I had my allergy shots this morning. I’m in agony right now. Not from the shots, but from the pain in my back muscles as they spaum. Every since I have had the operation on my lower back to reduce the pain in my right leg, the pain in my back from the rest of the back muscles spasuming is out of control. When I saw the surgeon this week, he looked and noticed how badly swollen the mucles were and agreed that I needed immediate relief from the situation I was in. He put in for mucle relaxing trigger point injections to relax the mucles. But other than lying down and taking muscle relaxers, there is little I can do at this point. I do have a hot tub, but if I push Ron to open it and get it ready to work, he will have to stop the work on the rest of the projects, including my new office, which I really need finished. So I suffer and often go to bed.
This video is a great way to talk about how to deal with Christian nationalist bigotry and the forcing of Christian religion on others who have different beliefs. In fact I read a post while waiting for my shots about a new trend of Christian evangelicals going on airplanes and forcing those in the plane to listen to sermons and preach about the Christian god. I don’t get this, but I experienced something similar in the military, where a sect of Christians would try to cornor me every time I sat down for a meal in the chow hall to eat they would swarm my table demanding I listen to them talk about their god. It did not make me feel better about their faith nor did it make me less gay, which was their real goal. In fact when I returned the gesture to talk to them about my beliefs, they got really offended. Strange how they think pushing their religion goes only one way in their minds. The thing is they know religion is a protected class where sexual orientation is not, but some friends and I came up with a good way to discourage them. We would listen to their spiel if they listened to ours first. We then spun them a made up religion on the house of Approditie, a religion based on having sex and being body worshippers. They got so grossed out over having to discuss the sex and nudity that they stopped pushing their shit on me. I wonder if it would work today on the religions and indiscretions you hear about in the news. Hugs.
BREAKING WSJ:The Trump admin plans to end a subsidy program that helped hold down premiums for Medicare drug plans — a move that could leave many seniors facing higher rates for their prescription coverage next year.
🚨WATCH: Rand Paul TORCHES Fauci for refusing to testify: "It's against the law to obstruct an investigation of Congress. There WILL be repercussions to your refusal to testify today."
Sen. Roger Marshall: "Who didn't have a friend who took this vaccine and had some time of complication? A stroke, a blood clot, a young man getting some type of heart inflammation. That's what destroyed the trust in the American people for our government."
FOX: Xi told you that China would not give or sell Iran any weapons. There's a new report that Iran is about to get 400 rocket launchers from China–TRUMP: Well, that would be surprising. Things like that happen.
More hate and bigotry enacted against all the medical safety data available. Guess I am just not being understanding today because these laws are not only not needed but also very harmful. They cause a lot more problems than the pretended harm they claim to solve. It is the attempt to regulate and restrict sexual / gender standards into the laws. It just causes kids and people problems for no reason and promotes anger / bigotry against a small minority of people. Hugs
The United Kingdom’s Department of Education has published its updated guidance for “Keeping Children Safe in Education 2026” (KCSIE) and it will take effect on September 1. However, the guidance is likely to put trans and gender-non-conforming children at greater risk.
“We criticise numerous aspects of the guidance, especially as to how schools should approach requests related to ‘social transition,’” The Good Law Project wrote in a statement responding to the draft guidance earlier this year. “We also emphasise its failure to properly explain how schools should accommodate the needs of trans pupils in accessing various aspects of school life, such as toilets, changing facilities, and sports.”
Last year, the United Kingdom’s Supreme Court ruled that, for the purposes of the 2010 Equality Act, the legal definition of “woman” is based on “biological sex.” In the aftermath, the Equality and Human Rights Commission released temporary guidance on barring trans people from single-sex spaces. They’ve now released their finalized plan, which says that businesses and institutions should prevent trans people using a single-sex spaces, and that if they allow trans people to use them, they will no longer be considered single-sex spaces.
The aggressive new schools guidance set out in KCSIE is set to comply with the EHRC’s updated policies around single-sex spaces, ruling that trans and gender-questioning children cannot use spaces aligned with their gender identity, even if they have socially transitioned.
Never Miss a Beat
Subscribe to our newsletter to stay ahead of the latest LGBTQ+ political news and insights.
Email Email Email
Email *
Frequency *
Daily Brief
Week in Review
Week in Good News
———————————————————————————————————————–
“Schools must not allow children into toilets designated for the opposite biological sex,” the guidance reads. “This includes where schools are responding to a request to support any degree of social transition for children who are questioning their gender.”
The same policy is applied to changing rooms for those over 11 years old, nor should the students “share overnight accommodation with a child of the opposite biological sex,” it states.
The guidance allows for single-use restrooms “if a gender-questioning child does not want to use the toilet designated for their biological sex.” However, there is no actual requirement for this, but only the suggestion that “schools and colleges should consider whether they can provide an alternative toilet facility—for example self-contained individual toilets—without compromising the provision of single-sex facilities.”
When it comes to all of these arrangements, the guidance clearly states, “These alternative arrangements should not compromise the safety, comfort, privacy or dignity of the child, or of any other children.”
However, such arrangements in their own right will challenge the safety and dignity of trans children. One plaintiff in a lawsuit challenging Idaho’s bathroom bill died by suicide earlier this year. Before her death she said of similar provisions, “It is scary having to look around before to see if anyone will see me going into the single-user restroom, as I worry about people gossiping and speculating about me being transgender.”
When it comes to social transition at school, the guidance advises against staff and teachers supporting it, citing concerns raised in the controversial Cass Review. The guidance sets out extensive hurdles before any member of staff at a school or colleges can be supportive of a social transition.
The guidance establishes that “parents and carers should be actively involved and their views treated with importance.” That rule alone amounts to a forced outing policy that could put trans children at risk of harm if their family are not supportive. While the guidance goes on to carve out an exception for “rare circumstances” where involving parents and carers could pose a “greater risk,” such a policy would require a lot of trust and a careful hand from school administrators who are inexperienced with such matters.
The possibility of the school deciding not to allow the social transition is not only laid out but encouraged. The guidance notes that “when considering a child’s request for support with social transition will be to consider what is in the best interests of the child and other children, and a decision relating to social transition may not be the same as a child’s wishes.” They also note that, for younger children, support for a social transition should be “agreed very rarely.”
