This Gay Week 36: LGBTQ Rights and Resilience

Karel Bouley is a history-making LGBTQ broadcaster, entertainer, author, singer, and activist. With his late partner Andrew Howard, he became part of the first openly gay radio talk-show duo on a major-market U.S. station when “Karel and Andrew” joined KFI AM 640 in Los Angeles in 1998. After Howard’s death, Bouley pursued a landmark California wrongful-death case that helped affirm domestic partners’ legal standing to sue retroactively. Karel rose to prominence on KFI AM 640 in Los Angeles and KGO AM 810 in San Francisco, later expanding his work through Free Speech TV, Karel.com, YouTube, and The Karel Cast podcast. His career spans journalism and commentary, including work associated with HuffPost, The Advocate, Billboard, CNN, MSNBC, and LGBTQ entertainment media. He has also released dance music, authored books including You Cannot Say That! and Shouting at Windmills, and remains active as a voting member of NARAS/The Recording Academy, GALECA, and SAG-AFTRA. Karel now lives and creates in Las Vegas.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Karel Bouley discuss LGBTQ rights on This Gay Week, examining Mark Bingham’s legacy, Russian repression, European equality, Catholic outreach, and compensation for LGBT veterans. Speaking from Kyiv during an air raid alert, Jacobsen joins Bouley in exploring online harassment, youth resilience, and the persistence of discrimination.

Karel Bouley: Turn on the lights; it’s This Gay Week, so let’s start with a show tune. I am Karel, and Scott Douglas Jacobsen will be joining us from The Good Men Project in good old Ukraine. Don’t go anywhere; we’ve got news of the world. Hello, my honey, hello, my sugar, hello, my ragtime gal. If we’re doing Gay Week, we’re going to do show tunes. It is The Karel Show. I am Karel. It is Thursday, September 10.

Before we jump to Scott, we can talk to Scott about this. I will not be doing a show tomorrow, Friday. I never do, but it’s September 11. I should do a show tomorrow because it’s September 11. However, there’s an interesting documentary called Turning Point: Generation 9/11, about the world shaped by September 11 and the generation that grew up in it.

I did want to start by saying this. First of all, a horrible event, all of that. Second, the newly released records raise serious questions about what Giuliani’s administration knew about the air at Ground Zero and what officials told the public. They knew there were health risks, yet they told people the air was safe. Mamdani has released the documents. God bless him—about 170,000 pages. The toxic dust and air pollution extended beyond Ground Zero.

What they do with that information is going to speak volumes about whether or not they really care about 9/11 and the people who were there. Every person who was told the air was good, breathed it, and developed cancer related to that exposure should be compensated. Period. End of story. That’s what should happen. But more importantly, you see that even around September 11, the government chose to parse information.

They said, “Oh no, the air is fine.” I knew it wasn’t. When I was watching, I knew when those buildings fell that there was asbestos and all kinds of horrible chemicals in the air. Them saying it was okay did not make it okay. And the other thing is Hasan Piker got into trouble for saying in 2019 that America deserved 9/11. We did not deserve 9/11. No one deserves to be attacked in that fashion.

However, our foreign policy certainly left us open to a terrorist attack. We supported Afghan fighters against the Soviets, although there is no credible evidence that we trained Osama bin Laden himself. His brother attended a Carlyle conference in Washington on 9/11; George H. W. Bush had attended the previous day.

9/11 is a complexity we have never dealt with, even all these years later. Tomorrow is the 25th anniversary. Our foreign policy left us open to that. It angered part of the world, and now our foreign policy regarding blind support of Israel is still angering some of those very people. And we are at war with Iran, a Middle Eastern nation, some 25 years later. How things never change.

Scott, you’re over 30, right? You remember something about 9/11, right?

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Of course.

Bouley: How old are you?

Jacobsen: I’m 37.

Bouley: You were 12. I can’t imagine.

Jacobsen: The most significant thing has been Jon Stewart’s long-standing support for some of those first responders. That was positive.

Bouley: To this day. And now Jon Stewart is very angry about what those papers reveal. He’s been calling for the release of these documents, and he has been fighting for the first responders who developed cancer after working at Ground Zero. He also welcomed Mamdani’s release of the records.

