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grantmentis · 2 months

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2024 Ice Hockey Women's World Championship: A Primer

When: April 3rd to April 14th. The schedule here will tell you when games are taking place both in your local time and venue time.

Where is it taking place?: Utica, New York

Where to watch:

For the first time, we will have ALL games broadcasted in USA and Canada. I am not sure how many games are going to be broadcasted outside North America, but we can reasonably assume they will at least carry their home country games

TSN will carry all games in canada

NHL Network and ESPN+ will carry a mix of the games together. See The Ice Garden's Michelle Jay's tweet for the schedule of which games are where.

SVT (Sweden)

Discovery (Finland)

Czech TV (Czechia)

Magenta (Germany)

TBS (Japan)

Swiss TV (Switzerland)

If you are not in any of these countries, or you are but are struggling to find a way to watch, please feel free to DM me and I will do my best to find you something

What is the tournament format?:

There are two divisions, Division A with the five ranked teams going into the tournament and Division B with the next five. Each division plays a round robin style ranking round, and at the conclusion the bottom two teams in Division B will be relegated, while the rest automatically make the quarterfinals. Quarterfinals will go A1-B3, A2-B2, A3-B1, A4-A5. In addition to the finals for gold that will take place, there will be a bronze medal game and a fifth place game for ranking. Standings will use a three point systems.

Who is in each division?:

Division A: USA, Canada, Czechia, Switzerland, Finland

Division B: Sweden, Japan, Germany, China, Denmark

Who are each teams?

Here is where it gets long. Below the cut I will tell you each teams roster, how they did last year, their reasonable goals, notable roster changes, and three players to watch. I will do my best to keep this informative, but brief.

USA

Roster:

(Text version available here)

2023 Result: Won Gold

2024 goals: Win gold again

Notable roster changes: This team continues to go very very young. Abby Roque is the most notable roster omission here. Top defender Lee Stecklein is also not on this roster, due to her taking a break from the National Team. Amanda Kessel was also left off, but she has not been active within the last year as a player, so not entirely surprising.

Three players to watch: Grace Zumwinkle has been one of the stars of the PWHL so far, and is likely to get more responsibility on the national team than ever before, so keep an eye on her and how she may translate her successful season to the tournament. Rory Guilday may only be 21, but she is heading to her third senior world championships, a long time favorite of the team USA coaching staff with her shutdown defensive skills who they'll hope can take another step this tournament with Lee Stecklein absent. Joy Dunne is the youngest player on this roster, just 18 years old coming off a 24-18-42 season in Ohio and a national championship. This will be her first senior level tournament, and I'd expect her to get ample offensive opportunities.

Canada

Roster

(text version available here)

2023 result: Silver

2024 goals: Gold

Notable roster changes: Micah Zandee-Hart is the most surprising one after being on the roster for a few years. Claire Thompson is absent as is Rebecca Johnston, but that is more expected while Thompson is finishing medical school and Johnston has not played in the past calendar year. Cousins Nicole and Julia Gosling join the team after strong rivalry series showings.

Three players to watch: Natalie Spooner is the front runner for PWHL MVP, so everyone will be watching to see if she continues to score at the rate she has been. Expected number one overall pick in the upcoming PWHL draft, Sarah Fillier, will be playing in her last showing before the draft happens as she finished out her college season. Nicole Gosling was the highest scoring defender in the NCAA this year at Clarkson, going 14-25-39 in 40 regular season games, so seeing how she impacts this blue line is a must watch.

Czechia

Roster

(Text version available here)

2023 result: Bronze

2024 goal: upset their opponent in the semifinals and make the finals

Roster changes: The bad news is top defender Dominika Lásková is out with injury. The good news is star goaltender Klára Peslarová is healthy unlike last year, as is blueline mainstay Tereza Radová. Alena Mills retired from the national team. Kristýna Pátková did not make the team this year, in her place comes Boston University commit Anežka Čabelová who had a stellar U18 worlds. Karolína Kosinová did not make the team, in her place is HV71 assistant captain Klara Seroiszková.

