Vice President JD Vance arrived in Switzerland on Sunday morning for the first direct U.S.-Iran talks since the signing of the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding.
The post Vance Lands in Switzerland for Iran Talks as Strait of Hormuz Tensions Boil appeared first on Breitbart.
Despite being raised in a Christian home, Haley Furst spent several of her young adult years identifying as a man. She even built a significant social media following around advocacy for transgenderism, abortion, and other left-wing issues.
But then Jesus found her in that darkness, pulled her out, and has been healing her ever since.
On this episode of “Relatable,” Haley shares her incredible testimony with Allie Beth Stuckey.
Although as a child Haley never questioned her gender, social media indoctrination sowed confusion in her young teenage years. In secret, she slowly began to question God’s design for marriage and gender.
Then at 16, she was sexually assaulted.
“It resulted in me becoming really uncomfortable with myself, with my body. And so, you know, I started to dress in a way that I felt protected me. ... I cut my hair short. I started to wear what would be called men’s clothing,” she tells Allie.
Even though Haley was not planning to identify as a man despite her masculine look, her teachers began expressing support for her new appearance and inquired about what name and pronouns she wanted to use.
“These YouTubers, these creators that I would watch ... they all had something in their past that was hard, and [transgenderism] seemed to work for them, and people are telling me, ‘Hey, this is what seems to be happening in your life.’ ... I started to believe it for myself,” she recounts.
She then started identifying as nonbinary and using they/them pronouns.
“I was really, really welcomed in when I started to do that. I began to have more friends. I was a part of an LGBTQ club in my high school, and for the first time in my life, I started to feel like I had an identity that I could cling to that would open doors,” she tells Allie.
At 17, she told her parents she was transitioning into a man, leading to a tumultuous final year at home. When she turned 18, Haley moved in with a boyfriend and immediately began cross-sex hormone therapy. Roughly two years later, she had a hysterectomy.
All this time, Haley documented and built a large online community around her “transition.”
“I would make a lot of videos about my experience coming out and coming out to a Christian family, and a lot of people would identify with that, and we would have discussions ... to encourage each other, to empower each other, and kind of fight against that ‘oppressive’ Christian belief,” she explains.
With her Christian foundation withering, Haley began to support and speak on more progressive issues, including abortion, Black Lives Matter, and even “anarchal communism.”
But when a bad breakup flipped her entire life upside down, Haley found herself in a deep depression working as a Starbucks barista. Even though she was surrounded by people in the LGBTQ+ community who were hostile to Christianity, she had a couple of co-workers who had recently become Christians.
“One evening when we were working together, [a coworker] started to read the Bible to me. ... What he had actually read to me was Romans 8, and he had gotten to Romans 8:38, and something in my heart clicked where I had remembered that scripture from my youth,” Haley recounts.
“I became very sure that [Jesus] was what I was needing. ... But I had told myself that there was no way I could ever be a Christian because I’m a leftist, because I’m transgender. ... And so I can’t give my life to Jesus because Christians are conservative, straight people, and I am not that, and I will never be that.”
This tension created a deep anger in Haley, but after months of wrestling, she couldn’t shake her desire to follow Jesus.
“I prayed the prayer. I said, you know, like, ‘Christ, if you would still have me, I want you come make your home in my heart.’ And right in that moment, the presence of God fell so heavy in that room that I physically could not stand up. I kept trying to get up, and I would just fall on my knees, and I just began to weep,” she says.
“The feeling of Christ entering my heart and the experience of his love in that moment, just a touch of his love, made me mourn all the years I had spent apart from that, and I knew in that moment that I can never spend one day of my life apart from that ever again.”
But despite this newfound deep faith, Haley refused to de-transition. In fact, she went “further into [her] transition” in an effort to become so indistinguishable from a biological male that people in her new church couldn’t see her true identity.
This secretive life, however, consumed her. The anxiety became too much to bear, and one day Haley confessed to her pastor, who pledged to walk with her as she pursued Jesus. Other congregants did the same.
“I never had one person ever confront me about [being transgender],” Haley says.
But the Lord continued to press on her heart.
“I remember one evening thinking to myself, I don’t think I'm going to heaven as a man. ... I don’t think I’m going to look at Jesus, and I don’t think he’s going to see a man. I think he’s going to see the girl that he made. ... I think he’s going to welcome me by my name — not a name that I chose, but a name that was lovingly given to me by my parents,” she recalls.
