#Behavioral Science Congress

[neurologyevents]

Exploring Psychology and Mental Health: Key Conferences and Events in 2025

Psychology plays a vital role in understanding human behavior, mental health, and cognitive processes. With increasing awareness and research in the field of psychology, attending specialized conferences and events is essential for professionals, researchers, and clinicians. In this blog, we’ll explore major events such as the Psychology Conference and highlight prominent gatherings like the International Psychology Conference 2025 and Psychiatry Conferences.

Psychology Conference 2025

The Psychology Conference 2025 is a premier event that brings together psychologists, researchers, and clinicians from around the globe to discuss the latest developments in psychological research, practice, and mental health care. This conference focuses on exploring new research, evidence-based practices, and innovative approaches to mental health and behavioral sciences.

International Psychology Conference

The International Psychology Conference is a global gathering of professionals dedicated to advancing the field of psychology. It offers a platform for experts to present their research, share knowledge, and discuss strategies for improving mental health outcomes.

Psychology Meetings and Psychiatry Conferences

The Psychology Meetings and Psychiatry Conferences provide valuable opportunities for professionals to exchange insights, collaborate on research, and stay updated on the latest trends and developments in mental health care, treatment strategies, and psychological therapies.

Mental Health Conferences and Psychology Events

The Mental Health Conferences and Psychology Events explore key topics such as depression, anxiety, stress management, and other mental health issues. These conferences aim to foster discussions on prevention strategies, clinical practices, and innovative treatment approaches.

Behavioral Science Congress and Behavioral Science Conference

The Behavioral Science Congress and Behavioral Science Conference emphasize the intersection of psychology, neuroscience, and behavioral research. These events provide insights into human behavior, mental health, and cognitive processes.

Neuroscience Symposium and Depression Meetings

The Neuroscience Symposium highlights the connection between neuroscience and psychology, exploring how brain function impacts mental health. The Depression Meetings focus on the latest research, treatment options, and interventions for managing depression.

Psychology Forum and Psychology Conferences

The Psychology Forum is an interactive platform for professionals to engage in discussions, workshops, and networking opportunities. The Psychology Conference provides a comprehensive look at current research, practices, and challenges in the field of psychology.

Upcoming Conferences:

Conf 7

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Attending psychology-related conferences and events is crucial for professionals looking to stay updated on the latest trends, research, and advancements in mental health care. To explore more about upcoming Psychology Conferences in 2025, visit Neurology Events.

[grison-in-space]

Hi fellow neuroscientist and animal behavior observer! What's up? It's a weird ass time to be a scientist in the US right now. Like there's the doom and despair taking up most of my brain but also I have a lab presentation in 1.5 weeks and my committee meeting two weeks after that. How do you make yourself focus on lab/science stuff?

I'm so sorry it's taken me a while to get back to you; I've been rotating this ask in my mind for over a week now. I hope your lab presentation went well, and I hope your committee meeting does, too. Bear in mind that I am reeling as much as anyone else, but... well, I have had a lot of things happen during my academic career, and I have had some practice with this by now. I was displaced from my home three or four times during grad school, and all but once that was because of climate change related flooding. (I actually cannot remember offhand. That kind of thing fucks with your ability to reckon in chronological time, which is why no one has been able to work out how years work since 2020 at latest.) I did my PhD in Texas, too, which gave me some exciting experiences around campus violence and guns.

But maybe the biggest thing for me is that I started grad school in 2012, right in time for the government sequester of 2013. That was the year Patty Brennan (of corkscrew duck penis fame) published an article in Animal Behaviour laying out helpful tips in case your research is targeted as "wasteful spending" by members of Congress seeking to reduce scientific funding. Brennan's work legitimately is groundbreaking--I started out close enough to her field to be able to say that almost no one was looking at vaginal anatomy when she started and she's really driven the field of reproductive conflict forward by systematically looking at methods by which females exert "cryptic choice" to control their own reproductive futures. But it sounds silly at first blush in a sound bite, so she immediately became a target when her work went viral. And that paper came out a decade ago, and we are no better than when we started.

I've gotten pretty good at working through grief and fear, and I've tangled with burnout more than once. So how do you handle it when everything is overwhelming and frightening?

You sketch out the work you can do, and you do it as best you can. Same as anyone else.

Here's the thing. You're a budding scholar. Whatever your field is, you probably know more about it than anyone who isn't a scholar in your field already, and you care about broader justice or you wouldn't be asking me this. This makes you a precious potential resource for whatever activist cause is nearest and dearest to your heart. You are placed, as a person whose career is focused on the pursuit of knowledge, in a position of great authority. Yes, even as a PhD student, although I do agree that having the PhD makes the things you say even more impactful. But you'd be surprised how far even just "PhD student" can go when you're making a stand.

You are a valuable voice when it comes to the intersection of your expertise and your community--and by that, I don't just mean your discipline and your geographical location; I mean your lived experiences and your identities too. If you burn out, your voice and effort may be completely irreplaceable. So make sure you don't burn out, but don't waste your potential to speak out, either. You can do that by working out what your "beat" is: pick one to two things you care really deeply about working on in the world, that you want to make better, and focus on those. Use your authority to make changes.

Currently, my "beat" is focused on disability justice (especially in terms of neurodivergence) and sex/gender, because those are communities I am part of and that I think deeply about. My work there can take a lot of forms: shoving hard on the pernicious medical thought process that tends to conceptualize disorder and disease as a deviation from a uniform functional population; pointing out the complexity inherent in sex differences and sex itself; building relationships with disabled academics to make networks for one another so that we can better support trainees as well as ourselves building alliances between disability justice scholars and researchers tackling these topics with an eye towards integrating the comments and interests of disabled people into the field of study that theoretically focuses on us. These are topics that tie into my research interests (context dependence, decisionmaking, strategy, developmental plasticity, etc) but also into my sense of justice and the communities in which I spend my life as an autistic queer butch.

Think about the things you care most about making better, and think about how those things intersect with your research interests. Is there a bathroom bill you could write a deposition for explaining how complicated sex actually is? A local news reporter who could use a scientist talking about the long term climate impacts of the new fracking project up the road? A new policy on immigrant familial separation that is going to lead to kids with major attachment issues down the line and increase the odds of terrible outcomes? Creative ways to send promising undergrads from underrepresented backgrounds on for new opportunities if you live in a state where DEI initiatives have been banned? (Man, that was an exhausting conversation to have with the North Carolina folks at my last conference. And the Floridians.) Where will your voice carry the most weight for the amount of energy you allocate to it?