Three players to watch: 17 year old Adéla Šapovalivová was the highest scoring u18 player in the SDHL (Sweden's highest level league) this year and one of their top scorers in general going 11-18-29 in 32 regular season games. She was also a key part of the U18 team that upset Canada in the semifinals to advance to Czechia's first ever u18 final. With Mills retired, she will get more minutes at her third (!!!!) senior worlds. Next up is Klára Peslarová, and if you're not familiar with her game, she is straight up a top five goaltender in the world. She just came off a stellar season with Brynäs IF in Sweden where she had a .935 save percentage in 20 games, and has been consistently stellar on the international stage as well like when she had 55 saves against the united states at the olympics. Kateřina Mrázová is a fantastic playmaker has been a bright spot on a Ottawa tam that has struggled to find itself, and is also one of the most veteran members of this squad. If they win, she'll have to lead the way.

Finland

Roster

Text version available here

2023 finish: Fifth Place

2024 goals: Bronze

Roster changes: Two of their key offensive pieces Elisa Holopainen and Michelle Karvinen, are back and healthy this year! Susanna Tapani is also back on this team. Those are three absolute big pieces that completely change this roster for the better. A few depth roster forwards were left off in their place, most notably Kiira Yrjänen. Defense has more shakeups. Sini Karjalainen is a notable omission and long time defender Rosa Lindstedt retired. Eve Savander, Oona Koukkula, and Siiri Yrjölä slot in.

Three players to watch: I've consistently been a very big Elisa Holopainen fan and I think she's one of the best players in the world and not talked about nearly enough. Just as she began to really shine in the international stage, she got hit with injury, but as she's come back with year she dominated Finland's league going 32-25-57 in 19 games. I think I've put her as a player to watch like every year I've done a preview and I'm going to keep going it. Finland has faced a lot of questions about their goaltending following Räty and the team going their separate ways, but right now, it is Sanni Ahola's crease to lose. She was stellar in the three games she started last year for Finland in the world championship and was solid for st cloud state with a .935 save percentage in 17 starts this year. With Lindstedt's retirement, Krista Parkkonen will see more minutes, coming off a breakout sophomore year in a university of vermont program that's developed a decent amount of international blueliners.

Switzerland

Roster

(Text version here)

2023 result; 4th place

2024 goals: bronze

Roster changes: quite a lot of shake up. no Caroline spies as their mainstay backup, Alexandra Lehmann takes her place. No Sarah Forster, who wore an A and led their defense last time around. She only played 7 games in SWHL this year, so likely injury is at play.

Players to watch: it is, of course, the Alina Müller and Lara Stalder show until it isn’t. So, besides them, the players to watch are Andrea Brändli is another “top five goaltender in the world” to know, sporting a .937 in her first year playing in Sweden post a stellar college career. 18 year old Ivana Marie Wey just had a great year playing pro as Stalder’s teammate and will be important for the next Swiss wave. With no Forster, Lara Christen will take on a lot of the top defensive minutes most likely.

Sweden

Roster

(Text version available here)

2023 results: sixth

2024 hopes: return to group A

Roster changes: no Sarah Grahn which isn’t entirely expected but still a big change, in response Ida Boman gets the call. No Fanny Rask or Olivia Carlsson, who retired.

