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- [00:00]
John Law
Hey, Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile.
- [00:02]
Isaac Saul
Now, I don't know if you've heard, but Mint's Premium Wireless is $15 a month. But I'd like to offer one other perk.
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John Law
We have no stores.
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Isaac Saul
That means no small talk. Crazy weather we're having.
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John Law
No, it's not.
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Isaac Saul
It's just weather. It is an introvert's dream.
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John Law
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Isaac Saul
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- [00:32]
John Law
Can I just let it go?
- [00:39]
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- [00:42]
Audrey Moorhead
Let's talk about what's going on.
- [00:44]
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- [01:35]
Audrey Moorhead
From executive producer Isaac Saul.
- [01:38]
John Law
This is Tangle.
- [01:50]
Isaac Saul
Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, and welcome to the Tangle podcast. The place we get views from across the political spectrum, some independent thinking, and a little bit of my take. I'm your host, Isaac Saul, and on today's episode, we're going to be talking about Chiles v. Salazar. This is the Supreme Court case. Oral arguments in a challenge to Colorado's law banning quote, unquote, conversion therapy. It's a really interesting debate. I have some strong feelings about it, but I actually did not write today's take. We have an interesting lineup today. Audrey Moorhead, our associate editor, wrote Today's My take and she's going to read it here on the podcast. Suffice it to say, I disagree with her. I wrote a dissent, which you'll hear from me on today's podcast. So did Lindsay Knuth, one of our other editors. So it was a divided newsroom today here at Tangle, but I do think this is a really, really important case and there's a lot of meat on the bone here to discuss. So we're gonna try and give you that from start to finish. Before we jump in though, a quick heads up on a few really incredible pieces of content that we have out on the Tangle media ecosystem this week. First of all, we have a reader essay from Dina, who's one of our frequent commenters and critics. She's been quite critical of our writing on Israel and our coverage of Israel, and she made a case in a reader essay that Israel's actions in Gaza have been moral. It is a pretty thorough piece. It's quite long. It appeared in our Sunday edition this week, the newsletter that goes out on Sunday, which is a summary of all the week's news in case you're looking for just a once a week, something shorter. That's there. Dina did a really good job, I think, criticizing some of my writing. You know, I don't agree with her. I mean, she hasn't changed my mind on some of the positions I've espoused. Maybe she moderates a few points I've made before. But the piece is great. And that's what Tango's all about. It's viewpoint diversity. It's exposing you to a wide range of perspectives. And I thought this was an important one to share. So that piece is up on our website right now. It's titled J' AI Excuse. It's worth checking out. That's my best French accent. Second, we have a new members only newsletter, Press Pass, which went out and gives a behind the scenes look at what is happening here at Tangle that is also up on our website, readtangle.com it's an important newsletter for anybody who's curious about the future of Tangle. I'm gonna try and do a read down of it and get it up on members only podcast feed this week. So keep an ear out for that. And then also we have Friday's POD Drop feed, Drop of the Last Invention, a new podcast on the debate around artificial intelligence and how the outcome could shape the future of humanity. Worth listening to if you just scroll back a couple episodes. All right, that is it for my introductory remarks. It is October 14th, Tuesday. I hope you all enjoyed a long weekend. Going to send it over to John for today's main topic and I'll be back for my dissent because I did not write the take today. All right, enjoy.