We’ve known that exposure to the toxic dust increased cancer risks. These documents tell us more about what officials knew. The air was crap. It contained cancer-causing substances. And 25 years later, we are still learning from that event. I was not 12 years old. I’d just lost Andrew.

I was on my way to be on KFI radio. They sent me downtown Los Angeles, where they thought a plane was going to hit the Library Tower. Then, on my way back to Long Beach, I stopped at the World Trade Center in Long Beach, because there is one, and I watched the towers fall on television from the lobby.

All right, we’ll get back to This Gay Week, and we’ll address what’s going on in Ukraine, because that’s where he is. Then we’ll get to the gay stuff.

Don’t go anywhere. We’ll be back right after this with This Gay Week with Scott Douglas Jacobsen from The Good Men Project. And he’s a good man!

All right, we are back. It is The Karel Show; time for This Gay Week. Before we go, please listen to two songs tomorrow, on 9/11. The first is by Linda Eder, E-D-E-R. The song is called “If I Had My Way.” 9/11 really affected her. She’s a Broadway star and lived in New York. Frank Wildhorn, her ex-husband, is a Broadway composer, known for Jekyll & Hyde and Dracula. She recorded “If I Had My Way” in response to the attacks.

Just the opening lines alone: “Long ago and far away, before the world had come to this, I took for granted how my life would be, determined that my freedom should be free.” We learned a lot that day, particularly that freedom is not free.

“If I Had My Way” by Linda Eder, and then “Tuesday Morning” by Melissa Etheridge. The reason I want you to listen to that is that it tells the story of the gay man on United Flight 93 and how he and others on the plane fought back against the hijackers, preventing the plane from reaching its target. And when all was said and done, same-sex partners of some 9/11 victims faced barriers to compensation because their relationships were not legally recognized. One of the heroes of 9/11 was a homosexual.

He helped fight back. Some believe he was among those who organized the rebellion on board to retake the plane. They were determined to stop the hijackers from hitting another United States target. The plane was headed toward Washington, D.C., most likely the Capitol. And he was, in fact, a historic gay figure. We should talk about him on This Gay Week.

His name is Mark Bingham. He was an openly gay, very handsome public relations executive and rugby player who was one of the heroic passengers on United Flight 93 during the 9/11 attacks. Mark Bingham is believed to have joined fellow passengers, including Todd Beamer, Tom Burnett, and Jeremy Glick, in the effort to retake the cockpit from the hijackers.

During the passengers’ counterattack, the hijackers crashed the aircraft into a field in Stonycreek Township near Shanksville, Pennsylvania. The passengers and crew prevented them from reaching their target in Washington, D.C. He was 6’4″ and weighed about 220 pounds. Bingham’s physical stature and courage helped challenge restrictive gay stereotypes.

As we talk about This Gay Week on September 10, let’s remember that on September 11, a gay man, Mark Bingham, helped stop the hijackers aboard United Flight 93 from reaching their target. And let’s also remember the same-sex partners of 9/11 victims who had to fight to have their relationships recognized and receive compensation.

Melissa Etheridge wrote a song that helped bring attention to his story and the inequality gay people faced. The song is called “Tuesday Morning” because 9/11 was on a Tuesday. It honours his decision to fight back. He called his mother from the plane and is believed to have joined the passengers who stormed the cockpit. And it did help challenge stereotypes of gay people. He did not cower. He mobilized. He activated.

He lost his life helping stop the hijackers from reaching their target. That’s a great way to start This Gay Week, Scott. Here is Scott. Did you know the story of Mark Bingham?

Jacobsen: No.

Bouley: You do now. He is a hero. He is a very big gay hero. Six foot four, a very big gay hero. But it was horrible how some surviving same-sex partners of 9/11 victims faced barriers to compensation because they couldn’t legally marry. People were like, “Wait a minute. Just because they couldn’t get married doesn’t mean their partners should be excluded.”

According to the 9/11 Commission Report, the cockpit voice recorder captured pounding and crashing against the cockpit door, along with shouts and screams in English. “Let’s get them!” a passenger cried. “If we don’t, we’ll die!” At 10:02, a hijacker ordered, “Pull it down! Pull it down!” The commission reported that the plane’s control wheel was turned hard to the right, causing it to roll onto its back and crash into an empty field at about 580 miles an hour, killing everyone on board. The plane was about 20 minutes’ flying time from Washington, D.C. Its intended target was most likely the U.S. Capitol.

