day

There are no kings in America… yet

Clay Jones

(Clay Jones writes blog entries for his toons; click through on the title above.)

Stranger Danger Zuckerberg

Juries ruled that Meta is bad for kids

Clay Jones

Last Kiss by John Lustig

ICE Butts In

ICE ICE Butthole

Clay Jones

From my G+ friend Brian Arbenz:

How to Turn a Tissue Box Into a Bag Organizer

Here’s how I repurposed my empty tissue box as a plastic grocery bag dispenser in a few easy steps:

Take a plastic shopping bag and stuff it horizontally into the tissue box with the handles sticking out of the slit on top.
Grab another plastic bag and weave it through the handles of the bag sticking out of the box, then stop once it’s about three-quarters the way through.
Stuff both bags into the box, with the handles of the second bag sticking out again like you had before.
Repeat the process until all of the plastic bags are in the box (I was able to fit about 12 bags in mine!)
Gently pull a bag out of the box when you want to use it, just like a regular Kleenex box! Follow steps 1 through 4 to refill when you have more bags to store.

https://www.peacebuttons.info/

#No Kings

(and stay safe!)

A Couple of Fun Bits

I understand about the pastry boxes; they are pretty stupid. Lewis Black expresses someone’s feelings as Lewis Black does.

Have a fun dog video!

Oh, yeah! Another email buried but that I wanted to post here last week. My accomplished niece is a writer, and this is her webpage for her fiction books, Swaimwrites.com . She’s got one about to be released called “Reven,” which is, as her site says, “A steampunk retelling of Peter Pan about the lengths we’ll go to escape the past.” I’m excited to read it, not only because I’m her auntie, but because it looks like it’ll be perfect for these times!📖📚

Some News Bits

A few things I ran across before lunch, in one post with links. Ollie and I had a good lunch, got a few things done, then took a nice walk on a cooler day when his thick black fur coat is not too heavy for him to be on a jaunt before 7 AM; it was 2 PM.😃

Back to reality, I saw this Reuters story about Iran hacking US FBI, but it was a subscriber only story (I agree-WTF? Why should profit be made on a story like that, when some of the free articles are such dreck…) But, here is a free one:

FBI director Kash Patel’s emails, photos hacked by Iran-linked group

The vigilante group Handala Hack Team said that it had successfully gained access to Patel’s personal email account.

Then, I know many of us, if we didn’t yawn, noticed the hypocrisy in wrangling for a law that includes banning mail-in voting while on the way to the post-box. If you’re busy, just click through; the money phrase is right there at the top.

The young woman who is running for my district’s US House seat, Katy Tindell, has a website now! I’ve mentioned her, but couldn’t link because all there was was an Act Blue contribution page. But now, she has her own website.

Every one of our states has at least one candidate like this running. Please choose a campaign anywhere (But work from your home district/state first, if you can,) and sign up. Money’s tight everywhere, but give the candidate some time if you want to see them in office. There are many things that need doing, and campaigns are better off with volunteers helping.

Finally for this post, Sojo has run a piece the author, Emma Cieslik, writes about Taylor Tomlinson, and Tomlinson’s influence on the author’s own deconstruction and being out. Seriously worth the click.

My labs from Tuesday

On Monday March 23 I had an epidural in my back. On Tuesday I had to have my blood work done for some upcoming doctor’s appointments. Ron and I went over the results and they don’t look good. They look worse on the computer screen than what came out in print because the print did not have all the colors and marks. But I looked up some of the results. One said it could be an indicator of anemia, which I have had in the past bad enough to put me in the hospital. The other suggestion from looking up the fact that all this dealt with my red and white blood cells was leukemia or kidney disease, and more likely autoimmune issues. I have all the symptoms of lupus, and my immune system has long been compromised. So that is a possiblity. My PSA is elevated and my TSH keeps dipping low. That is my thyroid which means is it going hyperactive. My first endocrinologist said that the thyroid reacts to things happening in the body so it could be dropping due to my other results. Medicare kicked back three tests because of changed codes / incorrct codes / or too early. The tests were PSA, A1C, and lipid panel. The lab wanted over $400 for the tests. I declined to pay for it. Here are the printed labs from the website and then scanned so I could include them. I deleted / covered the sensitive identifying information. Got to go get shots from the allergy clinic, they had to put me back on weekly for 5 weeks. Oh and I am salt wasting. No change it is actually the same from the last test and up from the low of 117. My kidneys don’t get the signal from my brain to stop taking salt out of my blood. At 115 you can start to have seizures. I am one of the few people told to eat as much salt as I can. Hugs

A Message For Tomorrow:

(I don’t care for twangy folk music that would be country&western if it wasn’t U.S. Folk music, but. I have high regard for Woody Guthrie, really like the lyrics of this song, and Bette Midler covers it well, updating lyrics a bit while retaining its folk integrity. Thanks, Ten Bears!)