Three players to know: Ebba Hedqvist is a 17 year old elite center coming off a great performance at worlds and has an eye for playmaking that will be critical for Sweden. Maja Nylén Persson is the #1 defender of team Sweden that has consistently been the top defender by points in the SDHL and won defender of the year in 2022-2023, and she is only 23 years old. Another part of Sweden’s insane center depth is Lina Ljungblom, who will likely play in Montreal next year and had 46 points in 36 regular season games. In the various tournaments/friendlies that Sweden has played leading up to this (ie five nations cup), she has 10 goals in 15 games. These three players are truly some of my favorite in hockey right now

Japan

Roster

(Text version available here)

2023 result: 7th

2024 hopes: return to group A

Roster changes: honestly we mostly running this back. One or two u18 add ins but overall the same as 2023

Players to watch: stop me if you heard this before but Akane Shiga is very good. The PWHL Ottawa player is the only player from Japan to score against the USA, and will continue to be japans biggest threat. Another big player is Haruka Toko, one of the SDHL’s top scorers this year who had established herself as a top talent in the last two years. This year, the 27 year old had 13 goals and 30 assists in 36 games in Sweden this year. She was one of seven players in Japan to play in Sweden this year, a year that saw a new high in Japanese players going overseas to play. That also includes my last player to watch, Yoshino Enomoto, who played in switzerland and still put up around a point per game on a team that struggled (they folded in the offseason then came back and built their roster late and were ultimately relegated, but she was a bright spot in her first season there)

Fun fact: did you know three pairs of sisters play on this team? Akane and Aoi Shiga, Haruka toko and Ayaka Hitosato, and Rio and Riri Noro

Germany

Roster

(text version available here)

2023 Results: Eighth

2024 Goal: Make quarterfinals and avoid relegation

Roster changes: Both goalies behind Abstreiter last year, Chiara Schultes and Johanna May, did not make this roster with Hemmerle and Loist taking their place. The d core remains the same besides Daria Gleissner taking Heidi Strompf's place. National team vet Marie Delarbre is absent with injury, Sonja Weidenfelder did not play hockey this year and her status is uncertain, and Anne Bartsch did not make the roster. In their place we have Emily Nix, Lilli Welcke, and Lucia Schmitz.

Three players to watch: Luisa Welcke was with Germany last year, but has a second season in the NCAA under her belt and a nice depth player performance at Boston University. She will have more chances to show off her offense this tournament than in the NCAA, and I'm excited to see what she can show. Jule Schiefer had a revelation this year in the German league. From last year where she only scored 4 goals in 20 games, this year she scored 22 in 24. Let's see if she can continue this at worlds. Nina Jobst-Smith will play big defensive minutes for Germany after finishing her fourth season at Minnesota Duluth, this time serving as an assistant captain, and was nominated for 2023-24 All-WCHA Third Team. She's a two way defender who will be taking on big responsibility for Germany as she has in the past.

China

Roster

(Text Version available here)

2023 result: Promotion from Division I

2024 goal: Make quarterfinals and avoid relegation

Roster changes: Oh boy. So, like, a lot of people, and here is why: up until this tournament, China allowed dual citizens not born in China to play for them. This includes some players you may know from PWHL/NCAA like Leah Lum, Hannah Miller, Rachel Llanes, and Tia Chan. Going into this tournament, they changed the rules and those players will not be eligible, so it is a significant roster shakeup.

Three player to watch; This team is very young. Yifan Wang is 16 years old, and in her international debut scored 10 goals in 5 games in the WJC-D2A U18. This is obviously a gigantic step up in competition and very hard for a 16 year old to be playing against adults on the highest level stage of women's hockey, so I don't imagine she'll get a TON of ice time, but she is worth looking out for. Xin Fang is the veteran and star of this roster, who had 2 goal and 2 assists in the teams D1A tournament that earned them their promotion. 17 year old Dartmouth commit Grace Zhan is who I expect to be their starting goaltender. Born in Beijing, she spent the past year playing Minnesota High School Hockey and put up top numbers in a league that sees a lot of NCAA recruits.

Denmark

Roster

(Text version here)

2023 Results: Promotion from Division I

2024 hope: Make Quarterfinals and avoid relegation

Roster changes: Long time national team star and centerpiece of the team Josefine Jakobsen will no longer play for Denmark, though she will continue her club career.) Otherwise, despite some depth changes, it is mostly the same lineup.