Here's my best stab at practical advice for junior trainees:

Figure out what your limit for practical engagement is and defend it viciously. The thing about being in academia, and about having the PhD for that matter, is that it gives you a lot of leverage for speaking authoritatively about problems in your field and in your community. This, too, can be a form of activism and shaping the world. But if that's the weapon you are making out of your career, you can't also be an effective organizer on the ground for eight different local causes. You can't do everything at once, so pick a limited subset of things to focus on and work on those. Like academia, public impact will suck you dry if you let it, so you have to set boundaries and you have to be clear with yourself about that.

As always with research, your topic should be something you're interested in. Apply your priorities as a human being to your research. Move your project in directions you really care about and which are aligned with your values. Talk with your mentors about how you pitch that to other scientists in your field, of course, but if you're really shaken and scared by the political climate... well, better to apply that to your work than to not be able or interested in focusing on the work at all.

Look for things to celebrate and militantly celebrate them, even if it feels silly. You submitted a manuscript? Make a special dinner. You survived your committee meeting? Meet up with a couple of friends for coffee and cheering. You need things to cheer about, and your job is not going to naturally provide them, so lay out things you can celebrate and celebrate them even if you don't feel like you really achieved anything. (Your PI should help with this, but a lot of them don't. If your PI is absentee, try to find labmates or colleagues to celebrate when you can.) Joy and pride fuel us to keep going; make sure you are feeding them. You do not need money to make this happen, either: there are inexpensive ways to make things feel special, even if your stipend doesn't stretch nearly far enough.

Especially if your lab isn't full of people in your corner, make some friends who feel the same way you do about your "beat". Fellow activists (or just people who care) about your biggest priority are a great choice. Back in the day, I would have exhorted you to join Twitter to build that network; these days, I think most everyone is on Bluesky or Mastodon. You need people who get you and who are in your corner, and you need people who don't have power over your career to help you weather it when the storms rise.

People in the midst of despair don't know the future, either. There will be victories to come moving forward. It will be impossible to imagine them as you are today. The future is murky and uncertain, and you never know what battles you can win until you pitch them. Don't let anyone tell you a battle has been lost until you fight it, and don't make the mistake of thinking that what you do today doesn't matter intensely.

Life is iterative: it always starts from what you do today, and small aggregate decisions have a lot more power over the whole than any individual large one. If you don't like the direction you're going, you can always change direction for a while and see where you go. The best time to plant a tree was ten years ago; the second best time is now.

Find ways to take breaks completely from the political situation. Currently, I have just gotten into Minecraft for the first time, and I am playing a lot of stupid pixelated escapism games. You have to have time to recharge yourself away from all of it. Whatever that looks like to you is good enough. I need, personally, to get back into going for long walks in the woods; that one is one of my old reliable helpful ways to think without getting overwhelmed about it.

So. I don't know if anything has gotten better or worse for you over the last couple of weeks, but I hope for better for you. As for me... well, it's probably time to go back to my grant. We're short on funding going into this mess and who knows if the grant I'm writing for an explicitly DEI-oriented program will survive the coming hammer blows long enough to get it in. Even if it doesn't, I have a couple of book pitches I'll write up and a couple of suggestions for jobs along the way I can take. I can always redirect my effort to a new direction.

Take care of yourselves, friends.

[tyonfs]

the marriage and baby project (teaser)

PAIRING ▸ mark lee x fem!reader

GENRES ▸ smut, fluff, crack, college au, fake dating (marriage?) au

SUMMARY ▸ mark lee has had the biggest crush on you for years, so, naturally, he’s over the moon when you’re both partnered for a group project. however, he underestimates just how close two people can get when they have to pretend they’re married for a month while taking care of a fake baby.

ESTIMATED WORD COUNT ▸ 8k words

AUTHOR’S NOTE ▸ the dunk shot series is not dead guys :’) sorry this series was sort of at a standstill for a bit but here’s the teaser for mark’s installment !! ♡ send me an ask or comment if you want to be on the tag list! (warnings will be added in the final fic) 

THE ONLY REASON WHY MARK TOOK FAMILY AND CONSUMER SCIENCE WAS BECAUSE his friends told him it would be an easy A for a general education requirement he needed to fulfill. No one clued him in on having to become a married man and father.

“Hi, Mark,” you greeted with a smile, sliding into the seat next to him. “I guess I’m Y/N Lee for the next few weeks.”

He felt his heart drop to his stomach.

Here was a brief rundown: you were essentially a femme fatale, a drop-dead gorgeous it-girl; and Mark was a loser who was somewhat good at playing basketball. On top of that, Mark harbored the biggest crush on you since forever.

Forever dated back to high school. Although Mark never spoke to you much, he had always thought you were the most breathtaking individual he had ever seen. That was probably why he was malfunctioning right now. He had never gotten the opportunity to be around you like this, mostly because you were dating Vernon Chwe up until last year. All he could do was admire from afar helplessly, eyes lingering as you strode down hallways.

Chenle told him that there was a definite shelf life on relationships like yours and Vernon’s—relationships that were mostly physical—so he was confident you two wouldn’t last. And he was right. When you and Vernon broke up, Mark felt bad seeing your sad eyes, but an ugly part of him had been waiting for it to happen.

This situation, however, was like winning the lottery. Not only was he partnered up with you, but he had to play the role of your husband? Things like this never really happened to Mark, so he figured some misfortunate was coming his way soon.

“Hey, Y/N,” he managed to get out.

“Come up and get your babies,” the professor instructed. “These RealCare infant simulators use wireless programming to track and report on your behaviors, which is why I had you all sign those consent forms.” She held up one of the dolls for everyone to see. “I’m not gonna require you all to keep your dolls in a car seat, but I will be able to see records of misuse, clothing changes, temperature changes, whether you’ve rocked, fed, or burped your baby, or respond to its cries.”

Great. He had to walk around campus with a plastic baby. Mark’s friends were never going to let him live this down.

He wondered if the RealCare infant could play basketball.

He turned to face you again. “Do you want a boy or girl?”

“Mark Lee,” his professor chided, and he nearly jumped when saw her standing right beside his desk. “You don’t get to choose the gender of your child in real life, so I’ll be randomly assigning each couple a baby.”

“I don’t think we’ve considered the possibility of gene editing.”

“You can take that up with Congress.”

GENERAL TAG LIST ▸ @papiiimark @jaehy9ngs @chanluster @jjhmk @marksflute @superhajimark @jeongyoonohs @marklexleaf @dnylwoo @kpop-bambi @miyrisa @jjikyuu @venesiun @seventeeneration @chenosaurus16 @kylomeyon @infnteen @ohmarkly  @weish5n @thejeongjaehyun​ @lovesjenmoong​ @infnteen​ @wownajaemin​ @haruharux23 @pewpewpwe00 @scxrlettkx @pckeia @keijikunn @sapiowoman28 @atiny-doodles @loki-in-hogwarts @baekhyuns-lipchain @repjaehyn @chan-s-laptop @jen0zen @michplusb @yutassecrettime @minkis-simp​ @dreamyyang​ @catscoffeeandkpop​ @ahgastayzen​ @ryu-naa

[eugenedebs1920]

One of the beautiful things about how our representative democratic constitutional republic works is the varying opinions. The array of views and theories, the proposals and approaches, from the patchwork of ideology America has attracted, gives us the opportunity to select the peak ideas of so many backgrounds and cultures. Many of the founders, Washington in particular, were against the formation of political parties. Because of such contrasting views this was unavoidable.

