Your dad is my hero. I HAVE A SIMILAR STORY.

“Perhaps you could rename [the] podcast, stuff you missed in history class mostly about women”

Damnit, Massachusetts. Led the country in the American Revolution. Led the country in Marriage Equality, now leading the country on Transfolks’ rights. Are you feeling a little smug tonight?

I explained it to a man one time who made the same comparison. FGM is the equivalent of slicing off the entire head of the penis. FGM is done to remove sexual desire, circumcision isn’t.

Dear everyone: SEPARATE YOUR CHURCH AND STATE.

Everything he’s saying applies to sex workers who are trafficked, coerced, or forced by desperate circumstances into an industry they don’t really want to be in, but it doesn’t apply to sex workers who are working safely, legally and by choice. To be fair to President Carter, there are more in the first category.…

I’ll admit that I agree with parts of what he’s saying. I don’t think it’s as cut and dry as legalization = great, everything’s fine now. I’m definitely not down with sex workers being punished in any way. It also really doesn’t sit well with me that legalizing sex work perpetuates the idea that women’s bodies are…

Yeah. At least he actually seems to care about the well-being of sex workers, which is a hell of a lot more than you’d get from any Republican.

I love her so much. She could easily have written a book (It Was God Who Saved Me From Those Horrible People) and disappeared from public life with some cash. Instead she chooses to stand up for victims in a place where they really need someone to stand up for them. I adore her.

I love that she is using her experience to comment and constructively criticize the rape culture we have all around us. She is SO bright and thoughtful, and I really am inspired by the way she took something so terrible in her life and is using it to help other people. I believe she can make a difference in the way…

I respect her so much. She has some very biting things to say about purity culture in general and it is wonderful.

Ms. Smart seems like an exceptionally brave woman. Every time I see her putting herself out there in public, I can’t help but think, “You go, girl!”

Keep fucking rocking, Elizabeth Smart! That’s all I’ve got. I have no snark or cynicism to give. Just keep being an amazing human being.

I lived a very similar existence, although I had the added bonus of homeschooling. I remember one girl specifically who I prosthelytized to at the age of eight. I led her to Christ and then gave her a Bible. Her mother was furious. She marched over to our house, handed us the Bible, and told me that I was not welcome…

I do not envy this man the road ahead. It’s really difficult to face your community, or even your own past actions, after you’ve “shed” your faith.

Yep— I went to a Christian college as well. The “Bible as Literature” class everyone had to take did more to dispel the notion that the bible should be taken literally than any liberal argument I’ve heard since. It also improved my ability to argue the bible with conservatives, which is super fun.

I like your ‘rents.

Kind of the same here. I don’t know what my parents really were back when I was a kid - politics was STRICTLY a private issue. My parents didn’t even tell each other who they’d voted for, because that’s private. It really helped me learn, like you said, how to get information from multiple sources and process it. To…

I don’t think she’s blaming others, she’s just highlighting the influence they had on her—she knows that she wasn’t very politically aware, and because she didn’t know enough about it to earnestly care about the issues, she used what resources were near at hand—her family and her boyfriend. I’m glad you made the…

That’s not entirely fair—a lot of teens aren’t really educated on the issues, and if their families and friends are conservative and that’s all they know, they’re more likely to lean conservative. I was the same way (sans boyfriend) because I was raised in a very conservative Christian environment. I grew up and then…