Three players to watch: Frederikke Foss had a great year at Shattuck St Mary's u19 program and has committed to UMaine, and may be able to spark some offense Denmark will desperately need without Jakobsen. Silke Lave Glud will also be expected to carry the offense after her stellar year in the Tier 2 league in Sweden, and lead the way for younger players as one of the most experienced members of the team. Goaltender Emma-Sofie Nordström's performance at the D1A worlds was a big reason for their promotion, and she is coming off a great sophmore year at st. lawrence university where she had a .931 save percentage in 36 games and 7 shutouts. If Denmark wants to stay in the top division, she will need to steal a game for them.

#RIGHT A THE BUZZER #ill also bboost in the morning #women's hockey #hockey #2024 women's worlds #wwc24

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picturingchappell · 5 months

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Not they tryna reenact KOSA… anyway yall, here’s why KOSA is bad!!

If you don’t already know, KOSA, or Kids Online Safety Act is a bill that was proposed to keep children safe on the internet. You might ask ‘why is this bill bad if it’s in favor of supporting the safety of children online’? Well, according to stopkosa.com, it puts pressure on platforms to add even MORE filters on anything they think is inappropriate for children. This is especially harmful for LBGTQIA+ youth because the knowledge about this topic would be censored, as well as knowledge on suicide prevention and LGBTQIA+ support groups. Do you see how this an issue? For those children who are wanting to learn more about these topics they’d be turned away because of this bill. It would also be likely that it’ll allow the shutdown of websites that allow them to learn about race, sexuality and gender.

This bill would also add more internet surveillance for all users across all social media platforms. It would expand the use of age verification and parental monitoring controls. These things in itself are already very invasive, but doesn’t take into consideration the children who live in unsafe environments where they are domestically abused and/or are trying to escape these situations. To add my two cents onto this, I strongly believe that the KOSA bill is an unnecessary violation of our first amendment rights (if you’re American), and doesn’t really make the internet any more safer. It actually makes it more unusable for youth. Hypothetically, if this bill were to be passed, then this would make social media unusable for literally anybody. To censor content from the youth about wanting to learn about their identity is extremely harmful. Blocking them from accessing resources that may prove as helpful in their scenarios is outlandish and unneeded. We try to shelter our youth so much to the point where we try to boil them down to only being with their parents want them to be and also not being able to let them learn and explore about other things that they may want to identify themselves with. This is very harmful.

This is a list of companies who are saying no to KOSA ..

• Access Now

• ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union)

• Black and Pink National

• Center for Democracy & Technology

• COLAGE

• Defending Rights & Dissent

• Don’t Delete Art

• EducateUS: SIECUS In Action

• Electronic Frontier Foundation

• Equality Arizona

• Equality California

• Equality Michigan

• Equality New Mexico

• Equality Texas

• Fair Wisconsin

• Fairness Campaign

• Fight for the Future

• Free Speech Coalition

• Freedom Network USA

• Indivisible Eastside

• Indivisible Plus Washington

• Internet Society

• Kairos

• Lexington Pride Center

• LGBT Technology Partnership

• Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition

• Media Justice

• National Coalition Against Censorship

• Open Technology Institute

• OutNebraska

• PDX Privacy

• Presente.org

• Reframe Health and Justice

• Restore The Fourth

• SIECUS: Sex Ed for Social Change

• SWOP Behind Bars

• TAKE

• TechFreedom

• The 6:52 Project Foundation, Inc.