More of the choice is taken away from trans children and their families with the note that for “pre-pubertal children” clinical involvement should be part of the decision-making process and that “should include advising on the risks and benefits of social transition as a planned intervention, referencing best available evidence. This is not a role that can be undertaken by staff without appropriate clinical training.”
Subscribe to the LGBTQ Nation newsletter and be the first to know about the latest headlines shaping LGBTQ+ communities worldwide.
This is what all the medical data and medical science shows which is why laws were passed to promote transgender acceptance. Then some people decided it was an insult to their god, some decided that they needed everyone to be the same as they are in life, and politicians realized it was a way to distract and get people to vote for them. There is no medical reason, no safety reason, and no social reason for hate towards trans people and other LGBTQ+. To be so dismissive of the needs of other people who cause you no harm is crazy and I do not understand the motivation of the bigots. Hugs
Good Law Project claims U.K. health secretary Wes Streeting’s department fought to block freedom of information requests for data on trans youth suicides.
John Russell (He/Him)February 12, 2026, 3:30 pm EST· Updated on February 13, 2026
The U.K. government appears to have covered up a dramatic rise in transgender youth suicides, according to data obtained by U.K.-based government accountability non-profit the Good Law Project.
As Erin in the Morning reports, data the non-profit obtained from the National Health Service (NHS)-funded National Child Mortality Database (NCMD) via a Freedom of Information request sharply contrasts with the government’s official report on trans youth suicides in the wake of the 2020 Bell v. Tavistock ruling.
As the Good Law Project notes, following the U.K. High Court of Justice’s initial ruling in Tavistock, which found that minors under 16 could not legally consent to receive puberty blockers for the treatment of gender dysphoria, the National Health Service (NHS) substantially limited access to gender-affirming care for minors. Those limits reportedly remained in place even after the Tavistock ruling was overturned in 2021.
The U.K. government commissioned its 2024 Appleby Report after the Good Law Project reported that two whistleblowers with the Tavistock gender clinic alerted the organization to a significant rise in suicides among young people on the NHS’s waitlist for appointments to begin gender-affirming care in the wake of the Tavistock case.
————————————————————————————————————————
Insights for the LGBTQ+ community
Subscribe to our briefing for insights into how politics impacts the LGBTQ+ community and more.
Frequency Email *
Email *
Frequency *
Daily Brief
Week in Review
Week in Good News
——————————————————————————————————————–
According to Good Law Project, the Appleby Report identified only 12 suicide deaths among current or former Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS) patients at the Tavistock clinic between 2018 and 2024. However, as Erin in the Morning notes, the report disregarded young people who were unable to access GIDS care due to long wait times, which, post-Tavistock, now last an average 25 years.
At the same time, Good Law Project submitted a Freedom of Information request with the NCMD, and has only just published the data it received.
“Good Law Project can confirm that in 2021–2022 suicides of trans children in England surged to 22, a marked increase from 5 and 4 the previous two years,” the organization wrote in a February 7 release. “This spike follows the decision by NHS England to pull down the shutters on gender-affirming healthcare for young trans people” following the Tavistock case.
In total, the NCMD data show 46 transgender children in the U.K. died by suicide between 2019 and 2025. In addition to the nine accounted for between 2019–2021 and the alarming spike to 22 between 2021–2022, the data also show 10 suicide deaths between 2022–2023. And, according to Good Law Project, NCMD added that “the numbers reported in more recent years will likely be underestimated, due to a higher proportion of child death reviews that have not yet been completed.”
Good Law Project said it was “appalled” that U.K. health secretary Wes Streeting “commissioned and published a report to reassure the public that there was no significant rise in suicide rates, when 22 children took their own lives in a single year: 2021-22.” The Appleby report, they said, “denied the reality of trans deaths, as Streeting’s ban on puberty blockers denied the reality of trans lives.”
The nonprofit claims that Streeting department “fought tooth and nail” to block its freedom of information requests.
“To silence those raising the alarm on rising trans suicides as ‘dangerous’ while ramping up the policies correlating with that rise is an act of grave moral wickedness,” the group said.
Trans journalist Erin Reed said of these findings, “More alarming is what appears to be an explicit attempt to cover up trans youth suicide deaths. Those who seek to restrict gender-affirming care also seek to restrict any information showing those restrictions may lead to harm. Among the far right, claims have emerged that transgender youth are in no danger of suicide from the withdrawal of gender-affirming care, but this could not be further from the truth.”
Editor’s note: If you or someone you know is struggling or in crisis, help is available. Call or text 988 or chat at 988lifeline.org. The Trans Lifeline (1-877-565-8860) is staffed by trans people and will not contact law enforcement. The Trevor Project provides a safe, judgement-free place to talk for youth via chat, text (678-678), or phone (1-866-488-7386). Help is available at all three resources in English and Spanish.
Subscribe to the LGBTQ Nation newsletter and be the first to know about the latest headlines shaping LGBTQ+ communities worldwide.
Again with the bigotry masquerading as government legitimate operations. Again, if you read the story, you will see that the white supremacists in the US government will only be happy when they have a white ethnostate. Why they hate brown people so much I just don’t understand. They are desperate for the idea that white skin makes them superior to others. It makes no sense or matters really. But to some the color of your skin means as much as the matter of sexual orientations or gender. And what about privacy? The pushers of AI want to scrape all our information and data so they can market it against the people. All these AI people see is profit; they do not care about the people behind that data. Hugs
The Consumer Product Safety Commission wants at least 100 hospitals to start sending detailed medical records by the end of this year, according to an internal memo.
(Arin Yoon/Reuters/File)
A tiny federal agency tasked with protecting the public from injuries caused by lawn mowers and coffeemakers is demanding that some of the nation’s biggest health systems turn over detailed, personally identifiable medical records of all patients who seek help at their emergency rooms.
The Consumer Product Safety Commission, responsible for tracking and issuing recalls of dangerous products sold in the U.S., began discreetly pressuring hospital executives this year to share personally identifiable health data with a private contractor. But hospital lawyers and other industry experts have questioned the agency’s authority to collect, its ability to safeguard such a swath of sensitive information, and whether it has followed the legal process to overhaul its surveillance system.