- [05:09]
John Law
Thanks, Isaac and welcome everybody. Hope you all had a wonderful weekend. It's a great crisp fall day here in Colorado. The leaves are turning. We got reds, we got yellows, we got greens. It's right outside my window. It's really beautiful. I love the fall. I also love the winter. I just love seasons and it's nice to actually have them again after living in Los Angeles for 15 years. So really quickly, in response to my question from last week about some of your deepest values, one response actually stuck out to me a bit. It was from Celeste and I think the reason it stuck out is because of the reason that we're all here. And she, I think to summarize it, she values having an open mind, being able to talk about, you know, different topics with different people and finding commonalities, but also knowing herself well enough to have strong defined boundaries. I think that's something that we're all experiencing right now when we're trying to have these kinds of open discussions, especially here within the Tangled community. Try and learn each other's perspectives and hear more information and contextualize those thoughts without necessarily demonizing people and simplifying them down to just one opinion or one thought. It's hard to do and I think it's something we're all working on here. My question for this week has to do with something we've been kicking around here at Tangle, an idea that we're cooking up around a book club. And it got me thinking. What are some books that y' all have read that have been life changing or inspiring? I'm always down for a good recommendation and I think it'd be fun to share what everyone's been reading. Maybe some of y' all have been reading the same things. Let's find out. Write in to me at johnjonadtangle.com, and I'm really looking forward to hearing from you. In the meantime, let's bring the best of ourselves to everything that we do in the hopes of making a positive impact on those around us. Folks, I know I say that every week, but I gotta tell you, it's a motto that works for me. It drives me, reminds me that it's not just about me, that there's more to give and as a world, we can connect better if we're just mindful and care about one another. Alright, with all that said, here are your quick hits for today. First up, Hamas released the remaining 20 living Israeli hostages and Israel released over 1900 imprisoned Palestinians as the first part of a peace deal to end the war in Gaza. Hamas also returned the bodies of four of the 28 deceased hostages. Separately, President Donald Trump addressed the Israeli Parliament to celebrate the peace agreement, then traveled to Egypt for a summit with Middle east and European leaders to discuss the later stages of the deal. Number two, after announcing plans to impose a 100% tariff on Chinese imports on Friday, President Trump appeared to walk back the threat, posting on Truth Social don't worry about it, China. It will all be fine. China said it would resolutely take corresponding measures if President Trump levied new tariffs. Number three, the Trump administration began laying off federal workers amid the ongoing government shutdown. The administration told a federal judge that it has sent reduction in force notices to approximately 4,100 federal employees across seven agencies. Number four, 16 people were killed in an explosion at a military explosives facility in Tennessee on Friday. The cause of the explosion is not yet known. And number five, President Trump said he is considering sending Tomahawk missiles capable of striking targets over 1,000 miles away to Ukraine if Russia does not work faster to resolve the war.
- [08:43]
Audrey Moorhead
The Supreme Court sounded like they're leaning toward knocking down a conversion therapy ban in Colorado. Can't say for sure, obviously, until we know the decision, but that is the tea leaf reading from oral arguments today in a case brought by a Christian therapist. She offers what she calls voluntary faith based therapy for kids and argues this Colorado ban violates her right to free speech. Now, the state says therapy by licensed professionals, that's not free speech and that it is simply trying to stop a practice that has been scientifically discredited and that in some cases can cause real mental harm for young people, according to experts.
- [09:17]
John Law
On Tuesday, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a challenge to a Colorado law banning conversion therapy or psychiatric treatment intended to change a person's sexual orientation or gender identity for minors. A majority of justices appeared more sympathetic to the plaintiff and a licensed counselor practicing conversion talk therapy who says the law discriminates against her based on her views. Other justices indicated their support for sending the case back to a lower court to review the law under a higher standard of scrutiny. The plaintiff, Kaylee Chiles, offers biblically aligned therapy, including services aimed at reducing patients attraction to people of their same sex or to address feelings of gender dysphoria. However, Chiles says she stopped offering this service after Colorado's conversion therapy law passed in 2019 that barred mental health professionals from providing conversion therapy to clients under the age of 18, with an exception for anyone engaged in the practice of religious ministry. Chiles says the law violates her rights under the free speech and free exercise clauses of the First Amendment. Currently, 23 states and Washington, D.C. prohibit conversion therapy for minors, and the court's ruling in Chiles could set standards Beyond Colorado. In 2022, a district court denied Chiles request for a preliminary injunction to block enforcement of the law, but found she had standing to sue. The U.S. court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit also sided with the state, finding the law survived rational basis review, a lenient standard used in cases where no fundamental rights or suspect classifications are at issue. The Supreme Court agreed to take up the case in March. During oral arguments, Chiles attorney James Campbell said this law prophylactically bans voluntary conversions, censoring widely held views on debated, moral, religious and scientific questions, adding, aside from this law and recent ones like it, Colorado hasn't identified any similar viewpoint based bans on counseling. Campbell was joined by the Trump administration's principal, Deputy Solicitor General Hashim Moupin, who argued that the law should be subject to a stricter standard of review. Shannon Stevenson, Colorado's solicitor general, said that the law only applies to a single specific medical treatment, which he alleged carries great risk of harm and does not prohibit a healthcare professional from expressing their personal views to a patient. Stevenson argued that regulating medical treatment is fully within a state's power. Some of the court's liberal justices, such as Ketanji Brown Jackson, questioned whether different kinds of treatment, like talk therapy and medication for the same condition, should receive different protections under the Constitution. By contrast, the court's conservative justices appeared skeptical that the law enforced an existing medical consensus on conversion therapy. Justice Samuel Alito asked why a minor should be unable to access this therapy if they desire it. Today we'll break down oral arguments in the case with views from the left and the right, and then Associate Editor Audrey Moorhead will give her take.