There used to be a dozen or more political parties in the U.S. Wigs, federalist, socialists, labor and others brought their perspectives and that of their constituency to Congress. This enabled a more zoomed in viewpoint of the issues across the nation.

Our Population in this country, and the planet as a whole, has BOOMED! With it, so have perspectives, concerns and opinions. It becomes harder and harder to address everyone’s needs when the diversity and size of those you’re representing is so vast. This becomes even more burdensome when there’s red and blue to choose from. The puppet on the left or the puppet on the right.

I’ll have to do more research into why exactly but some time between the beginning on the twentieth century and 1940’s the cluster of political parties that had existed before pretty much consolidated in the two that dominate now. Sure, there are other parties out there, but not with much influence, or power as there was before the Second World War.

From a business perspective this makes sense, you buy out your rival for less competition so you can set market value to your liking. But this is not a business, some will argue the federal government is the largest business on earth. It goes beyond the financial side to the personal level. These are policies and practices that have real world implications. That affect real people lives in droves.

This “big tent” approach sounds wonderful in theory, but when you start looking at the details it becomes much more complicated. The extremes of both sides tend to be the loudest voices while representing the smallest fraction of the party.

It has proven to be detrimental to the functioning or our democracy! With just the two sides, when one side is unhealthy, unhappy and unwilling to compromise the system bogs. This last House term being an excellent example. These MAGA obstructionist sinking the ship. Making an ass out of themselves and the entire Republican Party. A party that used to be a proud, noble group, resorted to lacking leadership for months, failed vote counts and the title as the least productive Congress in this century. The “big tent” approach for the Republican Party has the loudest voices being heard while the mature, responsible, more centered Republicans are lumped in with them.

The same can be true of the left to an extent. Dems will kick those with unacceptable behavior words or conduct to the curb though, which is a huge difference. Yet there are extremes on the left that don’t necessarily reflect the views of most Democrats.

This, winner take all grasp for power has lessened the effectiveness and stature of the political spheres in this country. So it’s down to the puppet on the left or the puppet in the right. A brown paper bag with a name on it.

So we have the two parties with the two extremes. One party despite its downfalls wants to govern. Wants to see progress. Wants to enact change.

The other is fighting culture wars, denying science, and tiptoeing a line on bigotry that is stepped over habitually. Their method as the “party of no” which they labeled themselves during the Obama years does NOTHING for the citizens of this country. The obstructionist approach of saying no because the other side proposed it is not helpful, if you’d call it governing at all! The “war on woke” and this owning the libs thing is some childish, useless sh*t! Cutting off your nose to spite your face. Can we have representatives who actually work together and find compromise to accomplish SOMETHING!!!?

Anyway… There’s only one healthy party in America right now. And it sure ain’t the Republican MAGA Party…

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this story from the Audubon Society:

Too often, the debate over climate solutions centers on perceived trade-offs between habitat conservation and the clean energy transition, preserving community and allowing development, or reducing pollution and maintaining profitability. But responsible clean energy deployment can be balanced with the needs of communities and wildlife, representing a win-win that doesn’t give rise to insurmountable trade-offs. Audubon’s new report, Offshore Wind and Birds: Developing the Offshore Wind that Birds Need, confirms that offshore wind can have immense benefits for birds, people, and the economy. This report advocates for the rapid adoption of offshore wind to combat the climate crisis while protecting birds, supporting coastal communities, and addressing the growing demand from advanced manufacturing and emerging technologies.

Audubon produced the Birds and Offshore Wind report to examine the best available science regarding the risks to birds. While persistent myths claim widespread and devastating effects of offshore wind turbines on wildlife, the science tells a different story. Our findings clearly indicate that we can responsibly deploy offshore wind in a manner that still protects birds and their habitats. That said, it is important to acknowledge that offshore wind turbines, like all infrastructure, can pose a risk to birds. These risks include turbine collisions, habitat displacement, and avoidance behavior. Fortunately, our research shows developers can effectively manage these risks without significantly increasing project costs. 

To tackle the existing risks, Audubon calls for a four-step planning process:

Identify and remove critically important areas for birds from consideration for leasing.

Implement proven strategies to minimize the potential for turbines to impact birds.

Offset unavoidable impacts, when necessary, through investments in conservation.

Monitor bird movements and population trends to ensure solutions are working.

The impact of offshore wind on wildlife is neither disproportionate nor insurmountable. Proven strategies, such as reducing visible lights on turbines and using perching deterrents on turbines, have been effective in addressing bird impacts. 

Effective policy will be crucial in helping the U.S. fully capitalize on offshore wind opportunities and ensure development happens quickly and responsibly. Measures federal legislators and agencies can take include: 

Providing certainty by safeguarding existing investments and supports like the tax credits included in the Inflation Reduction Act.

Taking measures that improve outcomes for birds, like requiring developers to embrace new technologies and best management practices that reduce bird collisions. 

Bolstering investments in research and technology to help developers better understand wildlife interactions with turbines and improve turbine efficiency. 

Collaborating with developers on Community Benefit Agreements (CBAs) to help ensure coastal communities benefit from nearby offshore wind projects, with Congress taking steps to formally incentivize CBAs during the leasing process.

Improving project siting and federal permitting to speed the deployment of responsible offshore wind projects. Congress can facilitate timely permitting by increasing investments in the permitting workforce at relevant agencies.

State and local governments also play a key role in offshore wind development. States like New York and Massachusetts provide valuable models for working with local communities, Tribes, commercial interests, and the federal government to deploy offshore wind responsibly and rapidly. States are also instrumental in the siting, permitting, and infrastructure development that connects offshore wind energy to the grid, as well as conducting regionally specific environmental studies to help inform the federal permitting process. 

[mariacallous]

In 2014, Brookings began studying all the candidates running for Congress through The Primaries Project. Unlike many studies of congressional elections in political science and unlike most journalists’ coverage of congressional elections, the Brookings studies focused on all candidates who got themselves on the primary ballot, whether they were serious challengers in competitive races or dilletantes who were not expected to win. We chose to study the universe of congressional primaries for one main important reason: Over the years, congressional districts have become less competitive and safer for one party or another.1 As a result, attention has shifted toward primaries as an important factor in the motivations of representatives and senators, who fear being “primaried.”2 Even though in congressional primaries, as in the general election, very few challenges to incumbents succeed, the fear of being primaried leads incumbent representatives and senators to anticipate challenges and adapt to the possibility of being primaried. This is one important contributor to the political polarization that has become such a feature of modern American politics.3

Past qualitative research by Elaine Kamarck and James Wallner on incumbent members of Congress has found that incumbents:

Worry about a primary threat.

