The mother of LBGTQ activist Samuel Brinton has told DailyMail.com of her pride after her son was tapped to serve as deputy assistant secretary of Spent Fuel and Waste Disposition in the Office of Nuclear Energy by the Biden Administration.
Non-binary Brinton, 34, previously revealed their troubled relationship with their Southern Baptist parents Peggy Jo and Stephen Brinton, both 57 – describing how they were forced to take part in conversion therapy as a teen.
Brinton also recounted how they were told to leave the family home in Perry, Iowa, after coming out to their parents as bisexual for a second time while at college – forcing them to move in with an uncle in New York.
But speaking outside her home, Brinton’s mom Peggy Jo said the family difficulties are now in the past and told of her pride in her son’s high-powered new job.
She said: ‘I home schooled him for quite a few years because I knew he would excel and this is what he’s doing. It’s just amazing. He started working on [nuclear] a few years ago.’
Peggy Jo added: ‘He’s said to me before, ”I know you don’t understand it” but I’m like, that’s what you do – you do it.’
Samuel Brinton was tapped as deputy assistant secretary of Spent Fuel and Waste Disposition in the Office of Nuclear Energy by the Biden Administration
Non-binary Brinton, 34, has previously told of their troubled relationship with their Southern Baptist parents Peggy Jo and Stephen Brinton, both 57 – describing how they were forced to take part in conversion therapy as a teen
Brinton’s mother Peggy Jo tells DailyMail.com she is proud of her son and said the family difficulties are now in the past
In a moving 2018 op-ed in the New York Times, Brinton described how they were put through ‘torture’ during conversion therapy, writing: ‘My parents were Southern Baptist missionaries who believed that the dangerous and discredited practice of conversion therapy could ‘cure’ my sexuality’
The Baptist missionary, who also has a daughter Rachel, now 32, and a younger son Daniel, said she is now back in contact with Brinton – despite refusing to attend their 2019 wedding to husband Kevin Rieck.
DailyMail.com obtained yearbook photos of Brinton from their time at Perry High School in Iowa
She told DailyMail.com: ‘I think it’s in the past and we speak as much as we can do when we live so far apart now so everything is texts, emails, that type of thing. ‘
The 57-year-old added: ‘I’m proud of him, of course!’
Brinton, who is the first non-binary person to serve in the deputy assistant secretary role, grew up in Sanford, Florida and Perry, Iowa.
In a 2018 op-ed, Brinton told how they first came out as a middle school student and then was forced to spend two years having conversion therapy – a discredited form of counseling that aims to convert gay people to straight.
As a result, they went on to keep their sexuality hidden through homeschooling and then again while attending Perry High School after the family moved to Iowa in 2002.
Brinton’s parents still work at the First Baptist Church in Perry – a small city of just over 8,000 people 30 miles northwest of Des Moines – and continue to live in the modest $166,000 four-bedroom home where Brinton was raised.
There, the stiletto-loving 34-year-old lived a radically different existence from their high-powered lifestyle in Washington, D.C. today.
Yearbook photos obtained by DailyMail.com show how they excelled in technology – winning the award for outstanding automotive tech student in their senior year
Brinton spent four years on the school wrestling team and was a cross country runner, as well as an enthusiastic member of the school choir
Brinton took part in multiple academic decathlons, was a member of the public speaking team and joined the Iowa All-State chorus in their final two years at school
Brinton (bottom row second from left) also appeared in a high school production of Grease and in Quiet Summer – a comedy play about a man who decides to spend his summer trying to become president of the local country club
Yearbook photos obtained by DailyMail.com show how young Brinton excelled in technology – winning the award for outstanding automotive tech student in their senior year.
Brinton also spent four years on the school wrestling team and was a cross country runner, as well as an enthusiastic member of the school choir.
They also appeared in several school plays – including The Stuck Pot which tells the story of how a group of schoolboys established a consolation prize for the boy ‘stuck with an awful lemon’ for a date at the school prom.
Brinton also appeared in a high school production of Grease and in Quiet Summer – a comedy play about a man who decides to spend his summer trying to become president of the local country club.
The 34-year-old took part in multiple academic decathlons, was a member of the public speaking team and joined the Iowa All-State chorus in their final two years at school.
They also proved popular – photos show Brinton with friends at their school prom in 2006 and taking part in a quiz in a team named Sam’s Super Sweets.
But according to Brinton, the conversion therapy they endured as a middle schooler left scars and it wasn’t until college – Kansas State in Manhattan, Kansas – that they felt able to come out for the second and final time.
In a moving 2018 op-ed in the New York Times, Brinton described how they were put through ‘torture’ during conversion therapy, writing: ‘My parents were Southern Baptist missionaries who believed that the dangerous and discredited practice of conversion therapy could ‘cure’ my sexuality.
‘For over two years, I sat on a couch and endured emotionally painful sessions with a counselor. I was told that my faith community rejected my sexuality; that I was the abomination we had heard about in Sunday school; that I was the only gay person in the world; that it was inevitable I would get H.I.V. and AIDS.’
Lipstick-loving Brinton appears to have grown closer to his family in recent years, with Seattle-based Rachel attending their 2019 wedding although their parents and brother did not
Brinton is pictured with Queer Eye star Jonathan Van Ness in New York City in 2019
The Baptist missionary mother said she is now back in contact with Brinton – despite refusing to attend their 2019 wedding to husband Kevin Rieck (pictured)
He also told of how his mother found him standing on the roof and told him she would love him again if he just changed.
‘[That] is not the thing to say to a person standing on the edge of a building,’ he said. ‘So I run back into my mom’s arms saying: “You know what? I’m changed! It’s done. Epiphany from God.’
But when he went to university they realized there was a gay culture there. They came out to their parents a second time and were banished from the family home and told not to return.
Lipstick-loving Brinton appears to have grown closer to his family in recent years, with Seattle-based Rachel attending their 2019 wedding although their parents and brother did not.
Rachel and Brinton were particularly close during high school – with the 32-year-old joining Brinton on the tech team and taking part in the wrestling team as a manager.
Shortly after their wedding, Brinton shared a photo with Rachel – and spoke of their joy at her presence.
They wrote: ‘My first non-husband related wedding photo to share has to be with the most important person for me to be there that night: my sister.
‘Rachel and I are loving, learning, growing and starting to rebuild the sibling bonds in ways that truly make me cry happy tears.’