After KFF Health News asked the CPSC about the new system, the agency announced the program on July 21. Left unmentioned, however, is the alarm it has raised among hospital executives, as well as the nature and extent of the agency’s data demands.
In a stark departure from its product-focused mission, the agency’s goal is to obtain millions of Americans’ medical records from emergency room visits for most injuries, from a broken bone to a childhood vaccine reaction or even a suicide attempt, according to documents and emails obtained by KFF Health News, as well as interviews with five people involved or familiar with the discussions.
A CPSC official also insisted in the emails that the institutions provide all ER patients’ identifiable information — such as names, addresses, diagnoses, and other personal details — to the contractor, Konza Health, for analysis. In correspondence with hospital executives, Konza representatives described participation as “mandatory” or “required.”
As a condition of viewing the correspondence, KFF Health News agreed not to republish some of the emails it obtained.
The CPSC wants at least 100 hospitals to start sending detailed medical records by the end of this year, according to an internal memo.
“The whole thing is troubling,” said Sharona Hoffman, a professor of health law at Case Western Reserve University, who noted that giving a private entity access to a sweeping collection of data will introduc36e risks to patient privacy. “If this company really is collecting identifiable information, that is worrisome for patients.”
The new project was launched amid upheaval at the traditionally independent agency, which is without a governing board since President Donald Trump fired the CPSC’s three Democratic board members. Nearly 1 in 5 career staffers left the CPSC in the first 16 months of the new administration, according to a KFF Health News analysis of federal workforce data.
The initiative also comes as the Trump administration has sought unprecedented access to millions of Americans’ medical records, with the Office of Personnel Management requesting federal workers’ sensitive health information and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. using a private organization to collect more medical records for his studies on vaccines and autism.
Steve Roney, CPSC spokesperson, said in an emailed statement on July 10 that CPSC is “modernizing” its surveillance system. Asked whether the CPSC will file complaints against hospitals that do not participate, he said only that while the previous system “operated as a voluntary program, the ability of hospitals to opt out limited the sample size and usefulness of the data.”
Roney also acknowledged that the agency had not yet notified the public, as “required by law.”
Federal law requires the agency to provide notice and a public comment period before requesting information from 10 or more entities, a step it has not taken despite plans for 100 hospitals to join the surveillance system. KFF Health News independently confirmed with over a dozen hospitals that they had been approached.
Federal public health authorities cannot legally mandate that private health data be reported. But CPSC officials have suggested publicly and privately that if hospitals decline to share data with the new surveillance system, they could be subject to strict penalties from a data-sharing regulation known as “information blocking.”
Yet some hospital executives say they are reluctant to share patients’ sensitive data because they’re concerned about a different violation — that of federal privacy law.
AI takes over
Dozens of ERs across the country already participate in the CPSC’s voluntary National Electronic Injury Surveillance System, or NEISS, through which trained hospital workers report injuries involving consumer products, almost always stripped of patients’ identifiable information. The system helps the CPSC identify products, such as baby loungers, toys, and household appliances, with a pattern of injuring consumers.
The new injury surveillance program goes much further.
At a toy industry trade event in February, acting CPSC Chairman Peter Feldman said the agency is “investing in AI-enabled workflows that improve the quality and quantity of injury surveillance data, while also building up digital infrastructure to handle a massive new volume of electronic health records.”
Konza Health, a Kansas-based organization that runs the state’s health data exchange, will automatically pull and analyze medical records of all patient visits from ERs nationwide. Konza won a five-year contract worth up to $15.9 million with CPSC last fall.
In email correspondence with hospital technology officials, Konza Health President and CEO Laura McCrary also has described ERs’ participation as “required,” stipulating that they share patients’ records with identifying information.
McCrary told KFF Health News by email that the company is not using AI to process the records it receives, saying instead that Konza will use “advanced analytic parsing and filtering capabilities.” Roney, the CPSC spokesperson, did not answer questions about the use of AI.
For years, agency officials have discussed moving away from human contractors and automating NEISS to save time and money.
But without workers on-site, hospital staffers may no longer receive training to determine what clinical information is important to include for the CPSC. In short, the changes could dilute the quality of the product safety data the agency collects.
“They want to suck in as much data as possible, but I’m not sure how thoughtful they’re being about what is collected and what is actually needed by the agency,” said former CPSC chair Alexander Hoehn-Saric, one of the Democratic appointees Trump fired last year.
Wanted: Injuries from vaccines and stingrays
The CPSC’s new data collection appears to contradict its own 214-page operating manual, which instructs hospitals not to include identifiable information “such as names, birthdates, or addresses” when reporting cases.
The agency is supposed to receive patients’ identifying information only when needed for follow-up investigations, which happens in fewer than 1% of reported cases, according to the manual.
The CPSC has also historically limited the records it collects to minimize privacy violations in case of a data breach.
The risk is not hypothetical: From 2017 to 2019, the agency improperly released personal health information of around 30,000 people, a disclosure that a top Republican at the time called “concerning.”
Konza, however, will receive even more sensitive information on many more people. McCrary said in a statement that Konza will remove patients’ names, addresses, and medical information “not needed by CPSC” before sharing records with the agency.
Leaving a private organization to collect sensitive information introduces risks, including that it could be stolen or used for business purposes, said Hoffman, the Case Western professor.
“Very often, they will use information for marketing because now they’re going to know what conditions people have,” she said.
Roney said that its contract with Konza, which has not been made public, prohibits the organization from selling or marketing the data it collects.
The CPSC’s manual also identifies types of ER visits that should not be reported to the CPSC, which has jurisdiction over only certain consumer products. Excluded injuries are those caused by food, illegal drugs, medical devices, alcohol, or plants, as well as injuries that did not involve consumer products — such as a cut from a rock or broken bones from a fall on the ground — and suicide attempts by adults.
But in a contract offered to one hospital and reviewed by KFF Health News, Konza set no such limits on the information it would gather from ER records and said it would hold onto patient health information for at least 30 days.
In an email sent to hospital technology officials, McCrary wrote that Konza would provide CPSC with records when a patient is treated in the ER for any of more than 10,000 conditions. The expansive list of diagnostic codes Konza provided in the email includes injuries that do not involve consumer products.