Believe contested primaries hurt their chances in the general election.

Exaggerate the importance of successful primary challenges and;

Believe that changes in their behavior can help defer or defeat primary challenges.4

A December 2024 qualitative study by J.D. Rackey and Michael Thorning interviewed members of Congress and reached similar conclusions. They found that “primary elections do play a major role in both the structure of the congressional floor agenda and individual member’s voting decisions.”5 They also found that primary elections affected member communications. “Members calibrate their message and tone to ward off or defend against primary challenges…”6

Thus, primary challenges—real or potential—affect member behavior. This is why the study of congressional primaries has become more and more important. This is the fifth study Brookings has conducted on the candidates who run for Congress in both parties. As in the previous studies (2014, 2016, 2018 and 2022), we designed a coding sheet and over the course of the 2024 primary season, a team of coders combed the websites, social media, and public interviews of all 2,048 people who made it onto their party’s 2024 primary ballot. We obtained information on demographics, issue positions, and overall political ideology. To maintain inter-coder reliability, we met twice a week to share findings and ensure consistency in how we characterized candidates

We will start by looking at the demographics of who runs for Congress. Then we’ll look at where they place themselves, if at all, within the factions that exist within their political party. Finally, we will examine the issues they run on. These fall into two groups: issues which many candidates ran on and those which were less frequently mentioned. On all issues, we will look at differences between parties and within parties. Tables that are not in the text can be found in the comprehensive appendix at the end of this paper. 

In general, we find several important results:

Women represent only around a quarter of congressional candidates.

About two-thirds of candidates are white.

Congressional candidates are more highly educated than the general public.

The two largest categories were MAGA Republicans and Mainstream Democrats.

Most candidates focused on just a few issues, with Republicans focusing on immigration, guns, law and order, and taxes while Democrats emphasized abortion, climate change, and health care.

Issues such as transgender rights and critical race theory attracted relatively little attention from the candidates.

Open primaries where Independents could vote helped elect more moderate candidates, suggesting a way election reform could nibble away at political polarization.

[uwmadarchives]

50 Years Ago: APA Removes "Homosexuality" From DSM Diagnoses

Written by Bailey Watson, LGBTQ+ Archive Student Processing Assistant

12/18/2023

December 15, 1973 - By a vote of 5,854 to 3,810, the American Psychiatric Association removes homosexuality from its list of mental disorders in the DSM-II Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.

Content advisory: This post discusses the history of homosexuality in Western psychiatry and may contain offensive language or topics.

Last Thursday marked 50 years since the APA (American Psychiatric Association) removed “homosexuality” from its list of mental disorders. This change was made to the DSM-II Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (the current edition as of 2023 is the DSM-5-TR). The long history of homosexuality being included with physical and mental disorders dates back to the 19th century with Western European theorists working towards an understanding of same-sex attraction, leading to the coinage of the term “homosexuality” or “homosexual.” While these early theories positioned same-sex attraction or desires as unnatural, other theorists of the same decades aimed to prove that homosexuality was not abnormal but instead a natural variance of human sexuality.

Photo Dr. Franklin Kameny from David Carter papers, Collection no. uac 183,  Box 5, Folder 49. 

The conversation around homosexuality as a disorder took a turn during the post-WWII period in the United States, during a phenomenon referred to as the “lavender scare.” This period, parallel to the “red scare” was a reaction to the Cold War policies and politics, resulting in the massive purge of homosexuals or suspected homosexuals from the federal government, and even further down to local governments (see here for information on UW-Madison’s history with the gay purges). Similarly, communists and suspected communists were also barred or purged from public service and government-contracted sectors. 

In response to these purges, the early gay rights movement, then known as the homophile movement focused on organizing and protesting the conditions that made up the lavender scare. These conditions included the DSM’s classification of homosexuality as a diagnosable disorder. To the early homophile movement, as to some early theorists, homosexuality was perfectly natural, and therefore they could not pose a threat to national security. 

One aspect of activism from this period was addressing the DSM's use of homosexuality as a diagnosable disorder. The homophile movement argued that sexuality had no bearing on mental health, and by stigmatizing the gay community, the DSM and APA were adding to the problem. Furthermore, by diagnosing people as "homosexual" the APA created a way to dismiss those voices and placed a barrier on the conversation on who was fit to participate in society freely and who was not.

Finally, in 1973 after years of protest and activism, the influence of activism, including the voice of Dr. Franklin Kameny (pictured above) and internal changes led to a new definition of mental disorder within the APA and thus removed homosexuality from diagnoses. A win for the homophile movement and a change that brought lasting and positive impacts to many people's lives, even 50 years later.

References and for further consideration:

Drescher, Jack. 2015. "Out of DSM: Depathologizing Homosexuality" Behavioral Sciences 5, no. 4: 565-575. https://doi.org/10.3390/bs5040565 (open access)

For more on Kameny and the early homophile movement, explore the David Carter papers, uac 182, located in the Madison LGBTQ+ Archive (housed at the University Archives, Steenbock Library)

[strokes-of-everything]

Look,

I don’t care if you’ve gotten every COVID booster or never wore a mask.

It is NOT fine to completely toss aside covering your mouth when sneezing or coughing in public.

I have studied behavioral sciences. I expected people to go from being manic about not sneezing/coughing in public to not giving a flying f*ck.

But if I have to be in a crowded place with people thinking they can hack their wet cough into a closed fist inches from their face as if that does ANYTHING to protect people around you from getting your nasty snot virus in their own systems, I’m going to riot.

And I say this as someone who called bullshit on shutting schools down for such an extended period of time, to which Fauci admitted in front of Congress that it did nothing after the initial lockdown period and was a mistake.

Cover your sick, nasty mouth and nose when you’re a walking petri dish of illness, please. It’s not that fucking difficult.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

September 24, 2023

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is the nation’s highest-ranking military officer and the principal military advisor to the president, secretary of defense, and national security council. The current chairman, Army General Mark Milley, has served in the military for 44 years, deploying in Iraq, Afghanistan, Egypt, Panama, Haiti, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Colombia, Somalia, and the Republic of Korea. He holds a degree in political science from Princeton University, a master’s degree in international relations from Columbia University, and a master’s degree from the U.S. Naval War College in national security and strategic studies. 

Former president Trump chose Milley for that position, but on Friday night, Trump posted an attack on Milley, calling him “a Woke train wreck” and accusing him of betraying the nation when, days before the 2020 election, he reassured his Chinese counterpart that the U.S. was not going to attack China in the last days of the Trump administration, as Chinese leaders feared.  