- [12:16]
Isaac Saul
We'll be right back after this quick break.
- [12:22]
John Law
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- [13:19]
John Law
All right first up, let's start with what the left is saying. The left argues conversion therapy is a discredited treatment and Colorado's law should be upheld. Some say the court's ruling feels predetermined. Others criticize the court's handling of LGBTQ cases. In USA Today, Haley Norris wrote, junk science that harms LGBTQ youth should be banned. Conversion therapy has long been debunked by scientists, doctors and survivors alike as dangerous and deceptive, norris said. The practice has no basis in therapeutic medicine and has been condemned by the medical community for years, including by the American Psychological association and the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. It reinforces stigma and shame around LGBTQI identities, causing many who have been subjected to it to report experiencing high rates of depression, anxiety and suicidal thoughts. Contrast this fight with the case the Supreme Court heard in 2024 regarding access to gender affirming care for transgender youth, called United States v. Scremetti. When it comes to the transgender community, the conservative calling card is often that society and doctors are pushing gender affirming health care onto young people and their families, norris wrote. Unlike gender affirming care, which involves months of therapy and discussion of treatment options and outcomes with patients and families, conversion therapy pressures young people to change who they are to fit the conversion practitioner's idea of who they should be. In the Advocate John Casey criticized the sham of oral arguments on conversion therapy. Childs versus Salazar is about whether the highest court in the land will once again choose bigotry over humanity and call it constitutional. And it will likely do so based on a lie. The Alliance Defending Freedom, which is defending conversion therapy in the case, is accused of misquoting and misrepresenting a 2016 study by scholars Elisa diamond and Clifford Rosky. Casey said this is all a dog and pony show, a sham by the six conservative justices to somehow show that they can remain unbiased, which is a joke with tragic consequences. Conversion therapy is not in any way therapy. It is psychological torture masquerading as religion, marketed as healing and and has historically been inflicted on queer people under the guise of saving their souls. It sure as hell doesn't save them, it destroys them, casey wrote. This case really asks whether a therapist should be allowed to inflict emotional and psychological trauma on LGBTQ youth in the name of religion. Under this court, the answer will almost certainly be yes. In the Colorado Sun, Mike Litwin said Colorado's law looks predictably doomed. It's clear from arguments before the court Tuesday that the Colorado law is cooked and that Colorado Springs therapist Kaylee Chiles, who says people flourish when they live consistently with God's design, including their biological sex, will win out, litwin wrote. It isn't just Colorado law, of course, that will be trampled. Nearly 30 states now ban such therapy, which virtually every medical and mental health organization sees as both harmful and ineffective. State Attorney General Phil Weiser, who went to Washington, said it's not about free speech, but about the state ensuring proper medical treatment. Justice Sam Alito wasn't convinced by Weiser. He said a ban on voluntary talk therapy looks like blatant viewpoint discrimination, litwin said. But is it really viewpoint discrimination, or is it a determination guided by the best science that says that conversion therapy can do serious harm to their minor age clients? Does it sound like the court has any interest in the medical playbook that says first do no harm? Alright, that is it for what the left is saying. Which brings us to what the right is saying. The right supports striking down the law, arguing the case is fundamentally about free speech. Some say the law allows some kinds of gender identity therapies, but not others. Others suggest Colorado's lawyers made flawed claims during oral arguments In USA Today, Ingrid Jacks asked, can a Christian counselor help youth with gender dysphoria? The law allows counselors to use therapy to encourage minors toward a different gender identity. It just doesn't want professionals like Chiles to advocate for comfort within one's birth sex, jax wrote. While LGBTQ advocates like to act as if the science is settled on treating youth gender dysphoria, that's far from the truth. Several European countries, including Britain, have backed away from using drugs such as puberty blockers for children after research has shown mixed results. Earlier this year, the Supreme Court upheld a Tennessee law restricting so called gender affirming care for minors. 