Child injuries resulting from “poisoning by” vaccines or contact with stingrays, neither of which is regulated by the CPSC, are included in the list.
A limited number of hospitals once shared deidentified data on all injuries — regardless of product involvement — through the NEISS using the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s injury-tracking program. But the CDC halted that data collection, after funding and staffing were cut last year, and has not restarted it.
Pressure on hospitals
CPSC Chief Data Officer Elizabeth Puchek, who joined the agency late last year after engineering U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services’ data system, has told hospitals in emails that they must seek an exemption from the program if they decline to share patients’ emergency room records with Konza.
The CPSC’s targeted outreach has included some of the nation’s largest urban and rural health systems, as well as small, publicly owned hospitals.
Staff members at Mary Greeley Medical Center in Ames, Iowa, said that Konza and federal officials told them their participation in the new program was mandatory. The hospital, which has long participated in NEISS, signed a new contract in April to share its ER records with Konza.
Yet the hospital is reevaluating its participation after being notified that the funds it received to participate in NEISS were “no longer available,” spokesperson Steve Sullivan said.
Several hospital executives, lawyers, and others have raised doubts about CPSC’s claimed authority.
Harborview Medical Center spokesperson Susan Gregg said the Seattle hospital’s emergency room has “voluntarily submitted de-identified data for many years, but we are not obligated to report this information.”
In Boston, Mass General Brigham has declined to participate in the new program, with spokesperson Kelly Mitchell saying that “to protect patient privacy, we are unable to provide these medical records.”
Henry Ford Health in Detroit; St. Luke’s in Boise, Idaho; and Sanford Health based in Sioux Falls, South Dakota — which together handle over a million ER visits a year — are among the health systems that have been approached but not yet entered into an agreement with Konza, according to representatives. Several of the nation’s busiest hospital systems targeted for the program — including the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, Yale New Haven Hospital in Connecticut, Nationwide Children’s Hospital and the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, and Baylor Scott & White Health in Texas — declined to answer questions about whether they’re participating.
Hoehn-Saric, the agency’s former chairman, said he was surprised that the CPSC would insist that hospitals provide identifiable records from all emergency room visits.
“This idea that they can simply demand patient information from a hospital and that the hospital would provide it — I really don’t understand the basis for that,” he said.
KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF — the independent source for health policy research, polling, and journalism.
More than 4 million people nationwide were dropped from the federal food assistance program known as SNAP from July 2025 through March, according to a nonpartisan think tank.Arizona has seen the sharpest decline.
Again so much hate and anger towards people who do him no harm. A desire and a demand that he gets to rule how others live. Such self important Christian love. No hate like some Christians love for the right to tell others what God thinks. It is strange that their god always agrees with them, never that they need to change or grow, just that others must live by the church doctrines of the hater. Hate who they hate and the world is a paradise they believe. Notice the pastor is OK with a man penatrating and using his wife in any way he wants, anally or orally. Only sex between men in any form is to be illegal. It seems very selfish to me. Why is the act OK if he does it with his wife but I can’t do it with my husband Hugs
In his first interview with an LGBTQ publication, Pastor Doug Wilson reveals that as many as 20 people in the government align with his church’s ideology.
This story includes references to sexual abuse. Viewer/reader discretion is advised.
In February, Doug Wilson made headlines after giving a sermon at the Pentagon as part of Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s monthly Christian worship service. Wilson, the lead pastor at Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho, holds a number of controversial views: He believes the U.S. should become a Christian theocracy, married women shouldn’t have the right to vote and gay sex should be illegal.
In his first interview with an LGBTQ publication, Wilson talks about his connections to Hegseth and others in the Trump administration. He estimates that 10 to 20 people in the government are aligned with his radical ideology. He explains that he thinks trans people are “sad,” certain elements of his idea of “homosexual behavior” should be punishable by execution and in certain cases of marital rape, both parties should be disciplined.
“UNCLOSETED with Spencer Macnaughton” is a new podcast by Uncloseted Media, an investigative LGBTQ-focused nonprofit news publication. Follow and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. YouTube // Spotify // Apple
Watch the full interview above or read the transcript here:
Spencer Macnaughton: Hi everyone. Welcome back to UNCLOSETED with me, Spencer Macnaughton. Today, I’m speaking with Doug Wilson, the lead pastor at Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho, and an increasingly prominent figure in conservative Christianity. Wilson has recently attracted national attention for his connection to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, as well as his controversial beliefs, which many say align with Christian nationalism, and include denying married women the right to vote and banning gay sex nationwide. Here, he sits down with Uncloseted for his first ever interview with an LGBTQ news outlet. Pastor Wilson, thanks so much for speaking with me and Uncloseted Media today.
Doug Wilson: You’re most welcome. Thanks for inviting me.
Embedded with Hegseth and the Trump Administration
SM:Great. So first, you’ve made a lot of headlines this year in particular because in February, you were a guest pastor for the Pentagon’s newly instituted monthly Christian worship service, where you prayed alongside Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. Hegseth closed the prayer by putting his hand on your shoulder. That’s pretty, kind of, major to get that high up in the federal government. How did you develop your relationship with Hegseth and subsequently get invited to this very high-level prayer?
DW:I’ll give you a telescope version of that. Before Pete Hegseth was the secretary of war, he was with Fox News. He was involved in making a documentary on the state of education in America and met a friend of mine, David Goodwin, who is the CEO of the Association of Classical Christian Schools, which is an organization I founded. He was so impressed by that kind of education that he moved to Tennessee to enroll his kids in a school like this, but he was still working for Fox. So he’d fly into Tennessee on Sundays, and the only church that was open in the afternoon was a CREC church, which is the denomination that I’m in. And after he was appointed as secretary of war, He moved to D.C., and I was in the Nashville area and filled the pulpit at that church, Pilgrim Hill Church. And as it happened, the Hegseths were back in Nashville. I met him there at church and we visited for a few minutes. And then we planted a church service in Washington, D.C., a little over a year ago, so he’s been coming to that church service. I’ve met him a couple of times there in D.C., and of course, I met with him when he invited me to the Pentagon. But that’s the extent of our meetings, like three times, maybe four.
SM: There’s reports that he considers you his spiritual adviser. What does that mean exactly?