Trump was reacting to a September 21 piece by Jeffrey Goldberg about Milley in The Atlantic, which portrays Milley as an important check on an erratic, uninformed, and dangerous president while also warning that “[i]n the American system, it is the voters, the courts, and Congress that are meant to serve as checks on a president’s behavior, not the generals.” 

Trump posted that Milley “was actually dealing with China to give them a heads up on the thinking of the President of the United States. This was an act so egregious that, in times gone by, the punishment would have been DEATH! A war between China and the United States could have been the result of this treasonous act. To be continued!!!”

In fact, the calls were hardly rogue incidents. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper, another Trump appointee, endorsed Milley’s October call, and Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller, who replaced Esper when Trump fired him just after the election, gave permission for a similar call Milley made in January 2021. At least ten officials from the Central Intelligence Agency and the State Department were on the calls. 

Trump is suggesting that in acting within his role and through proper channels, our highest ranking military officer has committed treason and that such treason in the past would have warranted death, with the inherent suggestion that we should return to such a standard. It seems much of the country has become accustomed to Trump’s outbursts, but this threat should not pass without notice, not least because Representative Paul Gosar (R-AZ) echoed it today in his taxpayer-funded newsletter.

In the letter, Gosar refers to Milley as “the homosexual-promoting-BLM-activist Chairman of the military joint chiefs,” a “deviant” who “was coordinating with Nancy Pelosi to hurt President Trump, and treasonously working behind Trump’s back. In a better society,” he wrote, “quislings like the strange sodomy-promoting General Milley would be hung. He had one boss: President Trump, and instead he was secretly meeting with Pelosi and coordinating with her to hurt Trump.”

Trump chose Milley to chair the Joint Chiefs but turned on him when Milley insisted the military was loyal to the Constitution rather than to any man. Milley had been dragged into participating in Trump’s march across Lafayette Square on June 1, 2020, to threaten Black Lives Matter protesters, although Milley peeled off when he recognized what was happening and later said he thought they were going to review National Guard troops. 

The day after the debacle, Milley wrote a message to the joint force reminding every member that they swore an oath to the Constitution. “This document is founded on the essential principle that all men and women are born free and equal, and should be treated with respect and dignity. It also gives Americans the right to freedom of speech and peaceful assembly…. As members of the Joint Force—comprised of all races, colors, and creeds—you embody the ideals of our Constitution.”

“We all committed our lives to the idea that is America,” he wrote by hand on the memo. “We will stay true to that oath and the American people.” 

Milley’s appearance with Trump as they crossed Lafayette Square drew widespread condemnation from former military leaders, and in the days afterward, Milley spoke to them personally, as well as to congressional leaders, to apologize. Milley also apologized publicly. “I should not have been there,” he said to graduates at National Defense University’s commencement. “My presence in that moment and in that environment created a perception of the military involved in domestic politics.” Milley went on to defend the Black Lives Matter protesters Trump was targeting, and to say that the military must address the systematic racism that has kept people of color from the top ranks. 

Milley’s defense of the U.S. military, 43% of whom are people of color, drew not just Trump’s fury, but also that of the right wing. Then–Fox News Channel personality Tucker Carlson made a special effort to undermine the man he said was “not just a pig, he’s stupid!” “The Pentagon is now the Yale faculty lounge, but with cruise missiles. That should concern you,” he told his audience. As Carlson berated the military for being “woke,” his followers began to turn against the military they had previously championed. 

Trump has made it clear he intends to weaponize the government against those he perceives to be his enemies, removing those who refuse to do his bidding and replacing them with loyalists. Ominously, according to Goldberg, another area over which Trump and Milley clashed was the military’s tradition of refusing to participate in acts that are clearly immoral or illegal. Trump overrode MIlley’s advice not to intervene in the cases of three men charged with war crimes, later telling his supporters, “I stuck up for three great warriors against the deep state.” 

Goldberg points out that in a second Trump administration packed with loyalists, there will be few guardrails, and he notes that Milley has told friends that if Trump is reelected, “[h]e’ll start throwing people in jail, and I’d be on the top of the list.”

But Milley told Goldberg he does not expect Trump to be reelected. “I have confidence in the American people,” he said. “The United States of America is an extraordinarily resilient country, agile and flexible, and the inherent goodness of the American people is there.” Last week, he told ABC’s Martha Raddatz that he is “confident that the United States and the democracy in this country will prevail and the rule of law will prevail…. These institutions are built to be strong, resilient and to adapt to the times, and I'm 100% confident we'll be fine."

Milley’s statement reflects the increasingly powerful reassertion of democratic values over the past several years. In general, the country seems to be moving beyond former president Trump, who remains locked in his ancient grievances and simmering with fear about his legal troubles—Adam Rawnsley and Asawin Suebsaeng of Rolling Stone recently reported he has been asking confidants about what sort of prison might be in his future—and what he has to say seems so formulaic at this point that it usually doesn’t seem worth repeating. Indeed, much of his frantic posting seems calculated to attract headlines with shock value.

But, for all that, Trump is the current frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination. He has suggested that the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the nation’s senior military advisor, has committed treason and that such a crime is associated with execution, and one of his loyalists in government has echoed him. 

And yet, in the face of this attack on one of our key national security institutions, an attack that other nations will certainly notice, Republican leaders remain silent. 

—

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[pshychiatrysummit]

International Conference on

Addiction Therapy

Join the International Conference on Addiction Therapy

The International Conference on Addiction Therapy is a pivotal event designed for professionals, researchers, and advocates in the field of addiction recovery and mental health. This global platform fosters discussions on innovative treatments, preventive measures, and comprehensive care for individuals battling addiction.

Key Highlights

This year’s Addiction Therapy Conference promises a diverse agenda that delves into the complexities of addiction and its impact on society. Whether you're interested in treatment approaches, prevention strategies, or public policy, this conference has something for everyone.

Featured Sessions and Topics

Addiction Conference: Gain insights into the latest advancements in addiction science and therapy.

Drug Addiction Conference: Explore evidence-based interventions for combating drug addiction and promoting recovery.

Substance Abuse Conferences: Examine the multifaceted impact of substance abuse and its treatment options.

Social Media Addiction Conference: Address the growing concern of social media addiction and its psychological consequences.

Forensic Psychology Conference: Learn how addiction intersects with criminal behavior and legal frameworks.

Collaborative Events

This conference includes interactive forums and discussions that encourage collaboration and shared learning:

Addiction Symposium: Engage in deep-dive sessions with experts on the latest addiction therapies and research.

Addiction Meeting: Connect with professionals to discuss innovative treatment modalities and emerging trends.

Addiction Therapy Congress: Explore cutting-edge approaches in addiction therapy, from behavioral interventions to pharmacological treatments.

A Focus on Recovery

The conference emphasizes recovery as a cornerstone of its agenda. The Recovery Summit provides a platform to share personal stories, best practices, and emerging tools for sustainable recovery.