Bound to Lose …

Theocracy Advances With Menace

Iran isn’t the only theocracy

Sec. of War Hegseth quotes scripture during press briefings.

Ann Telnaes

Trump held a toadies meeting today.

And along those lines, check this out, and also check in on your own state legislature, because these laws are coming from a national organization. Also, dig “Independence Day”, which is not at all acknowledged in the Bible; it gets more time than even Christmas or Easter. I do not think “Christian” means what they think it means. Emphases within are mine.

Kansas Legislature’s negotiators on education bills drop sports ban tied to Christian calendar

Senate majority leader’s amendment forbid sports on Sundays, Wednesday evenings

By:Tim Carpenter

TOPEKA — The Kansas Legislature’s negotiators on education bills deleted a Senate-approved change to state law prohibiting school sports practice and competition on Sundays, Wednesday evenings and multiday periods centered on Easter, Christmas and Independence Day.

The effort to expand on Kansas State High School Activities Association rules for scheduling athletic events, currently concentrated on Dec. 25 and July 4, was led by Senate Majority Leader Chase Blasi, R-Wichita. He convinced Senate colleagues to accept his amendment to Senate Bill 515 expanding no-sports days on calendars at public and private schools statewide.

During Senate debate on Blasi’s amendment, questions were raised about his focus on Christian faith traditions. His amendment passed on an unrecorded voice vote of the Senate.

During Senate and House negotiations Monday on SB 515, Wichita Republican Rep. Susan Estes and Wichita Sen. Renee Erickson, who serve as lead negotiators on the Legislature’s education bills, agreed to cast aside Blasi’s broadened moratorium. His amendment was removed from legislation intended to enable homeschool students to join sports at private schools in the way state law permitted them to be part of public school athletics.

Blasi said he was motivated to act on concerns expressed by constituents that school-sponsored sports interrupted periods that ought to be reserved for family or church activities.

Specifically, his amendment would forbid sporting events on Sundays and on Wednesdays at 6 p.m. to midnight from Sept. 1 to April 30. In addition, he sought to apply the prohibition to a four-day window around Easter, but only from 6 p.m. to midnight. A five-day ban at Christmas and a seven-day ban encompassing Independence Day would be part of the new state law.

“This is going to assure we focus on what really keeps communities strong — that is family and faith,” Blasi said.

Sen. Marci Francisco, D-Lawrence, said she was anxious the Legislature was wading into the KSHSAA rulebook without considering family interests in other religious faiths. Blasi’s amendment didn’t address Islam’s Ramadan, Judaism’s Passover or Rosh Hashanah, Hinduism’s Maha Shivavatri or Buddhism’s Bodhi Day.

“Not any religion was considered,” Blasi said. “This was just a response to constituents.”

Francisco wasn’t convinced of the amendment’s merits.

“My constituents would like me to be as inclusive as possible,” she said.

The amendment left on the cutting room floor by the House and Senate conference committee was defended by several other members of the Senate.

Sen. Caryn Tyson, R-Parker, said she was a strong supporter of Blasi’s effort to turn back the clock in Kansas to an era more respectful of faith traditions.

“It’s a sad day that we have to legislate this,” Tyson said. “Years ago, it wasn’t even an issue. It was a standard and acceptable, but here we are.”

Sen. Brad Starnes, R-Riley, said the amendment was crafted to affirm religion as the “bedrock of our country.”

The objective of the amendment was to clear school calendars so students had more time to pursue religious interests, said Sen. Michael Murphy, R-Sylvia.

“As we move away from that, we do so at our peril,” Murphy said. “It’s time we moved back to some of those traditions that served us well.”

The House-Senate conference committee bundled the stripped down SB 515 and Senate Bill 361 into Senate Bill 382. SB 361 allows foreign exchange students to enroll in their host’s public school district. SB 382 deals with administration of state assessments to K-12 students in virtual schools. As of Tuesday, neither the House nor Senate had voted on the the three-bill deal.