DW: I’m not a policy adviser. But it would be the sort of thing where, if he were in some sort of newspaper conflagration over something or other, I’m functioning currently in a pastoral role. As it happens, this coming Sunday, the Washington, D.C., church service is going to be installing a pastor there. So for the first year or so, our church here in Moscow was supplying, sending and recruiting people to come and preach there, but they will have a full-time pastor starting this next Sunday.
SM: Wow. And you’ve spoken about how, you know, although President Donald Trump is not an evangelical by any stretch, you said, quote, “his administration is full of them.” So how many folks in his administration do you reckon are aligned with your church and might attend the church service that you guys are putting on in D.C.?
DW:I do know that if Kamala had been elected, the White House would have been pretty evangelical-free. She would not have been hiring people like me. But the Trump administration just has quite a few conservative Christians working there. And in our D.C. church service, there are a number of people that are either working for the government, you know, they’re assigned to the Pentagon, or they have roles in the administration.
SM:More than 10, more than 20? Roughly, how many would you say?
DW:Boy, I would say between 10 and 20.
SM: Wow, in the actual administration?
DW:I would say between 10 and 20 in the government.
SM: In the government, got it. And who else in addition to Hegseth would be part of that?
DW:Sure, no major players at the cabinet level or anything like that. And as for the people who are the next tier or two tiers down from that, I’d rather not say because I don’t want to ruin their day.
SM:You think it would ruin their day if you said who they are?
DW:Yeah, basically. For example, I did an interview with NPR. When the NPR video segment dropped, our church secretaries [had] to not answer the phone for three days.
SM:Wow. Why?
DW:Because they don’t want to be vilified.
Back in the Closet, Boys
SM:Understood. So yes, obviously, we’re an LGBTQ publication. Is this the first LGBTQ publication you’ve done an interview with?
DW:I believe that is… I think that’s fair, yes.
SM:Cool. So obviously we’re going to focus on some of the things you’ve said in that realm, right?
DW:Right.
SM:And one of the things you’ve said is that there should be anti-sodomy laws and other prohibition on sexual behavior in all 50 states. So sodomy obviously gets thrown around as a buzzword. What do you mean exactly by that when you said it should be illegalized? Are we talking about anal intercourse between two men or what exactly do we mean by sodomy?
DW: Right. Let me make a distinction and then back up and then answer your question. The distinction is there’s a difference between politics, which is the art of the possible: What proposals am I proposing right now? And secondly, what is my sketch of an ideal Christian republic 250 years from now? Those are two separate things.
SM:Even if it’s 250 years from now, what specifically do you mean by that? Like what becomes illegal when it comes to sodomy laws?
DW:OK. I would regard sodomy as male-to-male intercourse, anal intercourse or oral intercourse.
SM:Would hand jobs count or just anal and oral?
DW: No, between two men, between two men.
SM:Hand jobs as well.
DW:Hand jobs, oral sex and anal intercourse—
SM:Got it.
DW:—would be sodomy. In the old order, the legal definitions of sodomy would have included oral foreplay between a married heterosexual couple, right? So, I think that there were definitions of sodomy that went beyond scripture.
SM:So you’re OK with heterosexual people in oral foreplay or those sorts of things if they’re married?
DW:Yeah.
SM:And then what about women-on-women lovers? Like is oral sex OK for them under these laws or no?
DW:Well, “OK” is too loosey.
SM:Yeah, but in your ideal world 250 years from now, would that be illegal across all 50 states?
DW:No, and this is going to be interesting, because I’m a Bible guy. If you go through the Law of Moses, you won’t find any legal prescription of lesbianism. This brings us up against the difference between a sin and a crime, right? There are things that are manifestly sinful for every Bible-believing Christian, which I believe ought not to be criminal. You don’t have any penalty in the Old Testament attached to lesbian behavior. It would have been considered a sin, a form of sexual immorality, but not criminal.
SM: Got it. So then in your ideal world, gay men engaging in sexual behavior would be illegal under sodomy laws across all 50 states. You’ve mentioned, though, that you wouldn’t want it to be too heavily enforced because you don’t want to create a, quote, “sexual Gestapo.” So how exactly would this be enforced?
DW: Well, I would say that the main enforcement mechanism would be social expectations and a withholding of societal approval. It would be sort of “back in the closet, boys,” not because of fear of legal retribution, but because this is simply not done.
SM:But that’s different than what you’ve said in the past. You said sodomy laws, right? So would it be illegal, or are you kind of walking back?
DW:No, I’m not walking it back. I think it ought to be that society needs to express its disapproval of this behavior in law.
SM:So then if it’s a law, what’s the punishment if somebody makes that act, which would be illegal? What would the punishment be?
DW: So the punishment would vary. I’m reluctant to give the government excess powers of invading private homes.
SM:OK, so just theoretically, I get caught having sex with my boyfriend, what happens to me? What is the punishment?
DW:In the 1980s, there was a movement called Christian Reconstruction. And the Christian Reconstructionists wanted to take the Old Testament law, sort of with a grappling hook, and bring it over and drop it down on modern society. And that would mean the maximum penalty there for homosexual behavior would be execution. And so there were debates among the Reconstructionists of: “Do we have to stone the homosexuals?” And there were some people saying, “Well, firing squads are OK because they’re throwing very tiny stones at a high rate of speed,” but they were talking about execution. In that debate back then, I pointed out that King Asa and King Jehoshaphat in the Old Testament closed the bathhouses, and they exiled the sodomites from the land. And their behavior is praised in the text. That told me that execution, although a lawful penalty for homosexual behavior, was not the minimum penalty; it was the maximum penalty.
SM: And do you believe that still, that in your eyes the maximum penalty for homosexual behavior in an ideal world, in Pastor Wilson’s ideal world, would be execution?
DW: Yeah.
SM: You do?
DW: Yeah, if you ask me: “Could you ever envision a homosexual crime of any nature being visited with the death penalty?” Yes, I could.
SM:You, in other words, want to create a law where—a real law, in this country eventually—where the maximum penalty for me having sex with my boyfriend would be my execution? I just want to make sure that’s clear.