Specialized Tracks

Substance Use Conference: Analyze patterns of substance use and strategies to combat dependency effectively.

International Addiction Conference: Gain global perspectives on addiction treatment and policy development.

Addiction Therapy Events: Participate in workshops and panels designed to translate theory into practice.

Why Attend?

The Addiction Therapy Conference is more than just an event—it’s a movement to advance the science of addiction therapy and recovery. Attendees will benefit from:

Networking opportunities with global experts and peers.

Hands-on learning through workshops and case studies.

Access to the latest research and treatment innovations.

Organized by Psychiatry Summit

Brought to you by Psychiatry Summit, a leader in mental health conferences, this event is meticulously curated to provide an impactful and enriching experience for attendees.

Upcoming Conferences:

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Be a Part of the Solution

If you’re passionate about addressing addiction and promoting recovery, the International Conference on Addiction Therapy is the place to be. Join us to shape the future of addiction treatment and make a lasting impact on individuals and communities worldwide.

Register today and take the first step toward transforming lives!

[rasagnachintha]

International Conference on Bio-inspired Robotics

The field of robotics is undergoing a remarkable transformation, increasingly drawing inspiration from the natural world. The International Conference on Bio-inspired Robotics is at the forefront of this revolution, bringing together researchers, engineers, and industry experts to Bio-inspired Robotics Conference explore the latest advancements and applications in biorobotics. As we dive into this fascinating topic, let’s highlight the significance of biorobotics conferences and events that showcase how nature inspires innovative robotic designs.

Understanding Bio-inspired Robotics

Bio-inspired robotics is an interdisciplinary approach that applies principles and mechanisms observed in biological systems to the design and engineering of robotic devices. By studying the remarkable adaptations found in nature—from the swift movements of Biorobotics Conferences cheetahs to the flexible forms of octopuses—scientists and engineers can develop robots that are not only more efficient but also capable of performing complex tasks in unpredictable environments.

The Role of Biorobotics Conferences

Conferences play a crucial role in advancing the field of bio-inspired robotics. The Biorobotics Summit serves as an important platform for networking and collaboration, allowing attendees to share their latest research findings and technological innovations. These gatherings are essential for fostering interdisciplinary dialogue among Biorobotics Events professionals in biology, engineering, and computer science, all working towards common goals.

Key Themes and Discussions

At the International Conference on Bio-inspired Robotics, participants engage in a variety of discussions centered on several key themes:

Adaptive Robotics: The conference highlights innovative designs that enable robots to adapt to their environments much like animals do. This includes research on locomotion inspired by various species, showcasing how legged robots can traverse rough terrains by mimicking animal gaits.

Soft Robotics: A significant focus of the conference is on soft robotics, which takes cues from soft-bodied organisms such as jellyfish and worms. These robots can manipulate delicate objects and navigate confined spaces, offering exciting possibilities for applications in healthcare and disaster response.

Swarm Robotics: Drawing inspiration from social insects, swarm robotics explores how multiple robots can work together to complete tasks efficiently. Presentations at the conference will illustrate real-world applications, such as environmental monitoring and search-and-rescue operations.

Innovations Showcased at Biorobotics Events

The Biorobotics Events provide a platform to showcase groundbreaking innovations in the field. Notable projects discussed at the conference include:

Robotic Pollinators: As bee populations decline, researchers are developing bio-inspired robotic pollinators that can replicate the behavior of bees, assisting in crop pollination and supporting agricultural sustainability.

Marine Exploration Robots: Biorobotics has led to the creation of robots that emulate fish movements, allowing for Robotics congress effective exploration and data collection in underwater environments. These innovations enhance our understanding of marine ecosystems.

Rehabilitation Robots: Robots designed for rehabilitation purposes are being developed to assist patients in recovery by mimicking human motion. This approach not only improves therapeutic outcomes but also ensures a more natural interaction between humans and robots.

Contact Us:

+1 630 768 1199

support@stripeconferences.com

jenny.smith@stripeconferences.com

#Bio-inspired Robotics Conference

#Biorobotics Conferences

#Biorobotics Events

#Biorobotics Summit

#Robotics congress

[narcissistpsychopath-abuse]

Sam Vaknin, Member of the Scientific Committee of 2nd International Congress on Psychology and Behavioral Sciences, London, June 2025

Additional international conferences on mental health, neuroscience, brain studies, psychology, and psychiatry

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Christopher F. Rufo

Published: Oct 24, 2024

The National Institutes of Health, which provides funding for breakthroughs in medical science, has long enjoyed a trustworthy reputation. But, in keeping with the Biden administration’s “whole-of-government equity agenda,” the NIH has shifted its priorities away from science and toward “the science of scientific workforce diversity,” subordinating medicine to the latest ideological fad: diversity, equity, and inclusion, or DEI.

With the help of Open the Books, a nonprofit research organization, we have obtained documents detailing the NIH’s descent into left-wing racialism. The agency, which is supposed to prioritize hard science, has made DEI a top priority, shelling out millions on “diversity” initiatives that do nothing to advance medical research.

At the beginning of his term, President Biden signed an executive order implementing DEI throughout the federal bureaucracy and Congress directed the NIH to develop “a strategic plan with long-term and short-term goals to address the racial, ethnic, and gender disparities at NIH.” In short: less focus on curing cancer, and more attention to making sure no one cures cancer without acknowledging his “responsibility to correct systemic racism and inequities.”

The NIH immediately got to work implementing the executive order across the mammoth agency. The plan, which applied to fiscal years 2023 through 2027, required “the participation of all 27 Institutes and Centers (ICs); Offices within the Office of the Director (OD); and working groups, staff committees, advisory groups, and employee groups across NIH.” Altogether, the agency reported, it had “identified a community of almost 100 offices, committees, and groups working within the NIH-wide DEIA ecosystem.”

Overseeing this bureaucracy is the NIH’s Office of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion, which has more than 50 employees. The office’s mission: to “identify and eliminate discrimination from the agency’s personnel policies, practices, and working conditions.” As part of its efforts, it has created digital information hubs on “Understanding Systemic Racism” and “Racism in Health,” and planned an “Anti-Bullying Training” session for employees—all methods to advance racialist ideology, rather than the department’s scientific mission.

The leader of NIH’s DEI apparatus is Marie Bernard, the agency’s chief officer for scientific workforce diversity. Bernard, to whom ten NIH employees report, has been thoroughly involved in the organization’s diversity efforts, co-leading the development of its DEI plan and co-chairing multiple diversity projects. One of these projects, NIH UNITE, which was established in 2021, “acts as a think tank to promote equity” and “identifies and addresses any structural racism that may exist within the NIH and throughout the biomedical and behavioral workforce.” In other words, the agency has 11 full-time employees focused on combatting “structural racism.” By their own account, they’re making progress.