Sigh. I Think We Saw This Coming, But Here It Is:

To me, this is basic misogyny; soon it will be simpler for the Olympics to ban women and girls entirely. I will note that it doesn’t seem that they’re going to check for trans men. I wonder if trans men ought to play in women’s sports, under this “logic”? Meanwhile, all the girls and women who are a little too tall, a little too strong, a little larger built in the shoulders, etc., etc. are going to be excluded along with other women who passed through male puberty before transitioning. The illogic of this makes my head explode.

I will add that there is a special place in hell for women who undermine other women; especially those who get somewhere, then yank the ladder up behind them. Lookin’ at Kirsty Coventry, pictured below, now IOC President.

Transgender women athletes banned from female Olympic events by new IOC policy

By GRAHAM DUNBARUpdated 2:25 PM CDT, March 26, 2026

GENEVA (AP) — Transgender women athletes are now excluded from women’s events at the Olympics after the IOC agreed to a new eligibility policy on Thursday which aligns with U.S. President Donald Trump’s executive order on sports ahead of the 2028 Los Angeles Games.

“Eligibility for any female category event at the Olympic Games or any other IOC event, including individual and team sports, is now limited to biological females,” the International Olympic Committee said, to be determined by a mandatory gene test once in an athlete’s career.

It is unclear how many, if any, transgender women are competing at an Olympic level. No woman who transitioned from being born male competed at the 2024 Paris Summer Games, though weightlifter Laurel Hubbard did at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 without winning a medal.

The eligibility policy that will apply from the L.A. Olympics in July 2028 “protects fairness, safety and integrity in the female category,” the IOC said.

“It is not retroactive and does not apply to any grassroots or recreational sports programs,” said the IOC, whose Olympic Charter states that access to play sport is a human right.

After an executive board meeting, the IOC published a 10-page policy document that also restricts female athletes such as two-time Olympic champion runner Caster Semenya with medical conditions known as differences in sex development, or DSD.

“We know that this topic is sensitive,” IOC President Kirsty Coventry said in an online news conference to explain the policy.

Coventry and the IOC have wanted a clear policy instead of continuing to advise sports’ governing bodies who previously have drafted their own rules.

“At the Olympic Games, even the smallest margins can be the difference between victory and defeat,” Coventry, a two-time Olympic gold medalist in swimming, said in a statement. “So, it is absolutely clear that it would not be fair for biological males to compete in the female category.”

She set up a review of “protecting the female category” as one of her first big decisions last June as the first woman to lead the Olympic body in its 132-year history.

Female eligibility was a strong theme in a seven-candidate IOC election last year — held after a furor around women’s boxing in Paris — when Coventry’s main rivals pledged a stronger policy to leading on the issue.

“This was a priority for me way before President Trump came into his second term,” Coventry said. “There’s not been any pressure (on) us to deliver anything from anybody outside of the Olympic Movement.”

Before the 2024 Paris Olympics, three top-tier sports — track and field, swimming and cycling — excluded transgender women who had been through male puberty. Semenya, who was assigned female at birth in South Africa and has testosterone levels higher than the typical female range, won a European Court of Human Rights judgment in her years-long legal challenge to track and field’s rules which did not overturn them. (snip-there is more, sort of pleading for understanding, but go see the rest of it if you like)

The expert group agreed the current gene test is “the most accurate and least intrusive method currently available.” The saliva, cheek swab or blood sample screens for “the SRY gene, a segment of DNA typically found on the Y chromosome that initiates male sex development in utero and indicates the presence of testes/testicles.”

Still, the mandatory gender screening — already conducted by the governing bodies of track and field, skiing and boxing — is likely to be criticized by human rights experts and activist groups.

Athlete appeal to CAS?

The IOC policy can — and likely will — be challenged at the Court of Arbitration for Sport in the Olympic body’s Swiss home city Lausanne, perhaps by an athlete acting alone.

Track athletes Dutee Chand of India and Semenya challenged previous versions of their sport’s eligibility rules at the court.

Any potential appeal would examine science underpinning IOC research which was not published Thursday. A case could occupy much of the near-28 months until the L.A. Olympics open.

“As we know in today’s world,” Coventry said, “any and all rules and regulations at any point in time could always be challenged.” (snip)

The White House welcomed the IOC’s decision, describing it as the result of the executive order.

“The IOC aligning their policy with President Trump’s executive order ahead of the 2028 LA Games is common sense and long overdue,” White House spokesman Davis Ingle said in a statement.