27 states limit such drugs and procedures for children. Given the serious implications at hand, the majority thought that this was an issue that states needed to figure out, jack said. The Colorado counselor's case is about much more than gender dysphoria alone, however. It's about our fundamental free speech rights as Americans that don't disappear in professional settings. The government can't compel, nor can it prevent speech it doesn't like, the Wall Street Journal editorial board wrote about conversion therapy at the Supreme Court. Childs fears being punished if she discusses such things with minors experiencing gender dysphoria. That's a constitutional violation, she argues, because the First Amendment protects private conversations between counselors and their clients, the board said. Colorado responds that she's overreading the law claiming that none of what Ms. Childs says she wants to do is banned. But the plaintext of the law appears broader than Colorado now prefers to admit. A therapist treating a minor who seeks to understand whether they identify as a girl or boy should help that patient explore that question, the state says. Explore how the state argues that this is a routine regulation of health care, not a free speech question akin to oversight of a surgeon who incompetently closes a suture. The comparison is hardly apt. Ms. Childs argues that strict judicial scrutiny should apply since Colorado is prescribing orthodoxy in the counseling room, the board wrote. The state predicts with what reads like unwarranted confidence, that its law can survive any level of scrutiny. But the idea that talk therapy is conduct, not speech, that could get a chilly reception from the justices. In National Review, Charles C.W. cook explored Colorado's attorney's There are, of course, certain circumstances in which the government may regulate the speech of those who provide a commercial service. Yes, including healthcare providers under current precedent. For example, it would not be a violation of the First Amendment for the state of Colorado to pass a law that either explicitly or implicitly rendered it illegal for a doctor to tell a patient that he should stick a carving knife into his neck, cook wrote. Clearly, though, there is a lot of distance between that rule, which is obvious and uncontroversial, and rules relating to transgenderism, which is currently the topic of fervent political, moral and scientific debate. Repeatedly, Colorado's lawyers suggested otherwise, even going so far as to claim that the matter had now been settled. But that isn't true, Cook said. For Colorado to have determined that counselors who live in the state are legally unable to tell people that they cannot change their gender, a position that up until about 10 years ago had been uniformly accepted through all of human history, is an astonishing overreach. Quite where the line sits between free speech and professional misconduct is hard to tell, but it's certainly not there. All right, let's head over to Audrey for her take.
- [20:54]
Audrey Moorhead
I'm associate editor Audrey Moorhead, and this is my take. I think Colorado's law and its defenders make a pretty grave error in conflating the well established record of abuses under conversion therapy with conversion talk therapy. John Casey's argument in the Advocate, under what the left is saying illustrates these abuses well, detailing horrible treatments, hypnosis, electroshock, even chemical castration. That, he argues, is the world the conservative justices want to return to by overturning Colorado's law. Plainly, the use of conversion therapy in the name of converting someone from gay to straight is inhumane and has been proven ineffective and harmful. Colorado's law and the medical establishment is right to condemn sexual orientation change efforts or soce, and you'd be hard pressed to find anyone other than the most extreme religious fundamentalists who really want to re institute electroshock therapy or chemical castration. But this Supreme Court case has nothing to do with those physical practices. Kaylee Chiles isn't trying to shock the gay out of her patients. She wants to provide counseling to them on their feelings about their gender and sexuality in a manner that's consistent with their own or their family's values. The lawyers arguing on her behalf plainly distinguished between physical interventions and talk therapy early in oral arguments. The lawyers arguing on her behalf plainly distinguished between physical interventions and talk therapy early in oral arguments, and the rest of the session, including Colorado's argument, was predicated on that distinction. A further complicating factor is the ongoing conflation between SOCE and gender identity conversion therapy, or gice. This conflation at the center of the case makes discussing its implications difficult, but it will almost certainly survive review by either the supreme court or the 10th Circuit. Colorado's law itself perpetuates this conflation, specifically defining conversion therapy as any practice or treatment that attempts or purports to change an individual's sexual orientation or gender identity. And Kaylee Childs brief ingrains it