In addition to ramping up internal DEI measures, the NIH has overhauled its external funding efforts. One major priority is “Health Equity,” a trendy new academic discipline that, in theory, studies health disparities between groups—for example, African-Americans’ disproportionately high rates of Alzheimer’s—and tries to identify causes and find solutions. In practice, however, Health Equity is critical race theory’s window into medical science, yielding trifling grievance reports focused not on medical outcomes but on the demographics of the medical-research workforce itself.

The programs vary in complexity. Some are simple: the NIH, through UNITE’s DEIA Prize Competition, launched at the beginning of President Biden’s term, cumulatively has sent $1 million to ten universities that have “implement[ed] innovative strategies to enhance DEIA in research environments.” Others are more sophisticated: the Diversity Program Consortium, a cross-institutional initiative first established by President Obama, is designed to train students and develop faculty “from groups underrepresented in biomedical research.” These initiatives are supposedly intended to help the underprivileged, but they are, in practice, highly ideological, promoting, for example, “liberatory race-conscious mentorship” done “through the framework of critical race theory.”

The permanent bureaucracy within the NIH was already fertile ground for this kind of thinking. Even under President Tru.mp, who ostensibly opposed this ideology, the agency was a significant funder of left-wing racial science—a practice that the Biden administration continued.

Consider several of NIH’s funded projects, which began under Tru.mp and endured under Biden. The agency allotted $3 million to Columbia University, for example, to use Twitter “to enhance the social support for Hispanic and Black dementia caregivers” and to study the “ethical use of minority detection algorithms.” Remarkably, this award funded the creation of a “Black Tweet detection algorithm” to help curate posts “tailored to Black and Hispanic dementia caregivers.”

The NIH also bankrolled several bizarre initiatives focused on LGBT issues. It granted Yale University $3 million to study HIV risk by tracking gay men with GPS monitors; the project’s ultimate goal was to develop “a real-time phone app” partially on the tracking data. The agency also awarded Stanford $3.7 million to study “[s]ex hormone effects on neurodevelopment” in “transgender adolescents,” which researchers hope will “advanc[e] the empirical basis of clinical care for this vulnerable population of youth.”

These examples point to a key nexus: that between NIH, which controls billions in taxpayer funds, and major universities, which receive them in the name of DEI. The agency has spent an astonishing amount of taxpayer money under the current administration on DEI-inflected projects in research, undergraduate recruitment and retention, and faculty hiring—all to entrench the ideology in academia.

The most important of these initiatives is the NIH Common Fund’s Faculty Institutional Recruitment for Sustainable Transformation (FIRST) program, which was created in 2021 and “aims to enhance and maintain cultures of inclusive excellence in the biomedical research community” by funding the “recruitment of a diverse group of faculty” at research universities. NIH FIRST has subsidized such programs at 16 universities, including Cornell, USCD, Northwestern, and Drexel. The agency says that its efforts to make faculty more “diverse” will help to “ensure[] that the most creative minds have the opportunity to contribute to realizing our national research and health goals.”

The program has been used explicitly to justify increasing minority hiring. Cornell, which received $5,141,750 in FIRST funding, admitted to using the program “to increase the number of minoritized faculty in the biological, biomedical, and health sciences . . . . across six colleges and 20 departments. Remarkably, the university says it “is in an excellent position to test the hypothesis” —note the uncertainty—“that FIRST Cohort faculty will be successful.”

Some of these faculty members aren’t even focused on medical research. One new hire is an assistant professor of interpersonal communication who studies “how undocumented immigrants draw on communication identity management and advocacy strategies to challenge [structural] barriers.” Another is a behavioralist who “applies social theories to public health, focusing on the intersections between individual, interpersonal, and structural factors contributing to health inequities.”

Taken together, these initiatives raise a troubling point: taxpayers have agreed to fund the NIH on the understanding that their money will be used by talented scientists to expand our knowledge of the natural world and to cure illness and disease. But the federal government, blinded by a corrosive left-wing ideology, is using that money to fiddle with the demographics of elite institutions, design an HIV tracking app, and build AI that can tweet like a black person—whatever that means.

The deeper lesson is this: racialism erodes competence and quality. It has already done great damage to American universities. We should not be surprised that an approach guided by critical race theory, which denies the very existence of objective truth, is incapable of producing real science.

The only way to clean up our medical research institutions, and, by extension, our federal grantmaking agencies, is put the science back in medical science—and leave the ideology at the door.

==

Make merit matter.

[whitefromthebeginning]

Are the Constitutional Rights of Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Larry Brock, who unlike ChiefHuntingBear was never tortured with ultrasound and microwave frequency devices and not subjected to behavioral science and medical experimentation and not subjected to extortion, being violated for being held on a farm while a judge decides what his sentence will be for his role in the January 6th Occupation of Congress ?

[scottguy]

Article: The lost history of what Americans knew about climate change in the 1960s

The lost history of what Americans knew about climate change in the 1960s

Just like the Supreme Court lied that "There were no gun regulations when the Constitution was written." (There were many, not that it should mattter. AR-15s did not exist in the 1700s.)

Now they lie, "No one anticipated climate change, so now Congress can't let the EPA regulate it." Again, baloney. (To be polite.) See article above.

The "Major Questions" doctrine, which never existed until we had six right right-wing partisans as judges, really just means the: "What Might Lessen Corporate Profits" doctrine. That is obvious since their judicial reasoning fails to ever account for any impact on actual US citizens of industrial behavior.

The Supreme Court is essentially saying "Congress doesn't have the authority to pass and enforce laws in good faith to protect American citizens."

The hell it doesn't. At least Congress is ELECTED, giving them the authority of the public. The justices are merely APPOINTED. They are the LEAST representative branch of government.

The scientists on the EPA and other bodies are EXPERTS. Supreme Court member are obviously not. Recent Supreme Court decisions have been riddled with errors on basic science. EXPERTISE gives EPA regulators moral authority.

It is simply common sense that the public has a vested interest in breathing clean air and drinking clean water as well as avoiding catastrophic climate change.

Supreme Court decisions now consistently and arbitrarily fall on the side commonly associated with right-wing politics: profit & religion.

The only thing that gave unelected Supreme Court justices moral authority, since they are not elected, was being fair, following precedent, and ruling as narrowly as possible to have minimal impact on laws already passed by ELECTED officials.

The Supreme Court has annointed themselves the "The High Tribunal of all that is Unconstitutional for Every Law Inconvenient to Profit or Religious Zealotry."

[mariacallous]

There was a joke about the suspected Chinese spy balloon’s preferred pronouns; claims that Democrats believe there are “millions” of genders and a menacing call for “transgenderism” to be “eradicated”.