His name is at the 9/11 Memorial. Barbara Boxer and John McCain honoured him at a ceremony for San Francisco Bay Area victims. They presented an American flag to his former partner, Paul Holm.

There is also the Mark Kendall Bingham Memorial Tournament, known as the Bingham Cup. It’s a biennial international inclusive rugby tournament that started in 2002. He was also posthumously awarded the Arthur Ashe Courage Award in 2002.

In 2004, Melissa Etheridge released “Tuesday Morning” in his honour. At the National 9/11 Memorial, Bingham and the other passengers and crew from Flight 93 are memorialized at the South Pool. His name is on Panel S-67. And The Rugby Player, a documentary that came out in 2013, is about Bingham and his relationship with his mother, Alice Hoagland, who became an advocate for LGBTQ rights and aviation safety.

It’s appropriate on This Gay Week that we start by honouring Mark Bingham, his memory, and the fact that gay people throughout history, not just Mark Bingham, have had a great impact on many events. A lot of it you may not even know because they couldn’t be recognized openly because of their sexuality. It’s nice that Mark Bingham is remembered on this September 10.

I hope tomorrow, on September 11, when you think of all the victims, you will also think of Mark Bingham.

All right, Scott, how are things in Ukraine?

Jacobsen: Very interesting. There has been a temporary pause in the bombing of Kyiv around the Witkoff–Kushner visit. Those talks probably didn’t go so well, we’ll say. The Kremlin, I believe, has released statements about what was discussed. The American envoys have made public comments, but I haven’t seen a detailed American readout yet.

Bouley: He’s too busy releasing memes of himself with George Washington or as the Green Lantern. I know you’re over there and haven’t seen what he’s been posting, but the man’s not well. The White House posted a picture of him as the Green Lantern building some wall. He posted a map of America, Canada, Mexico, Colombia, all that, covered with the American flag, saying, “United States of America.” He looks unwell to me. It looks like he’s having a breakdown. I don’t expect him to get to matters of…

I will tell you, I thought of you in Ukraine this morning because I thought people who have worked on AI at OpenAI and Anthropic, the company behind Claude, have come out with warnings about the risk of human extinction. Anthropic researcher Evan Hubinger put his personal estimate at greater than 10% within the next decade. These aren’t just people commenting from the sidelines. These are people who worked on the projects. They’re warning that the safeguards aren’t adequate.

The concern is that AI could become powerful enough to act beyond our control. That doesn’t mean it’s becoming sentient. Some researchers have quit and are sounding the alarm that we need to do something now. They’re warning about what could happen, not saying that human extinction by the end of this decade is a certainty. And I thought of that because I thought, “What would AI do in the Russia–Ukraine war?”

What would it do? How would it solve that crisis? Would it bomb Russia? What would AI choose as an option to end the war in Ukraine? It made me think, because I’m really scared by these warnings. They’re saying the safeguards aren’t there yet. One of these researchers puts the chance of AI-caused human extinction at more than 10% within the next decade.

That’s his estimate, but it’s frightening. I thought about how insignificant the war between Ukraine and Russia can appear when you put it next to the possibility of a global human extinction event. That’s an actual concern people working on this technology are raising, and I don’t think we’re doing enough about it. I thought that’s because we’re busy in wars like Ukraine or conflicts involving Israel, caught up in all that when we have this huge thing we should be paying attention to.

I thought of Ukraine today in that context. It seems like small potatoes when we’re talking about human extinction.

Jacobsen: We have the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and the Doomsday Clock pointing to a very dark situation with nuclear weapons. Climate change is a slow-moving version of this stuff. And AI is all this stuff on fast-forward. Air raid alarm.

Bouley: Oh, you’re having an air raid alarm?

Jacobsen: Yeah. As soon as Mr. Witkoff and Kushner left, we started getting bombing again. Missiles, drones, all that stuff, landing pretty close to where I am. We had maybe eight alerts yesterday, and I think I just got our eighth alert for today—something approximately like that.