further, explicitly specifying that she wants to provide talk therapy for both sexual orientation and gender identity. And since the case doesn't distinguish between these two different practices, the Court will have to consider both James Campbell and Hashim Moupan, the lawyers representing Chiles and the US Government, respectively, made a clear case that the Court's prior decision protecting professional speech, National Institute of Family and Life Advocates v. Becerra, sets the precedent that Chiles talk therapy should be protected by the First Amendment. Moubin's argument, in response to questioning from Justice Kagan and Justice Jackson was most convincing. He argued that one state's law restricting a therapist's ability to provide a certain type of therapy could easily become a standard, allowing another law to restrict therapy in a different way. For example, Tennessee was able to ban physical gender transition treatments for minors, but not talk therapy affirming a child's transgender identity. Under this new standard, it could also have banned minors from receiving gender affirming talk therapy. Colorado Solicitor General Shannon Stevenson, arguing on behalf of Colorado, acquiesced to this position when Justice Gorsuch pressed her on the issue. Stevenson argued that states ought to simply change their laws when the medical establishment's guidance changes. But as Justice Barrett pointed out, sometimes the medical establishment does not have one clear standard of care. That is the case with conversion talk therapy. And absent a clear and established proof of harm, the Court should apply strict scrutiny to this legal challenge. After reading arguments, the Court seems to be leaning in this direction. While the Court heard a good deal of argument about standing, most of the justices, including Kagan and Sotomayor, ultimately seem to agree that Chiles had standing to bring this case before the Court. So I don't think that'll be an obstacle to a ruling against Colorado here. That much seems clear. What remains unclear is whether the Supreme Court will apply strict scrutiny itself or remand the case to the lower courts. Honestly, I can envision a world where the court rules 9O to send the case to the 10th Circuit and have them apply strict scrutiny. But if the Supreme Court applies strict scrutiny itself in June, I think the Justices are poised to strike down the law as a violation of the First Amendment. Justices Kagan and Barrett seem to agree on one particular point. If the Court applies strict scrutiny to Colorado's law, Colorado must prove that conversion talk therapy is directly harmful to patients. Whether Colorado can mount enough proof for its law to survive is contentious. Stevenson cited a few studies in her oral arguments that found that conversion talk therapy increased suicidality. But in his rebuttal, Campbell argued that their methodology and Colorado's application of it was deeply flawed. Essentially, many of these studies fail to differentiate between averse physical therapies like electroshock and talk therapy on its own. And even the ones that adequately make these distinctions admit to sampling biases such as only taking self reporting patients. And they don't claim to show causal links between talk therapy and later reports of depression and suicidality. And of course, most or all of these studies looked only at SOCE and not the GICE practices that the law also prohibits. The unavoidable truth is that on the issue of gender and sexuality, the medical consensus is at best muddled and at least confusing. Even worse, ideological actors on both sides of the issue have their own reasons to cover up results that contradict their preferred policy outcomes. In the long term, I think disentangling discussions of SOCE and GICE will be critical to regulating these practices effectively. Nearly all of the extant studies on conversion therapy deal primarily with soce, and most of these studies show at least some harm resulting from the practice, however dubious their methodology. I think it's perfectly reasonable for the state to want to restrict the provision of this therapy to minors, though I think those restrictions should be narrower than Colorado's law affords. The same amount of evidence in the study, however, cannot be afforded to proving the harms of gice. And as Dylan Esper, a typically liberal First Amendment lawyer, pointed out, the Colorado law is so overly broad that it might conceivably restrict otherwise gender affirming care Regarding transition. The law prohibits attempts to alter behaviors or gender expressions which might include an otherwise gender affirming therapist who wanted to advise a patient against continuing medical transition at a particular point in time or because of specific health concerns. Behaviors is the key word here. I think it creates an overly broad restriction on therapists ability to treat their patients. It's entirely possible that a patient with gender dysphoria or same sex attraction might desire not to act on these feelings either out of