• The Sex Workers Project of the Urban Justice Center

• Transgender Education Network of Texas

• TransOhio

• University of Michigan Dearborn – Muslim Student Association

• URGE

• WA People’s Privacy

• Woodhull Freedom Foundation

There is something you can do to stop the KOSA bill from being passed! On the website I linked, there is a petition. All you have to do is fill out the information and it’ll send off an email for you. The email reads as follows:

I’m writing to urge you to reject the Kids Online Safety Act, a misguided bill that would put vulnerable young people at risk. KOSA would fail to address the root issues related to kid’s safety online. Instead, it would endanger some of the most vulnerable people in our society while undermining human rights and children’s privacy. The bill would result in widespread internet censorship by pressuring platforms to use incredibly broad “content filters” and giving state Attorneys General the power to decide what content kids should and shouldn’t have access to online. This power could be abused in a number of ways and be politicized to censor information and resources. KOSA would also likely lead to the greater surveillance of children online by requiring platforms to gather data to verify user identity. There is a way to protect kids and all people online from egregious data abuse and harmful content targeting: passing a strong Federal data privacy law that prevents tech companies from collecting so much sensitive data about all of us in the first place, and gives individuals the ability to sue companies that misuse their data. KOSA, although well-meaning, must not move forward. Please protect privacy and stop the spread of censorship online by opposing KOSA.

The website also gives you like a format of what you can say if you chose to call your representatives. If after reading this post, you feel inclined to do something then I would say just go ahead and do it. My first time learning about KOSA was today immediately after seeing the post I felt inclined to send my lawmakers an email. Please try to help when you can and this will only take a few minutes so I think this is something that you can consider. This post is getting a little long now, so I’ll stop here. There are more resources online if you would like to learn more about the cons of this KOSA bill, thank you for reading.

#wlfabby #fuck kosa #kosa #internet censorship #stop kosa #lgbtqia #lgbtq community #laws #stop this bill from being passed. 🙏

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davidson-eric · 2 months

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RV👉 TIMELINE: THE BIG BANG …

· The Event will span approximately three days, drawing inspiration from the Bay of Pigs incident.

· Following this, there will be a 10-day Earth shutdown and the activation of the Military Emergency Broadcasting System (EBS) broadcasted globally on TVs and radios.

· Concurrently, governments worldwide will be temporarily disbanded, accompanied by further arrests.

· Subsequently, the Global Economic Security and Reformation Act (NESARA/GESARA) Blockchain Elections will be initiated, ushering in governments reduced to 10% of their current size, with entirely new personnel.

· This transformative endeavor, known as Quantum GESARA or TRUMPSARA, encompasses various facets of advancement, including the Quantum Financial System, Quantum Voting System, Quantum Healing, and Quantum Physics. The transition extends to the digital realm with the Quantum Internet, symbolizing a comprehensive shift toward quantum technology.

· Under GESARA, currency undergoes a transformation, with NESARA introducing Rainbow "Treasury" Notes backed by precious metals, augmented by the integration of Quantum Star Link and internationally regulated USA Coins adhering to ISO20022 standards, also backed by metals.

· Furthermore, the Quantum Voting System (QVS) revolutionizes Blockchain technology, departing from conventional approaches.

· The Quantum Internet overhaul entails a complete reboot, eliminating existing entities such as Microsoft, as the current internet infrastructure is likened to Operation Mockingbird, entailing centralized control and manipulation.

· Media outlets and publications, previously influenced by entities like the Mossad, will undergo restructuring, eliminating ownership ties and biases.

· Private intelligence entities, including those affiliated with UK Royals, will be dissolved, leaving Military Intelligence as the sole intelligence authority.

Backup your funds into the Quantum account now. A DM away or we can be reached via email (check bio for email)

#EyesOpenAmerica

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cidthesquid · 4 months

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New Style Boutique DLC?

Someone on the Style Savvy discord asked about the DLC for New Style Boutique! (the EU version of 'Style Savvy: trendsetters') So we'll be taking a little break from our standard 'My journey with Style Savvy' blog posts to take a look! So first, I made sure we were on the latest version 1.1, (patch notes) and clicked 'download' on the main menu.

(Download option should unlock after the prologue) This took me to a new menu, but it dose not work on citra (emulator)

So, I decided to dig my 3ds out of storage, and I transferred my save.. I'm using a modded usa 3ds, so it's region free, but I still have a usa region eshop, so i was worried that I would not be able to download the DLC due to region restrictions. and the eShop shutdown, But...