Bouley: By the way, I like the new wallpaper. It’s lovely.

Jacobsen: Thank you.

Bouley: Do you have a place now? Your own place?

Jacobsen: I’m staying with someone.

Bouley: Okay, so you’re still couch surfing.

All right, let’s start here in the last three minutes of this segment with a really funny thing. Not funny. None of this is funny. A Moscow court has fined.

Before we get to this, I couldn’t send you this video, but yesterday or two days ago, I reported on my show. I forget. The week is blending. The right is mad because, at a drag show, this drag queen did a parody of Charlie Kirk and Erika Kirk to some song. The background images were bloody and gross. It was in poor taste, to say the least.

However, it was entertainment. It was supposed to be funny. Charlie Kirk invoked biblical passages prescribing death for sex between men and referred to God’s “perfect law” on sexual matters. Whether he was endorsing that punishment has been disputed, but I found those comments ugly. If gay people want to make fun of Charlie Kirk, even his death, it’s amazing how the right loses its sense of humour or parody and gets outraged when it’s attacked, versus all the attacks Charlie Kirk made on gay people.

I bring that up because it appears in every story we cover. Homophobes can dish it out, but they really can’t take it. They don’t like it when gay people strike back, when they react, when they march, when they unify. They don’t like it, but they like to attack.

Jacobsen: If you take this context here, you can hear the air raid alarm now. When a missile hits—

Bouley: Should you be doing something other than sitting, chatting casually with me? There’s an air raid alarm. Is there something you should be doing?

Jacobsen: People tend to go to shelters, yes. They stay in shelters so they don’t die. It’s not just parody or art. You’ll find out in the morning that some people have died and many more have been injured. This is a daily occurrence.

Bouley: I’ve been binge-watching In the Eye of the Storm. It’s this great show on HBO Max, and I loved it. I thought, “Let me watch them all again,” because I only saw them once. It’s great footage.

You sound like all the people who live in the Midwest when the tornado alerts go off. They go off, and they’re like, “Nothing ever happens.” And then, bam, their whole city gets destroyed because that’s when something happens.

They’re the same way you are. They’re like, “Yeah, just a tornado warning. No worries.” Then, all of a sudden, their house blows away.

All right, we will get to this: a Moscow court has fined Booking.com. Why? Was it over cancelled reservations? Was it over misrepresentation of properties? Nay, I say. I will tell you what it was about as we continue This Gay Week with Scott Douglas Jacobsen, who is under an active air raid alarm in the middle of Kyiv. And he’s just going to sit and talk with us.

Bouley: Because that’s what you do when your city gets bombed.

All right, we are back with The Karel Show, This Gay Week—my new backdrop, which I love. By the way, I created it in Photoshop. Everyone’s like, “Oh, you did an AI backdrop.” Part of it’s AI, but I created the other part.

We are back, and let’s go to Scott Douglas Jacobsen, who is still here, even though there’s an air raid alert. “Oh, it’s just a tornado.”

Jacobsen: I checked. It’s a ballistic missile threat from Kursk.

Bouley: Did someone text them, “Jared Kushner’s out of the airspace. Go ahead”? It’s like, Jesus Christ.

Jacobsen: It was helpful for—

Bouley: They would have done us all a favour if they had taken him out, but you didn’t hear that from me. What would poor Ivanka do? How would she build her island resort now? Do you know they’re planning a resort on an island in Albania, Jared Kushner and Ivanka? How much have they gained since the second Trump administration came in? Billions? How many billions?

His investment firm received a $2 billion commitment from the Saudi sovereign wealth fund after he left the first Trump administration. That’s money invested in the fund, not his personal wealth. I believe these arrangements raise serious questions about what investors expect in return. I have no proof that Jared Kushner is funnelling information for money, but I suspect it. I do. I’m not the only person concerned about conflicts of interest and whether political access is helping them game the system.

Jacobsen: Put that into context. If that $2 billion were personal wealth, it would put someone among the richest people in Ukraine.

Bouley: Wow.

Jacobsen: But fund assets and personal wealth are different things.

Bouley: He could buy it. Slightly used.

All right, Moscow. We all know Russia is cracking down on gayness. I think they want distracting stories. They don’t want you focusing on their economy or the costs of the war—none of that. Just like in America, they’re pushing divisive stories about easy targets.