DW:No, no, no. That’s why I wanted to finish this scenario. I do want to create a society where the maximum penalty for a Roman Catholic priest molesting or raping an altar boy is solved and addressed with a tall tree and a short rope.
SM:Right, that’s pedophilia though, which is of course different than homosexuality.
DW:Well, it’s a species of homosexual behavior. So let’s say it’s a Roman Catholic priest and a 15-year-old boy. Or there’s all kinds of variations of human behavior. But there are homosexual crimes that are egregious enough that I would want to execute the person for.
SM:So you see pedophilia as an element of homosexuality, is that right?
DW:Yeah, if we’re talking about the alphabet people. Right?
SM:You’re referencing LGBTQ community?
DW:LGBTQ+. What’s under the plus?
SM:Not pedophilia. Would you consider adding a “P”? Do you think a P is meant into that umbrella of LGBTQ?
DW:Absolutely.
SM:You do? Because you conflate lesbians and gay people with, like, kind of akin to pedophiles. People who rape children?
DW:I don’t think that I’m making that association. I think the LGBTQ+ acronym, that whole chain, is sort of a sexual alliance of people who are defying traditional biblical norms. And pedophilia is one of those things that defies those norms.
SM:Do you see two men having sex as equally sinful as a man raping a girl?
DW:Yeah, they’re both violations of God’s law.
Conversion Therapy
SM:Obviously, if you’re seeing both of these as sinful, pedophilia and homosexuality, this is a very big concern for you, I would imagine, in society, right? So I wanted to ask, you know, in March, I’m sure you’ve been following this, the Supreme Court overturned Colorado’s ban on conversion therapy. And you’ve called Canada’s conversion therapy ban a, quote, “wretched and misbegotten law.”
DW:I did.
SM:In your church, right, as the lead pastor, if somebody comes to you saying, “I’m attracted to the same sex,” should they be allowed to go through conversion therapy? And if so, what is the most effective form of conversion therapy in your eyes?
DW:I’m a pastor of hundreds of people, and I’m a pastor to people whose sexual temptations are homosexual. I’ve counseled people in that position and have seen them arrive at victory over those temptations.
SM:I see it based on the science and, you know, methodologically sound evidence-based research, it is a discredited practice, but I want to know from your perspective, what works?
DW:So what works is Jesus Christ. So Jesus Christ forgives sin, and Jesus Christ empowers us to overcome sin.
SM:In layman’s terms, if you can, right? Are you just saying pray? Or is there more to it? Like what else—do you give them assignments? Do you give them homework? Are there things they need to do? Or is it simply just pray, pray, pray, pray, pray?
DW:Yeah, it would be easy to sort of dismiss what I’m saying as sort of “pray the gay away.” So when I’m counseling someone who is struggling with this and wants out, one of the places I start is with that person’s relationship with his father, that person’s relationship with his mother, that person’s upbringing. “Do you have a healthy relationship with your father? Do you hate your mother?” You know, it’s not like, “What do you do when you’re horny?” If you just start there, you’re healing the wound lightly, basically.
SM:Have you ever experienced same-sex attraction?
DW:Uh, no.
SM:Never?
DW: No.
SM:No. Got it. And so when they come, right, if say somebody comes to you and says, “Pastor Wilson, Pastor Wilson, I am experiencing this and I love your church, but I’m happy, I have a boyfriend.” Do they stay in the church, or what happens?
DW: Such a person would not be allowed to become a member. But such a person would be welcome to attend as often as they wanted. You’re welcome to attend, but if you were a member, there’s a commitment to becoming a member and that commitment means living as a Christian is obligated by the Bible to live.
The Path to Ending Obergefell
SM: Got it. And OK, so Obergefell, yes, I know you wanted to talk about that, because you said in the here and now, that’s something that you would want overturned.
DW:One of the reasons I would go to Obergefell as one of the action points is I think that that is actually a possibility. Just like Roe was overturned, I think Obergefell could be overturned and it might be a matter of as few as two Supreme Court justices.
SM:When you’re in D.C. or when you’re helping with prayer with Hegseth or other folks in the administration, are there rumblings that there’s a possibility that that’s within reach?
DW:Yeah, I’ve not had any conversations like that with administration officials, but I have certainly written a lot about it and I know that I’m read by people in powerful places.
SM:Of course, because if they align with you ideologically, then they must want that too, I would imagine, if they share the same belief systems as you, no?
DW:I’m not plotting with administration officials to make a move on Obergefell, but I am very vocal about it. So I think repealing Obergefell is an attainable goal in our current climate.
SM: When it comes to the legal issue behind it. What would be the kind of roadmap to overturn it?
DW:I think there’d have to be an increased number of conservative Christians in the Senate. You would have to have trained, capable judges who were evangelical Christians, who had been operating at lower courts, who were in a position to be nominated to that position and survive the character assassination battle, you know? Before, Senate confirmations, hearings were all about abortion. I think the next ones will be about Obergefell.
SM:You do?
DW: Yeah, I do. I think that that is going to be the issue. And so if you have more Christians in the Senate, if you have Christian men nominated, and the Senate has the kind of people who don’t fold under pressure, then it is a doable thing.
Trans People Are ‘Sad’
SM:Mm-hmm. All an interesting perspective. You’ve spoken less about transgender people.
DW:Yeah.
SM:I wanna know your thoughts. In your ideal world, what would happen to people who are trans? Do they have a place in society? What’s your view?
DW:Yeah, this is… no way to talk about it without talking about it. I think transgenderism is simply sad. I don’t think that it should be elevated to a category given equal carved-out rights. I think this should be treated with love and compassion and help, counseling.
SM:About 1% of the population identifies as trans and the vast majority of those people, once they get past stigma, live their lives healthily and happily, so I’m unclear what your issue is with it.
DW: The man is the image and glory of God, and the woman is the glory of the man. I believe God created us in such a way as to reflect his glory. And the transsexual movement, I think, is a movement away from that glory. And so when I see people who are… just… well…
SM:You can be candid. Be candid.
DW: I don’t want to give offense.
SM:You won’t offend, go ahead.
DW:So when I see people who are tatted up and pierced, dog collar, it’s hard for me to not see self-loathing.
SM:But what connection do those folks have to trans folks? I mean, that’s a different kind of, you know, I have a lot of trans friends, none of them are wearing those things.