It loaded up just fine, and I saw 3 outfit sets available for download! It appears that Nintendo is not using the eshop servers to distribute these. It loaded up just fine, and I saw 3 outfit sets available for download!

Each one showed up with a preview, and brief description of what was included. The first two were animal crossing themed:

And the last one was a little different:

When downloading, any of these sets, you'll even see a 3d preview of each of the included items. And they're not installed as packages like normal DLC, instead they're stored directly to the 3ds's SD card as 'exdata'

This may why you cant find easily installable downloads for this 'DLC' else where online (like you can for NSB2) One you download a set, itgets removed from the list. So once you have all three, the empty list looks like:

I don't know if the data's encrypted, So you probably won't just be able to copy it from one 3ds to another. (This is NOT a tutorial) But I backed it up with 'checkpoint' and copied the files to: /citra-emu/sdmc/Nintendo 3DS/00000000000000000000000000000000/00000000000000000000000000000000/extdata/00000000/00000A90/user and...

...not my preferred style, But it works! Unlike Future games, they actually show original brands, instead of using purple moon! And much like future game, DLC items have their own indicator:

I've already archived the DLC files, but I'll need to do some testing before I release them publically. (to make sure they don't break anything)

But yeah, I don't know if more DLC was added and removed before this, But this is just a quick rundown of what I've learned looking into DLC for this game! Hopefully someone found this interesting or helpful! If you know the risk and want to test the files anyways, or want the raw version of these screenshots for your wiki, feel free to contact me! Thanks again for reading!

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poptropi-caw · 7 months

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im gonna admit i fucking LOVE jade scarab island (in concept). a majority of the poptropica islands feel very… usa-centric (if that makes sense) so islands that didnt take place in america felt misrepresented (LOOKING AT YOU NABOOTI). it was nice to see that modern pop was attempting to rectify that but… T-T it was a bit of a letdown tbh. if they put more effort and puzzles in it though, i think it possibly would’ve been on par with old pop islands (since it definitely feels like the most “pre-flash shutdown” island out of the 3 new ones recently released.

justice for jade scarab… im not sure what justice would look like but the pop devs cant keep doing this

#vals ramblings #anyways i love clara and bes they are my scrimbly blorbos <3

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mariacallous · 1 year

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Uganda’s parliament is set to debate a new anti-gay bill next week, as the country’s president called for a “medical opinion” on the deviancy of homosexuals. The bill, besides criminalizing homosexuality, also criminalizes the “promotion” and “abetting” of homosexuality and follows a January parliamentary investigation into an alleged promotion of homosexuality in schools. It’s no surprise, given how rampant anti-gay sentiment is in the country.

In September, I came across a video that was going viral on Twitter in Uganda. In the video, 26-year-old Elisha Mukisa, who is reported to have been previously imprisoned on defilement charges, speaks for a little over eight minutes detailing how he was lured as a minor into acting in gay porn by Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG)—a nongovernmental organization (NGO) based in Kampala working to support and defend LGBTQ+ persons in the country.

The video caught my attention for several reasons. The first was the anti-gay rhetoric it catalyzed in the following days and the corresponding moral panic. In the ensuing conversation on social media, SMUG was defined as a threat to children that parents had to watch out for. One Twitter user, @Ashernamanya, wrote: “Uganda must be for God Almighty not for Bum lickers the Gays. SMUG an NGO is recruiting young children into Homosexuality and acting the gay. They need to be arrested.”

The previous month, the Ugandan government had shut down the organization. The country’s NGO board released a statement after the announcement, claiming that SMUG’s registration was rejected for being “undesirable.” Mukisa alleged in this video that the shutdown was because of evidence he had provided to the NGO board.

