In August 2020, while the Anchorage public was banned from attending Anchorage Assembly meetings due to Covid-19 infection concerns, the Assembly quickly passed an ordinance banning on the use of so-called “conversion therapy on minors.” The vote was 9-2 with the leftist majority in favor, and the two conservatives from Eagle River — Jamie Allard and Crystal Kennedy — opposed.
Now, documents obtained via a public records request show that at work behind the scenes designing that ordinance were not only the three openly gay members of the Anchorage Assembly — Austin Quinn-Davidson, Chris Constant, and Felix Rivera — but the ACLU of Alaska, the Trevor Project of Washington, D.C., and a now-famous role-playing sexual fetishist who was recently named the chief of the nation’s nuclear waste disposal program.
Sam Brinton was appointed by President Joe Biden as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Spent Fuel and Waste Disposition in the Office of Nuclear Energy for the Department of Energy in February. But in 2020 and for years prior, he was a consultant with the Trevor Project, which seeks to pass legislation around the country to advance transgenderism in youth and prevent conversion therapy from being practiced on minors.
Conversion therapy for minors is a wide range of therapies that involve helping guide a sexually confused youth back into a heterosexual orientation. Some therapists have used various techniques that may have been harmful to some of their young clients.
Brinton, in writings, on social media, and in videos, says he is a gender-fluid survivor of conversion therapy. Raised in a deeply Christian family, he says he underwent a form of therapy that he experienced as cruel.
Human Rights Campaign says, “So-called ‘conversion therapy,’ sometimes known as ‘reparative therapy,’ is a range of dangerous and discredited practices that falsely claim to change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity or expression. Such practices have been rejected by every mainstream medical and mental health organization for decades, but due to continuing discrimination and societal bias against LGBTQ people, some practitioners continue to conduct conversion therapy. Minors are especially vulnerable, and conversion therapy can lead to depression, anxiety, drug use, homelessness, and suicide.” Some methods used in the past involved forms of aversion therapy, in which pain or discomfort is associated with an undesirable habit.
In the 1950s, some treatments included electric shocks given to patients while they looked at photos of men or women in different stages of undress or while inducing sexual fantasies. Those treatments are not performed today, however. In fact, very little actual conversion therapy is practiced. But the LGBTQ activists do not want therapists to even attempt to dissuade youth of their same-sex attractions, even if the youth are uncomfortable with it.
Brinton’s name showed up in subject lines of emails between Anchorage Assembly members Quinn-Davidson, Rivera, and Constant, members of the Trevor Project Team and Assembly Attorney Dean Gates. The actual content of the emails have been redacted by the Assembly’s attorney, citing deliberative process and personal information.
Brinton is a flamboyant individual who was born a male and now goes by the pronoun “they,” and identifies as “gender fluid,” which means sometimes he feels like he is male, other times female. Photos of him show up in web searches in various role-playing photos with men who are dressed in leather dog costumes. Brinton, who is also at times a drag queen, is not just openly sexualized, but has sought fame for his roles in promoting bans on conversion therapy. He has told his story in magazine articles and on videos.
Brinton is a graduate of MIT with master’s degrees in nuclear engineering and technology. He is known for his work with The Trevor Project, where he advocated against gay conversion therapy.
“My husband sometimes describes me as a weird kind of Batman. Why, you might ask? Because by day I work to save lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and questioning (LGBTQ) youth from suicide, and by night I work to save the world from nuclear waste related environmental disaster,” Brinton was quoted as saying on a MIT program website.
“Brinton has raised eyebrows on social media for his open advocacy of sexual fetishism and expressed enthusiasm for “puppy play,” a sexual “kink” involving role-playing as animals, in a post in the student newspaper at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 2017,” reported the Daily Mail, which says Brinton also goes by Sister Ray Dee O’Active, a stage name in the “Order of Perpetual Indulgence,” which is a group of drag queens who dress as nuns. Brinton has given lectures on the “physics of kink.”
Brinton has appeared in photos in sadomasochistic wear with a whip and a man in bondage in a parade. In other photos, he appears in gowns or in suggestive scenes with men dressed as dogs with bare bottoms.
Although most of the documents obtained through a public records request were completely redacted, it appears that Brinton was brought in at the end of the ordinance-drafting process to sign off on the ordinance before it passed in August of 2020.
