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What's your basis for your assumption that Brinton is lying about his rough childhood?
... while I don't think it's especially relevant for this case, some of the details in Brinton's past summaries are extremely unusual, especially for their time period. Conversion therapy doesn't work, but even into the late-90s it'd mostly turned into very creepy talk therapy and sometimes the use of psychiatric drugs to reduce sex drive. Which can still get pretty damn overtly abusive!
Brinton alleged that an unnamed therapist applied severe heat, ice, needles, and electrical shocks. There were still therapists using electroshock aversives against children in the early 2000s, but even places like the Judge Rotenberg Center (mostly for autistics) were far outliers and acting in far more circumspect ways. Most serious reports along things line date back to the early 80s or late 70s. The scientific discrediting of aversion therapy probably wasn't enough evidence against its use by some of the more extreme anti-gay actors, but the combination of increasingly bad publicity related to the tactic and changing norms related to psychiatric therapists made it much less common.
And most of the stuff is in that class. It's not that Brinton's father shamed or even beat Brinton for being gay; on coming out, his father allegedly punched the child in the face hard enough to result in one of seven ER visits, and later aimed a gun at the kid. See here for a Blue Tribe perspective. It's possible Wesen's covering for the movement now, but he does point out suspicions dating back to 2011.
This isn't strong evidence: Wesen focuses on Brinton's unwillingness to name names, but it's not quite so completely unheard of to have difficulty with them. And there have been some reports of the use of foul-smelling chemical aversives into the mid-90s and early-00s. And violent threats aimed at gay children weren't completely unheard of in the 00s, and you'd expect some correlation between parents punching kids and parents willing to have their kids electrically shocked. But it raises some questions.
Thanks for the detailed response.
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I don't have any opinion on that. I just think is gender identity is made up for attention.
I don't really buy into the whole "non-binary" thing either.
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Criminals are usually not the most trustworthy sources, and, face, it, the whole thing was no accident.
Such accidents happen daily on every airport of the world, and are easily resolved when normal, non criminal people are involved.
https://www.quora.com/What-happens-if-someone-else-takes-your-luggage-from-the-airport
I agree that what Brinton did cannot reasonably be characterised as an honest mistake. But it seems like a bit of a jump to think "this person committed a crime, therefore we must assume that everything they have ever said about their personal life was a lie and nothing they say can be trusted." Being guilty of one crime does not imply that you are guilty of all crimes, or that you are a pathological liar.
His behavior was exactly one of pathological liar.
"yes, this was not my suitcase, but the clothes inside were mine"
WTF? Ordinary junkie stealing shit to get the next fix would find better excuse when caught. This guy is supposed to be some high IQ irreplaceable genius?
I agree, which is why I don't think Brinton is a pathological liar. I would naively predict a person who lies compulsively to have more practice at coming up with convincing-sounding lies on the spur of the moment. Brinton's behaviour seems more consistent with someone who did something stupid and then panicked when caught red-handed, than with a smooth cunning con artist effortlessly talking their way out of a tight spot.
If Brinton had been caught red-handed, but immediately came up with an untrue-but-believable explanation on the fly, that would cause me to update in favour of their being someone who routinely tells lies and gets away with it. The fact that they got caught red-handed and their "explanation" was so unconvincing (as you said yourself) suggests to me that they do not have a great deal of practice in telling lies i.e. they are not a pathological liar.
"Smooth talking con artist" who is good at his con job is not pathological, pathological lying is compulsive, absurd lying for no conceivable benefit.
We all heard about people who keep inventing fanciful, over the top tales about their past, who cannot stop talking how they are war heroes or Indian princesses.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pathological_lying
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