Booking.com has been fined about 70 grand, roughly $69,300, by a Moscow court. It wasn’t over cancelled reservations or booking the Kremlin. It was because they booked the Vlad suite.

Booking.com sent a newsletter to foreign partner hotels about accommodating LGBTQ guests during Pride events. There was a photo attached to the newsletter, and Russian authorities treated the material as “LGBT propaganda.”

The court imposed two fines totalling six million rubles over the content and the alleged failure to remove prohibited material. Booking.com’s representatives said the page had already been deleted on March 11.

What saddened me about the story, Scott, was Booking.com saying, “We pulled the page down.” That saddened me. Booking.com suspended operations in Russia in 2022, but it still made me sad that they would pull it down.

If I were Booking.com, I would have said, “No, sue us. We’re not going to pay you. Good luck enforcing that.” But that’s sad. It was about a newsletter with a photo discussing LGBTQ guests and Pride events, and Russia saw that as gay propaganda. And…

]And the court issued two fines, each for three million rubles, or roughly $34,650, making the total about $69,300. Of course, the Russian LGBT Network, one of the nation’s main LGBTQ rights groups, has been labelled an extremist organization. This bans its activities and exposes people involved with it to criminal prosecution under anti-extremism laws.

If you support the gay community in Russia, you can face serious legal consequences. Booking.com was fined under the “propaganda” restrictions, which are separate from those extremist designations.

Jacobsen: I understand the corporation. They want to make money. They were trying to accommodate their customers. I understand it as a business decision, but in terms of equality, it is disappointing.

Bouley: It is. Roskomnadzor, Russia’s media regulator, discovered a photograph attached to the announcement in March and demanded that the content be taken down. Booking.com representatives said it deleted it on March 11. They argued they had already removed it. Russia sees things differently.

Things must be tough if they’re trying to squeeze Booking.com for 70 grand. They must need some money over there.

Jacobsen: It’s garage sale time. Would you like to move on to another oppressive nation, such as Kazakhstan?

Bouley: A place I’ve never wanted to go?

Jacobsen: Yes. Okay, this one’s by Alexander Thompson: “Kazakhstan: President signs amendments banning dissemination of ‘LGBT propaganda.'” This is similar to the Russian case, as we discussed in prior sessions. You can see the influence from one nation to another.

Bouley: Here’s the thing. Kazakhstan is one of the “stans.” Several of those countries have close ties with Russia, although they’re not all in the same political camp. Uzbekistan, Gofuckistan.

Afghanistan does have a gay community. Before the Taliban returned to power, people in the region told me that I might be okay visiting if I was careful. I know that sounds odd, and Afghanistan was hardly a safe place to be openly gay even then. This was before the Taliban returned, not now.

Before we left, I was told that if I went to one of those countries and was myself, but not overt, I might be okay. Not that a lot of you could see me doing that. The point they were making was that some people there could be more accepting than their governments.

When we come back, we’ll talk about Kazakhstan, because it’s not just this one measure that President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev signed.

He actually signed nine amendments. We’ll tell you about those and why I think they did it. It’s really simple.

Kazakhstan has close economic ties with Russia. I think that gives Russia influence, although Kazakhstan doesn’t follow Moscow on everything.

President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev signed nine amendments on December 30, 2025. Nine. As always, supporters say it’s to protect the children. One amendment changes a 2002 children’s rights law to prohibit information about “non-traditional sexual orientation” intended to create a positive public attitude toward it.

This is a ludicrous argument because being gay has been part of human life throughout history. They don’t just object to information about it. They object to information that might help you accept it. Other amendments extend restrictions on LGBTQ “propaganda” to laws governing culture, education, advertising, mass media, and cinema, much like the Russian legislation. Supporters say they must protect the children.

That brings me to another issue in the region, particularly Afghanistan: bacha bazi. Do you know what bacha bazi is?

Jacobsen: No.

Bouley: You should look it up. It’s documented in Afghanistan, with historical roots elsewhere in Central Asia. I shouldn’t lump Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan into that claim without evidence.