religiosity or some other personal conviction. In plain text, Colorado's law prohibits patients from seeking out talk therapy that might enable them to temper desires and behaviors that run contrary to their own convictions. I think this particular portion of Colorado's law clearly demonstrates viewpoint discrimination, and the state doesn't have the authority to restrict the freedom of speech between a therapist and her patient as this law does. As it stands, Colorado's law is overly broad and provides more confusion than it does clarity. Our patchwork of laws from state to state oscillates too far in one direction or the other, and our country's children are caught in the middle. No state is regulating the kind of gender and sexual care adults can receive, but states are all declaring that they're acting in the best interest of their children by preventing or restricting all kinds of care for them. In the midst of this confusion, Solicitor General Stevenson made a point that brought clarity to the we expect medical professionals, by nature of being medical professionals, to act in the patient's best interests at all times. But contrary to Stevenson's position, I think this is actually why therapists should have greater freedom to express their own viewpoints about what is best for their patients, even if those views contradict a prevailing view at that time or in that state. I don't think it would have been right for a gay teenager in 1975 to be unable to find a therapist who'd tell him he wasn't mentally ill. But by the same standard, I think it wouldn't be right for a gender dysphoric Christian teenager to be unable to find a therapist who might help her resolve her dysphoria by talking about how to love the body she was born in. To me, the only way we can protect the rights of both conservatives and liberals on issues of gender and sexuality is by allowing therapists trusted medical professionals to provide all kinds of guidance to their patients. And Colorado's law explicitly restricts that freedom.
- [29:04]
Isaac Saul
We'll be right back after this quick break.
- [29:10]
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- [30:45]
Lindsay Knuth
Thanks Audrey. This is Associate Editor Lindsay Knuth and today I'm reading a staff dissent. I strongly disagree with Audrey that the court should rule in favor of Childs. This is another case in which the group bringing the suit, the Alliance Defending Freedom or adf, is targeting a state law with an entirely hypothetical scenario, drawing a line around a legal right that has not been threatened in practice by the law in question. Childs strongest argument that she fears state sanction for helping a hypothetical 11 year old follow the child's goals of living with her assigned sex shrouds the more likely outcome. Parents who oppose homosexuality will tow their child to a state licensed medical professional who's now free to attempt to alter the child's same sex attraction regardless of the child's own belief, beliefs or wishes. That will be the inevitable result of the court's likely opinion. And in contrast to the plaintiff's cases. Instances of conversion talk therapy have been documented to cause psychological harm and censured gay identities, which can't be quote, unquote fixed. Children who wish to seek guidance on aligning their behaviors with their religion can still do so through their priests, pastors and church communities, just not from medical professionals. Protecting gay and trans minors requires that we bar these state mental health representatives from attempting to convert them in the name of biblical tradition. The state has an interest in doing so to prevent harm and this law deserves to stay.
- [32:08]
Isaac Saul
All right, thank you Audrey and Lindsey for your take and your dissent. I'm going to add my voice here just briefly with my own dissent, which is that under a strict scrutiny standard, Colorado has to prove that children are being harmed by conversion therapy and thus the state has a vested interest in protecting them. It seems plain to me that Colorado can make this case. It should not have to permit licensed therapists to practice a therapy the state knows doesn't work. Harm does not have to be suicide. It can be wasted time, wasted money, and substantial emotional strife while pursuing a medical treatment akin to changing someone's handedness or eye color. My hope is that Colorado gets a chance to make that case and if they lose again, we rewrites the law in a slightly narrower fashion so it can continue to regulate these practices out of existence. All right, that is it for our take and a couple dissents today. I think that's the second or third time we've had multiple dissents. I know I got at least one of them one day on the podcast, which was fun. We're going to skip today's questions answered section because, yeah, the pod just got long and we had a bunch of conversation about today's main topic. So I'm going to send it back to John for the rest of the show and I'll see you guys tomorrow. Have a good one. Peace.