The second reason the video kindled my interest was that it added to the growing list of instances of mass media being weaponized in Uganda to propagate the “ex-gay” narrative, in which a person claims to have been “lured” and “recruited” into homosexuality. It was also organized by the Family Life Network’s Stephen Langa, who in March 2009 put together a similar seminar called “Exposing the Homosexuals’ Agenda.” The language and presentation of luring and recruitment (as though it were a job listing) were not, in fact, novel to my ears, and it is a phenomenon I have seen across African news media.

It has deep links to white evangelical Christianity and is an export of a made-in-the-USA movement and ideology that is polarizing African countries and harming and endangering LGBTQ+ people.

While it looked innovative, it was not the first time such a press conference was creatively planned to spark panic and parade out a person claiming to be ex-gay. It was also not peculiar to Uganda; it is a method that was and continues to be used in both puritanical and evangelical Christianity in countries from Ghana to Kenya and Nigeria.

From the days of European colonialism, when sodomy warranted the death penalty, the church has been the face of the anti-LGBTQ+ movement and has deployed language and framing consistent with present-day ex-gay movements.

The rhetoric relies on a “prodigal son” framing that checks out with the Bible, in which gay people are only valid as long as they turn away from their sexuality. (In the Bible story, the prodigal son’s welcome was contingent on his return in the same way the evangelical church would only welcome gay people on account of their conversion.)

When the pro-conversion therapy Christian group Exodus International put Yvette Cantu Schneider and other ex-gay spokespeople on TV in the 2000s to talk about being formerly gay, it was because of such beliefs. Schneider herself wrote on Instagram that a straight white male leadership team handpicked her. (Exodus International ceased operating in 2013.)

The post reads in part: “They were looking for a spokesperson who had been gay. And I was told, ‘you’re gonna be great because you’re young, you have the Hispanic last name, and you don’t look gay.’”

This same belief seemed to spawn the Mukisa video, the homosexual recruitment press conference, and other such events. The prodigal son parable has propped up the ex-gay movement in Uganda, ensuring there are open arms to gay people who can speak about previously being in that life of “sin” and denounce their gayness publicly. It seems that as the ex-gay movement lost its grip in the United States, it started to reach for relevance elsewhere.

In 2009, George Oundo, whom news reports described as a former trans woman and LGBT activist, went on a media tirade in Uganda on how they got initiated into homosexuality at 12 years old. Oundo said in a TV interview that they “recruited many, many boys in Jinja”—a town in southeast Uganda. They also published a book titled My Long Journey to Victory: Bound by the Chains of Homosexuality.

In 2018, Val Kalende, an LGBTQ+ rights activist who even went on a U.S. State Department-sponsored tour in 2010 for her activism, went on TV during a church service to renounce lesbianism. Kalende in 2022 wrote an op-ed titled “Unchanged: A lesbian Christian’s journey through ‘ex-gay’ life,” in which she apologized to Uganda’s LGBTQ+ community for her renunciation.

The church has been involved in manufacturing and sustaining the ex-gay framework in more than subtle and metaphorical ways. Evangelical preachers have traveled across Africa, verbalizing this harmful language.

In the early 2000s, American evangelical Scott Lively was part of a series of anti-gay events that culminated in Uganda’s 2009 “Kill the gays” bill, which called for the death penalty for what it described as “aggravated homosexuality.” Lively had written books such as The Pink Swastika: Homosexuality in the Nazi Party and Seven Steps to Recruit-Proof Your Child against what he described as “pro-homosexual indoctrination.” The bill—which Lively opposed as too harsh—was introduced after Lively spoke at the March 2009 conference organized by Langa that hosted U.S. representatives of the ex-gay movement.

On that same trip and speaking at the same conference as Lively were evangelicals Caleb Lee Brundidge, who said he was formerly gay, and Exodus International board member Don Schmierer. Schmierer spoke on a lack of good upbringing as a cause of homosexuality and was quoted as saying that 56 percent of homosexuals experienced abuse as children, which turned them into homosexuals.

