According to Substack I published over 60 essays, interviews, and podcast episodes in 2025. While I am proud of all of my work, I keep reflecting on the weird one-day experiential art show I put on in April. It was so fun and cathartic! substack.com/@dlmayfield/...

logging off for a bit to get through this holiday season. but part four of our purity culture is pedophile culture is coming out soon at STRONGWILLED so make sure you are subscribed: strongwilled.substack.com?utm_campaign...

we need a name for all the prominent 'thought leaders' who have been exposed as pedophiles and I'd like to suggest "dipshit gotterdammerung"

lol, lmao, lol, lmao

I really hope the Senate kills the trans care felony bill. And the Medicaid HRT ban for adults likely to pass the House tomorrow. I really do. Not sure what else to say but call your senators. It's worked before.

Almost every day I see new report about an evangelical right-wing man arrested for CSAM or sexually abusing children. If it were queer/trans people abusing children at this rate it would be a part of the 24/7 news cycle. But since it is primarily Christian men, it is swept under the rug.

Every time a Christian argues with me that Wake Up Dead Man is actually about how good priests can change the system / do good within it I think about how in 2004 the NYTimes reported that one in ten Catholic priests who graduated from seminary in 1970 were accused of sexually abusing children.

Did you watch Wake Up Dead Man? Do you want to hear me explain why I loved it so much and why it gave me a lot of hope (not in the church/Christianity!!!) Listen to STRONGWILLED wherever you get your podcasts or go here: www.patreon.com/posts/hopeco...

I just googled how old Karoline Leavitt is after seeing those Vanity Fair pics and I'm suddenly having a way better morning

guys it is almost the 25th anniversary of Y2K what are we doing to celebrate? I'm thinking about just pretending like the grid really does go down and hiding in my bunker for the first 6 months of 2026.

As someone who was born into evangelical Christianity and was an idealistic person obsessed with the teachings of Jesus, we don't often talk about how there are only a few ways for the story of a true believer to play out.

Ten to fifteen years ago, I would have been writing for Christianity Today about how much I love the character of Fr. Jud Duplenticy in Wake Up Dead Man. Now, I have a very different take on the "true believer" trope and how it's ultimately a tragic tale. (I still love him, I just think he's doomed)

If I don’t get more famous soon I’m gonna have to become a lot easier to work with

Hey remember that time in 1989 when Bill Hybels wrote in a book about purchasing CSAM as "research" for a sermon series because James Dobson told him to? Because I DO. www.patheos.com/blogs/lovejo...

I hate AI for so many reasons but as someone who is (unfortunately) writing about the intersection of purity culture and pedophile culture I don't think people realize how the worst people in the world can and do use AI to make and normalize CSA materials.

"I'm not in denial about [AI]. I'm in open rebellion." Amen.

at this point AI is the equivalent of your friend eating something disgusting and asking 800 times if you wanna try it

SO many evangelical youth were forced to listen to James Dobson as their sex ed. Do you want to see how he explains sex to Christian teenagers? This might be most common description of intercourse that the majority of religious Americans ever got:

In my work I aim to help exvangelical folks process the reality of growing up in a positive eugenics movement. Because there is a lot to unpack! strongwilled.substack.com/p/chapter-9-...

I know everything sucks but we really do need to be aware of how badly the fascists are pushing AI

My dream is to one day have an inkings themed drag show called "kinklings" and I play Clive Slayples Lewis

Sometimes I regret being so public about being non-binary and an ex-Christian. If I could have stayed in the box of "progressive Christian woman writer" perhaps I could have convinced people within those spaces to organize and lead a mass revolt. Maybe in the next life?

For people who grew up evangelical or in a similar high control religion that was super obsessed with the gender binary . . . What do you think all of the ink spilled on the "differences" between men and women were about? And do you remember what those differences were?

My employer, Dartmouth College, today boasts it's 1st Ivy "to launch AI at an institutional scale." It is doing this by partnering--"more than a collaboration"--with Anthropic, a company that stole the books of many faculty, me included, which many of us are suing.

The irony of evangelical Christians staging "persecuted church" nights -- complete with masked men storming in and kidnapping teens during a worship night -- and then being utterly silent when this actually happens in the US is actually astounding to me.