That’s when Haley stopped taking testosterone, grew out her hair, and embraced femininity again.
“I thought, you know, I’ll never get married. I’ll never work in ministry. I’ll never get back what the enemy stole, and the way that the Lord has not only restored and redeemed, but given back a double portion in my life, I just stand in awe of what he’s done,” she beams.
To hear Haley’s full story and where she’s at today, watch the episode above.
Want more from Allie Beth Stuckey?To enjoy more of Allie’s upbeat and in-depth coverage of culture, news, and theology from a Christian, conservative perspective, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.
This Father’s Day, we celebrate the dads and father figures who have shaped our lives. But for me, the holiday has always carried a different meaning.
I didn’t have a close relationship with my father growing up. That distance was painful, but it taught me something I might not have learned otherwise: We rarely see what men quietly give until it is gone or not there.
There is an alternative perspective.
Father's Day reminds us of something our culture all too often overlooks: Fathers matter, as do the countless ways men contribute to the well-being of those around them.
Earlier this year, the New York Times highlighted research confirming that father-child interaction has a profound impact on a child's health and long-term well-being. Yet nearly one in four children in the United States live without a father in the home, and those children are four times more likely to grow up in poverty.
So despite this evidence, why is it that most messaging, whether in entertainment, education, or the workplace, ignores what men contribute and, even more dangerously, diminishes the risk that comes when a father's positive influence is lacking?
In our era, men are often portrayed negatively: oblivious, selfish, incompetent; it’s a never-ending list. Popular culture frequently highlights their failures and belittles their successes. On a daily basis they are depicted as naive and ignorant at best, or misogynistic and demeaning at worst.
A 2023 Politico/Ipsos poll found that 36% of Americans believe entertainment and culture make it hard to feel proud to be a traditional man. That perception is not imagined but grounded in reality. Entertainment characterizes young men as narcissistic, self-consumed, and arrogant, and when these attributes are broadly assigned, they subconsciously become the norm we envision.
What happens when we adopt this mindset? The quiet efforts men make automatically become devalued. Their help is unwanted. Their character is irrelevant. Whatever they offer or become, it will never be enough — and the cost of this attitude is real: Roughly 6.8 million prime-age men are currently neither working nor seeking employment. This is a quiet withdrawal of men from a society that continues to tell them their contributions as a man no longer matter.
I want to be clear: This does not dismiss the very real and deep pain some women have experienced from men. Those situations are valid, they matter, and they should always be addressed. But as with any group, we must be careful not to let the worst examples define the whole. Most men do not fit the mold their critics assume.
There is an alternative perspective, one that reveals men motivated not by dominance but by devotion. Men who, when given the opportunity, would willingly and quietly carry responsibilities and make sacrifices in hopes of a better life for those they love. These qualities are far more common than they are given credit for.
As a young professional, a researcher, and a woman, I have been struck by how much you can discover when you simply observe. I am amazed by how many men have silently endured, pursued growth, and served others without recognition or expecting anything in return, not even a “thank you.” Their victories are private, and their sacrifices remain largely unseen.
I have known men who have wrestled with their shortcomings and chose the harder path of becoming responsible citizens, faithful leaders, and caring mentors. Men who valued their roles as friends, husbands, and fathers. Men who, even when they failed, were humble enough to admit their mistakes and strong enough to make them right.
There is often a reluctance to acknowledge this side of men, as though doing so somehow threatens women's progress. However, the idea that either men or women must be diminished for the other to rise is not empowerment. It is an ideologically driven rivalry that prevents us from appreciating the unique strengths both bring. Only a mindset of complementarity, not competition, carries the power to set a higher mark for society as a whole.
On this Father's Day, we celebrate the fathers and father figures who have encouraged us, sacrificed for us, and helped shape the people we have become. But may this also be a day to honor and recognize what men give daily. For the single dads striving to be present for their children; for the young men who hope to be fathers someday; for the lonely men who long for companionship; for the older men who continue to model character and integrity; and for the widowers who miss their wives every day yet choose resilience — your quiet sacrifices matter, your silent gifts are seen, and they are not forgotten.
Sometimes what men provide cannot be measured on a résumé or captured in a headline. Often the greatest gifts men give are the least celebrated: their willingness to carry burdens without complaint, the duty they feel to shoulder responsibilities without recognition, and their desire to provide a steady presence that quietly strengthens the lives of those around them. They go unnoticed by nearly everyone, except the people whose lives they quietly hold together.