- [33:33]
John Law
All right, here's your under the radar story for today, folks. A new report from artificial intelligence company and ChatGPT developer OpenAI found that groups hostile to the United States are using AI tools to plan and execute hacking and influence operations. The report suggested that these actors frequently use multiple AI models to to enhance existing tactics for phishing schemes and other malicious activities. OpenAI said it has banned several accounts using its product for these purposes, including accounts linked to Chinese government entities, some of which were using the platform to generate work proposals for large scale systems designed to monitor social media conversations. Axios has this story and there's a link in today's episode description. Alright, next up is our numbers section. The year that the American Medical association dropped its support for programs offering gay patients the possibility of sex preference reversal was 1994. According to a report from UCLA's Williams Institute, approximately 698,000 lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender adults in the U.S. say they received conversion therapy at some point in their lives. Of that group, approximately 350,000 say they received conversion therapy as an adolescent. 23 states, as well as Washington, D.C. have laws prohibiting licensed healthcare providers from offering conversion therapy to minors. 18 states have no laws prohibiting restricting conversion therapy for minors. According to a 2023 Trevor Project report, there are approximately 1,300 conversion therapy practitioners in the US and approximately 600 conversion therapy practitioners with active professional licenses. Alright, and last but not least, our have a nice day story. For decades, scaffolding erected around the Parthenon in Greece obstructed views of the 5th century BCE temple. Until now, the scaffolding supported maintenance and restoration of the site, but concealed some details and altered the viewing experience. Last week, however, the supports were finally removed as one of the final steps in the multi decade effort. More modern and discreet scaffolding will return temporarily in November, but the full restoration is now scheduled to be completed by the spring of 2026. Euronews has this story and there's a link in today's episode description all right everyone, that is it for today's episode. As always, if you'd like to support our work, Please go to readtangle.com where you can sign up for a newsletter membership, podcast membership, or a bundled membership that gets you a discount on both. We'll be right back here tomorrow For Isaac and the rest of the crew, this is John Law signing off. Have a great day y'. All. Peace.
- [36:20]
Isaac Saul
Our Executive Editor and founder is me, Isaac Saul, and our Executive Producer is John Lowell. Today's episode was edited and engineered by Dewey Thomas. Our editorial staff is led by Managing Editor Ari Weitzman, with Senior Editor Will K. Back and Associate Editors Humphrey, Dirk Casperson, Andre Moorhead, Bailey Saw, Lindsey Knuth, and Kendall White. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet75. To learn more about tango and to sign up for a membership, please visit our website@readtangle.com.
- [36:59]
John Law
Hey, it's Marc Maron from WTF here to let you know that this podcast is brought to you by Progressive Insurance.
- [37:05]
Isaac Saul
And I'm sure the reason you're listening.
- [37:06]
John Law
To this podcast right now is because you chose it well. Choose Progressives name your price tool and you could find insurance options that fit your budget so you can pick the best one for your situation. Who doesn't like choice? Try it@progressive.com and now some legal info. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates price and coverage match limited by state law. Not available in all states this Halloween.
- [37:34]
Advertiser/Commercial Voice
What's under your costume might just steal the show.
- [37:37]
Wait, is that Glow in the Dark underwear?
- [37:39]
Booyah. Meundies has dropped their spookiest collection yet. Glow in the dark undies and PJs. So comfy it's scary.
- [37:48]
Tricks, treats and buttery soft briefs.
- [37:52]
Exactly. To get cozy and spooky for less, go to Meundies.com trick or treat and enter code Trick or treat to get 20% off your first order. That's 20% off your first order@meundies.com trick or treat code Trick or Treat Meundies Treat Yourself if your dog could talk, they'd beg for Ollie. The full body tail wag, the excited little hops, the big goofy grin. That's the Ollie effect. Ollie delivers clean, fresh nutrition in five drool worthy flavors, even for the pickiest eaters. Made in US Kitchens with high quality human grade ingredients, Ollie's food contains no fillers, no preservatives, just real food. Just fill out Ollie's 30 second quiz and they'll create a customized meal plan based on your pup's weight, activity level and other health info. Dogs deserve the best and that means fresh, healthy food. Head to ollie.com healthypup Tell them about your dog and use code HEALTHYPUP to get 60% off your welcome kit when you subscribe today. Plus, they offer a happiness guarantee on the first box, so if you're not completely satisfied, you'll get your money back. That's O L L I E.com HealthyPup and enter code HealthyPup to get 60% off your first box.