DW:Well, I’m glad you’re more fortunate.
SM:Do you have a lot of trans friends who do wear those things?
DW:No, I have, I encounter people out in the community, and I have a pastor’s eye, right? And one of the things I can identify and see and greatly sympathize with is people who are miserable and they’re trying to… “Maybe this’ll work. Maybe this will give me a sense of who I really am.”
SM: Do you think trans people are dangerous? I mean, Trump recently included radical transgender folks in his counter-terrorism strategy. Do you have concern there?
DW:We’ve seen many instances of transsexual violence over the last few years. That doesn’t mean that all transsexuals are violent, but a disproportionate number of the violent episodes are coming from transsexual individuals.
SM:And I think a lot of the data that actually shows when you look at things like school shootings, the disproportionate number of cisgender people are perpetrating those, actually white cisgender men are the most common and disproportionately more likely even when you break it down per percentage of the population.
Disempowering Women
SM: Obviously we’re an LGBTQ publication, but we do stories on women too, right? And you’ve been in the news for your belief systems around women. I wanna know just more generally, what role do women have in society for you? In your world, should they be allowed to be anything they want? Doctors? Lawyers? Should they be allowed to serve in the military? How do they place in society in your view?
DW:Yeah, I don’t think there should be any legal barrier to women getting a medical degree, getting a law degree. But I don’t think there should be a legal barrier to women being in the military.
SM:Can they be in combat?
DW:No, that’s the one place I would limit them. I’d say women should be kept away from combat roles. I don’t think women ought to be put in front lines.
SM:Why not?
DW:Because I served on a submarine, a couple of submarines, and I just can’t get inside the head of the person who thought that was a good idea.
SM:Why? Just you don’t think women are as capable in that area?
DW:No, I think that if you have women on board a submarine, and we went to sea a couple of times, submerged for two and a half months, you’ve got 130 people locked up in this steel tube under the water for two and a half months. You put three women on board. That’s like, “Why shouldn’t I throw catnip into the pack of cats?”
SM:Well, there’s going to be gay people in the submarine too.
DW:Yeah. That’s another problem.
SM: And tell me, I have read a few things like, “Women should submit to men, obey their husband, obey their father.” What exact role do women have as it relates to their relationship with men? Men should be the head of the household? Clear up what you mean by women’s role in that dynamic.
DW:The Bible requires women, “A woman should submit,” Paul says, “to her own husband.” And what that means, my wife is submissive to me, but what that means is she doesn’t have to submit to all the other men.
SM: Say a wife and a husband are together and the wife says, “I want to go to med school and become a doctor.” And the husband says, “Nope, I want you to stay home and be with the kids.” Should she stay home?
DW: Yeah.
SM: She should. OK. Because she submits to the husband?
DW: Because she submits to the husband. Let’s say this is a counseling case for us, and the wife wants to do something and the husband has said, “No, I really don’t want you to do that.” We would say, “You married him and you vowed before God and witnesses that you would follow and obey him. And this is one of those cases where he’s made a decision and it’s a lawful decision and you should submit to it.”
Sexual Abuse
SM:When it comes to sex, right? Like, say the man says, “I want to make another baby with you tonight.” And the woman says, “No, I don’t want to. I don’t want to do this right now.” Should he still do it if he wants to? Should she still submit if she doesn’t want to have sex that night?
DW:No, I would say, basically, marital rape is wrong. So if he forces himself on her and rapes her, then I believe that that’s a sin.
SM:If he raped her, how would he be disciplined? Would you call authorities or would you deal with it internally?
DW:It would depend on the nature of it. It would, you know, it would depend on, a violent rape? Yes.
SM:You would call the police?
DW:What’s that?
SM:You would call the police?
DW:Yeah.
SM:What does a nonviolent rape look like?
DW: Oh, let’s say she just says, “I really don’t want to. I’m not into this. I don’t want to, please don’t treat me this way.” But he says “Too bad.” You know, he’s just being a boar. He’s being awful. And someone like that should be disciplined by the church, but there was no crime.
SM: And what line is there, like, she should just “give in,” right? Is she allowed to say no to the husband? Or should she just submit?
DW: Here’s why it’s a gray area.
SM:And it’s a gray area in terms of, you might not consider it a violent rape. For many people, it is not a gray area, no means no. And I think that’s the kind of understanding we have societally at this point in America, but perhaps, is it a gray area for you, I guess, is what I’m trying to ask.
DW: No, let’s say she’s had an absolute horrendous day, is fried, just is exhausted and she says, “Honey, I really, please, please no.” Does she have the right to do that? Absolutely, yes, she has the right to do that. Does she have the right to cut him off for six months? No.
SM:She doesn’t?
DW:No. So if she says, if that situation came to us, and the husband said, “Here’s the thing, we’ve been married for five years and we’ve not had sex for the last six months, and she just won’t.” Right? In this situation, she’s got the problem. And we’d address it like, “Look, we have to talk, you’re married, you need to act like you’re married.”
SM: So in month six, if she is in a space where she doesn’t want to have sex, and he rapes her, is that justified because she, in your view, has held out for too long?
DW: It’s not justified, but neither is her behavior justified. So that would, basically what you’d have there is a marital mess. And both of them sinning against each other.
SM:And when something like that happens, what’s the discipline you give to both the man and the woman in that case?
DW: We would say we want you to start coming in for weekly counseling, and we want you to agree that the end goal of this counseling is for you to be back together as husband and wife, living together, having sexual relations, the way a normal couple would.
SM:OK, got it. And there have been numerous accusations of sexual abuse at your church. And I’ll read them, I wanna let you respond, but when 14-year-old Natalie Greenfield reported sexual abuse by Jamin Wight to the police, there are allegations that you pushed for him to get lenient treatment. And you’ve officiated the marriage of Steven Sitler, who was arrested for sexual contact with a minor and later admitted to being sexually stimulated by his baby. When a man commits a rape in your church, like this, what happens? Walk me through exactly what happens, because obviously this is a pervasive issue in conservative Christian churches across the United States, and there have been these reports at your church. So what happens when you find out a man has committed a rape?
DW:Oh, what you do is call the cops.