Following that conference, Lively also spoke to the Ugandan Parliament, where he framed homosexuality as a Western import intending to spread “the disease” to children.

This recasting of homosexuality as akin to pedophilia, alongside the widespread use of similar language, is meant to legitimize the response and crackdown by governments and institutions. If gay people are not successfully framed as predators, then extreme measures against them could be questioned. However, the violence that LGBTQ+ people experience in Africa has been justified by these anti-gay groups through the construction of a narrative of intent by “them” to target children.

That same rhetoric drawing connections between homosexuality and pedophilia has remained largely unchanged from how evangelicals created panic around gay people in the early days of the anti-gay movement. In a 1981 letter, U.S. preacher Jerry Falwell described gay people as out to “recruit,” saying “many of them are out after my children and your children” and that they “must not be recruited to a profane lifestyle.” Falwell also added that gay people threatened families because they didn’t reproduce.

It is similar to the rhetoric of individuals such as Peter LaBarbera, who in 2007 falsely claimed that there was “a disproportionate incidence of pedophilia” among gay men.

These comments on recruitment, destruction, and being a threat to families now cloud much of the discourse around homosexuality in several African countries. They were present in the Mukisa press conference, are currently in use as Ghana’s Parliament debates a draconian anti-gay bill, and continue to swirl across the anti-LGBTQ+ movement on the continent. In an African context, visits and speeches from prominent Americans such as Lively and Falwell have the effect of legitimizing homophobia; their straight white male identities crown it with credibility.

I do not mean to exonerate Uganda, Ghana, or other African countries of homophobia or suggest that they are incapable of it without external backing. They are.

Even though LGBTQ+ identities had existed in Africa since before colonialism, their existence was not always welcomed and tolerated. For instance, while homosexuality to the Zande people in South Sudan was indigenous and commonplace, they were harsher on women; lesbianism was considered witchcraft and could even warrant execution.

Abrahamic religions have exacerbated homophobia, and it might have become prevalent on the continent without U.S. evangelical backing. This trend is clearest in Senegal, a majority-Muslim country, where the capital, Dakar, used to be considered Africa’s “gay capital” but is now experiencing rising homophobia. Just last year, protesters lined the streets of Dakar demanding stricter laws and longer prison sentences for gay people in the country.

However, claiming that homosexuality is uniquely Western offers the United States’ ex-gay movement the opportunity to present itself as being on the right side of history, as being close to the sources of “moral decadence” but still resisting it. For Ugandan and African homophobes, the reverse is the case. It gives them a premise for absolution—an anticolonial veneer that allows them to say, “This was brought here from abroad, and we need to eradicate it.”

Proponents of ex-gay and anti-gay philosophies depend on the permanence of gay people for their message to be relevant. They require an enemy for their fight to be valid, and they go to great lengths to construct this enemy as a well-funded and all-powerful foreign movement while falsely presenting the local anti-gay movement as a grassroots underdog, despite its heavy reliance on U.S. evangelicals for publicity.

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head-post · 3 months

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Congress reached a short-term agreement to avert a partial shutdown

US congressmen reached a deal Wednesday to fund the government on a half-dozen annual spending bills as well as an interim measure that pushes back two March shutdown deadlines, POLITICO reports.

Top lawmakers wrapped up negotiations on bills on agriculture, the Food and Drug Administration, energy, water, military construction, transportation, interior, environment and trade, justice and science, setting a March 8 deadline for all of them. Leaders hope to release the text by this weekend and approve spending bills next week, funding those agencies through September.

The remaining measures for fiscal year 2024, including more controversial funding bills for the Pentagon, the Department of Homeland Security and the Departments of Labor, Health, Human Services and Education, will get a new deadline of March 22.

Negotiating the second tranche of spending bills before that deadline will be the real test of whether Speaker Mike Johnson and other congressional leaders can work together to fully fund the government five months into the fiscal year.