From the main stage of the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), far-right activists, members of Congress and the former president of the United States waged an aggressive assault on transgender rights last week, raising the issue in speeches and unrelated panel discussions, often under the guise of protecting children.

Headlining the conference on Saturday, Donald Trump drew some of the wildest applause of his more than 90-minute address when he pledged to stop the “chemical castration and sexual mutilization [sic]”​ of children if re-elected in 2024 while endorsing a national ban on transgender medical treatment for young people.

A day earlier, Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, one of Trump’s staunchest allies, rallied attendees with a speech devoted to the issue, unveiling her plan to reintroduce a bill that would criminalize doctors for providing gender-affirming care to a minor.

Left unsaid was that leading medical organizations, including the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics, consider gender-affirming care to be medically necessary and potentially lifesaving for children and adults diagnosed with gender dysphoria.

Much of the anti-trans discourse was aimed at liberals, who, according to the Republican senator John Kennedy of Louisiana, believe children “should be able to change their gender at recess” and “hyperventilate on their yoga mats if you use the wrong pronoun”. The remarks elicited peals of laughter from the audience.

Advocates say the vitriolic rhetoric on display at CPAC is reflective of the increasingly hostile movement among conservatives that seeks to regulate the lives of transgender Americans and marginalize vulnerable young people.

“People like Marjorie Taylor Greene will not be satisfied until every LGBTQ person is forced into the shadows,” said Geoff Wetrosky, campaign director for the Human Rights Campaign, an LGBTQ advocacy group. He added: “There’s really no legislative purpose other than discrimination in these bills.”

In state legislatures across the country, Republican lawmakers are pursuing a barrage of new restrictions related to transgender youth’s medical care, sports participation and bathroom use.

So far this year, anti-trans legislation has been proposed in 39 states, including 112 measures that focus on medical care restriction and 82 that pertain to education-related issues, according to the website Track Trans Legislation.

Last week, the Republican governor of Tennessee signed into law a bill prohibiting gender-affirming care for minors as well as one imposing new limits on drag performances, which have become a target for Republicans. Mississippi also enacted a ban on treatment for transgender youth while Republican state lawmakers in Kentucky advanced a similar measure, following a charged debate over a separate proposal allowing teachers to refuse to use students’ preferred pronouns.

Until recently, most legislation banning transgender healthcare was aimed at minors, but Republicans are increasingly pushing proposals that would limit treatment for adults.

Health experts and LGBTQ advocates say many of these anti-trans bills being pushed in state legislatures are not rooted in science – or reality.

Gender-affirming care is defined by the World Health Organization as “social, psychological, behavioral or medical (including hormonal treatment or surgery) interventions designed to support and affirm an individual’s gender identity”.

While treatment for transgender youths seeking care is highly individualized, experts say most begin with “social transitioning”, or presenting publicly in their preferred gender. Adolescents may consider puberty-blockers to temporarily pause sexual development, often before hormone therapy or sex reassignment surgery, which is not typically offered until age 18 or later. Research suggests regret is rare.

Toxic rhetoric and political actions can have profound consequences for LGBTQ Americans, especially transgender youth for whom suicide rates are high.

More than 70% of LGBTQ young people, including 86% of trans and/or nonbinary youth, say the political debate around trans issues has negatively affected their mental health, a 2022 survey by The Trevor Project found.

Harassment, intimidation and violence against LGBTQ Americans is rising, fueled, experts say, by a rise in online hate speech and an intensifying political debate. Hundreds of transgender people have been killed over the past decade, often in targeted shootings, with Black trans women at especially high risk.

“By spreading this propaganda, they’re creating more stigma and discrimination and violence against LGBTQ people,” Wetrosky said. “There are real repercussions and real world violence as a result of this rhetoric.”

Angelo Carusone, president and chief executive of Media Matters for America, which monitors rightwing media, said far-right influencers have helped stoke the present hysteria over trans rights. Some of the attacks pull from the online “fever swamps”, he said, merging discussions of gender identity with conspiracy theories about pedophilia and age-old tropes falsely accusing LGBTQ people of “grooming” children.

Increasingly, Republican politicians and party leaders see the issue of trans rights as a way to rile their base. It’s a strategy that seeks to capitalize on the conservative “parental rights” movement, which emerged in opposition to pandemic-era school polices requiring remote-learning and mask-wearing but quickly shifted to target classroom instruction related to race, sexual orientation and gender identity as well as transgender students’ bathroom use and sports participation.

“When that anti-education wave … started to talk about trans issues, the numbers were already there and their audience responded to it in a really visceral way,” Carusone said.

While the backlash may have helped Republicans claw back power in Virginia – a state thought to be increasingly out of reach for the party – their disappointing showing in the 2022 midterms suggests it has limited appeal.

But it was a central theme at CPAC, where panelists repeatedly mocked and misgendered transgender people, including Rachel Levine, who serves as the assistant secretary for health and is the highest-ranking transgender official in the US government.

On a panel dedicated to the issue, a former college athlete who competed against a transgender swimmer warned that there was an effort under way on the left to “fully eradicate women”.

A male panelist joked about “transitioning” into his female co-panelist, Chaya Raichik, who runs “Libs of TikTok”, an anti-LGBTQ social media account. Another lamented that students in China are taught calculus while American students learn that there are “72 genders”.

But the speech that LGBTQ advocates found the most chilling came from Michael Knowles, a rightwing political commentator for the Daily Wire, who declared that “for the good of society … transgenderism must be eradicated from public life entirely”. A range of voices, including public officials, experts and observers of rightwing rhetoric, condemned the remarks as inflammatory and dangerous, with some calling them “genocidal”. (Knowles insisted on Twitter that he was not referring to trans people, but “transgenderism” which he has described as a “false” ideology.)

Yet the intense focus on transgender rights at CPAC this year – nearly every speaker raised it – suggests it is likely to be an animating issue in the coming presidential election.

Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida, seen as Trump’s strongest potential rival for the Republican nomination, was not at CPAC this year but has aggressively targeted trans rights in his state.

He signed into law Florida’s so-called “Don’t Say Gay” bill as well as another measure that bans trans women and girls from competing in some school sports in the state. He has also sought to limit gender-affirming care for transgender youths and recently faced sharp criticism for requesting information about students who sought or received such care at public universities in Florida.

Meanwhile Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley, as well as possible 2024 contenders including the former vice-president Mike Pence, former secretary of state Mike Pompeo and the South Dakota governor, Kristi Noem, have all emphasized their opposition to trans rights.

Wetrosky, of the Human Rights Campaign, said he anticipates the emerging Republican presidential field will continue to embrace the anti-trans rhetoric and policies on offer at CPAC. And though it may boost them in their quest to win the party’s nomination, he predicted it would backfire in a general election.

“The vast majority of Americans support LGBTQ equality,” Wetrosky said, “and the people who are speaking at this conference are on the wrong side of history.”