SM:How many times have you called the cops, would you say, for issues of sexual abuse or rape?
DW:Oh. Maybe five?
SM:And how many times would you say a woman has said no, whether it’s that six month thing or some other thing, where you deal with it internally?
DW:No, the one accusation that’s out there about marital rape is an accusation that is coming from a stone-cold liar.
SM:So, you deny those allegations that have been…
DW:Yeah, I deny that we’ve ever sanctioned marital rape. That’s just flatly false.
SM:How many instances have there been when a woman has alleged or a child has alleged that they’re experiencing some form of sexual assault or S.A. where you deal with it internally?
DW:I can’t think of any.
SM:None?
DW:No, if you’re talking about a self-report of, if a child told me that “I’m being molested,” I wouldn’t ever sit on that.
SM:OK, and have you heard reports from other people where they say a child’s been molested and you didn’t sit on that?
DW:Yeah, so I’m going to make up an example, OK?
SM:Oh, no, no. No, I’m just curious. Like, have there been other bystanders or people in the church who have told you this child may be being molested, where you haven’t reported it?
DW:Oh no, what you want to do is follow up on it. You want to check and you know, is there something to this? Is the person reporting to you a rumor or something that they, “I saw them in the grocery store and the girl looked unhappy.” Is there anything to it? If there’s anything to it, you pursue it. You should be all over it.
SM:But are there instances where people have suggested this could be happening?
DW:And then we did nothing? No.
SM: Yeah. No?
DW: No.
SM: No. OK.
DW: Basically, we have an aggressive stance toward this thing. Reports to the contrary, notwithstanding. This is an area where we are lied about routinely.
SM:You have you mentioned the reputation that your church has of, you know, sexual assault or child molestation? Why do you think that exists?
DW:Well, because we’re the size of a small town. And these accusations have come up over the course of like 30 years. I would put a…
SM:But a lot of small towns don’t have accusations associated with them like that.
DW:Let’s put it this way. I saw a bumper sticker once in my grandma’s hometown in Nebraska. “You don’t see much in a small town, but what you hear makes up for it.” The human race is messed up and sexual misbehavior is a big part of that mess.
SM:Why do you think it disproportionately happens in conservative Christian communities?
DW:I think that’s false. I don’t think it disproportionately happens.
SM: You don’t?
DW: I don’t.
SM:So the statistics are just kind of false?
DW: Yeah. Yeah.
SM: One of my last questions, and thank you so much for your time—
DW: You’re welcome.
SM:—is, you know, I’m obviously an openly gay man. I have a boyfriend, we have sex, right? I don’t believe I’m gonna change at all as time goes on. In your view, where am I going? What happens to me?
DW:So, as an evangelical Christian, I believe that the only way to salvation is through Jesus Christ, through looking to him in his death, burial and resurrection. And the sin that you’re committing is homosexual sin. And so I believe that you are spiritually lost, excluded from heaven, and I believe they’re only ultimately two destinations: heaven and hell. So to be fair and perfectly honest and not trying to be rude, but I think you’re lost.
SM:And I’m going to hell.
DW:Apart from repentance, right.
SM:Got it. In a society that gives men so much power, do you ever get concerned that giving men power over women, does it not put them at greater risk of being abused? What happens when there’s no stop gaps and you have powerful men at the top who aren’t helping women who are struggling? Because that does happen a lot.
DW:If you have a patriarchal society, then you are creating the possibility that certain powerful men will abuse their position. Right, that’s true.
SM:Of course, yeah.
DW:OK, so I’m not disputing that. What I would argue is the way you deal with that, the most effective way to deal with that, how do you guard against evil men, predatory men? Well, you need good men to be protectors. So, I believe that fathers and brothers and pastors and elders should be a line of protection around their women.
SM:Obviously that doesn’t happen in a lot of instances. So if women don’t have their own voice and don’t have an outlet, what’s their recourse if the man who’s in charge of protecting them has failed? Like what should they do?
DW:Right.
SM:If they’re in one of these insular communities where the men in charge thinks it’s OK to abuse them.
DW:That’s a terrible dilemma. And I’ve seen it, right? I’ve seen women who need protection from their protector. I have seen that. But you don’t fix the problem by making women dependent upon a federal agency. Now what happens when they need-
SM:What if you just gave women more power and didn’t have it where they have to submit to the men?
DW: Who gives them the power?
SM:I mean a lot of spaces in society see men and women as equal and don’t ask them to submit to their husbands in this way.
DW:Yeah, but they do ask them to submit to them, right? In other words, you have structures in society. And these structures in society, if they say we’re going to stipulate that men and women are equal here, that’s just a statement, that’s just a proposition, that’s just words unless you police it. And somebody’s got to be the police.
SM:But the police should never be women.
DW:Yeah, because they won’t be able to do the job. Problem is, those women are going to be defeated. Men are aggressive, stronger than women. If it came to it, they wouldn’t, they’d be able to… It won’t be an effective defense so if you had… Let’s say we elected a woman president and she said, “As my first act I want the entire Secret Service detail that accompanies me all time, I’m the first woman president, I want all the Secret Service detail to be women also.” The assassins are going to say, you know, “Good job. Ha! Just made myday.”
SM:Yeah, we’ve been on for an hour and 15. So grateful for your time.
DW: You’re welcome.
SM: And we’re an objective news publication. And I think I can objectively say that I believe you’re homophobic, transphobic and sexist. Why should I think anything differently after this phone call?
DW: If your worldview is correct, then absolutely, that’s what I am. I don’t regard myself as homophobic by the standards of scripture at all. According to the standards of the sexual revolution, yeah, I’m homophobic and transphobic. You’ve never met anybody worse.
SM: I think that’s a perfect place to leave it. Pastor Doug Wilson, I really do appreciate you coming on and speaking with me and Uncloseted Media today.
DW: Right, thanks for having me.
SM: And if you liked that episode and want more of our journalism, go to unclosetedmedia.com or find us on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.
Additional reporting by Sophie Holland and Bella Sayegh.
If objective, nonpartisan, rigorous, LGBTQ-focused journalism is important to you, please consider making a tax-deductible donation in the U.S. through our 501(c)(3) fiscal sponsor, Resource Impact, by clicking this button:
Scottie's Playtime 