I was in the top 1% of Daft Punk listeners this year. Can I get any cooler?

The way teachers are pushing AI in schools needs to be studied. Like what the hell. My 15yo got into a fight with their ART TEACHER bc the teacher said AI is not a big deal.

I have that classic evangelical song stuck in my head today: "they will know we are Christians by our draconian anti-Christian bias task force."

I feel like every few months exvangelicals should be allowed to have an epic meltdown because the shitty religious authoritarianism we grew up under and escaped took over our country.

This is it: "Do I continue engagement in a family where I must silence my feelings and values constantly in order to keep a fragile peace? Or do I choose to withdraw, instead investing in relationships where I can express myself?"

I was not prepared for the number of times I LOUDLY EXHALED while reading this.

"Despite what groups like Focus on the Family say, estrangement is not a fad — it’s the natural result of a family that systematically disregards, controls, and denies autonomy to the children." substack.com/home/post/p-...

Many of you already know, I was raised Calvinist in a highly fundamentalist community. Today, I'm an agnostic. But I am also a scholar of religion (Anthropology, PhD). My parents and I have also been estranged ever since my excommunication. Why? Because I left and went to college.

The moral panic over the idea that adult children are being tricked somehow into going no-contact with their parents over nothing brings to mind the moral panic over divorce from previous decades.

It is interesting that the outrage about this comes mostly from religious conservatives. Nobody in my social circles is estranged from their parents, because for the most part our parents were pretty loving and thoughtful and never got violent or coercive with us. Like -- maybe try that?

So Oprah did a podcast on the "trend" of estrangement and of course she platformed Dr. Josh Coleman. This guy sucks and is actively making the lives of people who have been forced to go no contact with their parents WORSE. He is the single biggest source of shame/blame on estranged children there is

ignoring and moving on with no need to process is sort of the evangelical way tho. it's spiritual bypassing 101

In January it will have been 4 years since I publicly came out as an ex-Christian. I am still processing the response I received from those who still hold to that religion.

Good morning to everyone who is ready to connect the dots that the abuse of children is at the root of all authoritarian control.

I know some Christians will love it too which I find fascinating. But as someone who walked completely away from any kind of faith in man-made religion I adored it. Rian Johnson truly made a move for these times.

Wake Up Dead Man (the new Knives Out movie) is perhaps one of the best movies about American Christianity I have ever seen in my life. Rian Johnson is one of us exvangelicals!!!!!

Serial child predators are attracted to patriarchal Christianity for multiple reasons. 1). If they are male they are privileged and prioritized 2). Easy access to children and their trusting/gullible caregivers 3). The doctrine of forgiveness* *this only applies to men, not children just FYI

The reason I am determined to expose people like Dr. Dobson is because he (and so many other evangelical men) tried to hide their abusive personalities behind the veneer of being good and godly people.

As people are waking up to the reality that MAGA has done nothing to protect children, it’s a good time to delve into the history behind men with power who have done everything they can to ensure predators keep having access to children.

Not to sound too conspiratorial but powerful men have known the profiles of those most likely to abuse children and have consistently worked to keep that information out of the public. So, we are doing that work for them: strongwilled.substack.com/p/hiding-in-...

As a reminder Dr. James Dobson in his 70s was making podcasts where he called 18yos "perfection" and that this was really normal behavior for all men. Part of his work was to normalize this belief that ALL men were attracted to teenagers.

My extended family members worked for Lockheed Martin, were Republican Senators, evangelical pastors, predatory realtors and proud members of the John Birch Society. And I turned out to be a leftist anarchist writer who won't stop yapping about the harms of white patriarchal Christianity!!!!

Krispin and I talked about navigating the holiday season with toxic/enmeshed families over on Patreon. If you like our content and want to support us -- plus find some solidarity and solace this holiday season, come join us and listen! y www.patreon.com/posts/holida...

Also a reporter from the NYT called me a few weeks ago to interview me about turning my little free library into a little free pantry and at the end I told her my pronouns and she went quiet and then said something about editorial standards. Guess who didn't make it into the story?

I needed a NYTimes subscription to access some reporting from 1985 for my purity culture is pedophile culture series . . . and damn it felt good to cancel that subscription today and tell them why :)