Bacha bazi involves men exploiting boys, including making them dance and subjecting them to sexual abuse. Some boys are sold or handed over by families under financial pressure. Others are abducted or coerced. It isn’t a fixed arrangement from age 14 to 18.

They are treated like dirt. They’re sexually abused, and some families receive money. Then the survivors can face stigma and punishment themselves. So the abusers get away with it, and the boys are the ones who suffer.

A friend of mine served in the military in Afghanistan. He told me that every Thursday, they let people from the village in to shower, and that they were told not to intervene in the abuse of teenage boys because it was “cultural.” He said he had to listen to boys being raped on the base. That’s the account he gave me.

There have been reports of troops being discouraged from intervening in abuse by Afghan allies. However, military leaders denied having a policy instructing them to ignore it. For a society so hostile to homosexuality, the tolerance some powerful men received for abusing boys is appalling.

You can look up bacha bazi. It is real. Did you look it up?

Jacobsen: Yes. One factual correction: there isn’t a fixed age of 18 or 19 when it ends.

Bouley: It’s terrible. Have you ever seen the movie The Kite Runner?

Jacobsen: I know it was a big hit at one point. I may have read the book, but I’ve completely forgotten, and I didn’t see the movie.

Bouley: In The Kite Runner, the boy, Sohrab, is abused by a Taliban official who takes him from an orphanage. His parents had been killed. They didn’t sell him.

It’s a terrible thing. Some perpetrators have been protected by their power and position, but that doesn’t mean everyone accepts it. And the men who abuse the boys may have wives and children and may not identify as gay.

The boys can be isolated, forced to do chores, and subjected to whatever the abuser demands. That’s the life imposed on them. All right.

We’ll move on from Kazakhstan now. When we come back, we’ll talk about Serbia and why people there are demanding equal rights. It’s one of the same arguments made in the United States about why gays and lesbians should have equal rights. I am Karel. This is The Karel Show. We are doing This Gay Week with Scott Douglas Jacobsen, who is in Ukraine. We’ll be back right after this.

All right, we are back. Bacha bazi, documented in Afghanistan and historically in parts of Central Asia, involves powerful men exploiting vulnerable boys as dancers, status symbols, and victims of sexual abuse. Boys may be bought, abducted, or manipulated into it. There isn’t a fixed age of 19 when they’re released, and survivors can be left without money, a home, or support. They can also face stigma and further violence.

The boys are sometimes made to dress in women’s clothing. Isn’t that lovely? Yet the people abusing them may condemn homosexuality. I guess they’re willing to tolerate abuse while being anti-gay.

All right, on to Serbia. There’s an activist there named Helena Vuković. She’s a trans woman and a former military officer. She has a very interesting argument for equal rights. Do you know what it is?

Jacobsen: You pay taxes?

Bouley: Yeah. That’s exactly right. “I pay equal taxes. I want equal rights.” It seems like a valid argument.

Jacobsen: I’m a citizen. I pay taxes. Therefore, I should have equal rights. That’s an argument you could make from a libertarian or conservative position.

Bouley: It is. Since I was 18 and had to pay my first taxes, I have said, “Why would I pay into a government that doesn’t recognize me as an equal person?” For decades, I felt that gays and lesbians in America should push for tax-exempt status because they weren’t treated as equal citizens. I think that’s a strong political argument, although it doesn’t create a legal exemption from paying taxes.

In Serbia, in the United States, anywhere, it’s like, “You don’t want to recognize me as equal, but you still want my money? Why should I pay into a government that doesn’t acknowledge who I am?” Ain’t it simple?

Serbia doesn’t currently recognize same-sex marriage or civil partnerships. That’s what she’s pushing to change. When she was asked about same-sex unions, she said legal recognition was necessary to solve practical issues, the same ones we faced in the United States: inheritance and jointly acquired property.

According to her, recognizing same-sex partnerships wouldn’t mean introducing marriage. Still, it would give partners protections, including inheritance rights when one of them dies. They’re pushing for domestic partnerships, which were a step toward marriage equality in parts of the United States.

She’s hoping they get those protections because, again, they pay taxes. A good lawyer could make an equality argument. I’m not familiar with civil rights in Serbia.

A good lawyer could make an equality argument. I’ve never wanted to visit places like Croatia or Serbia because I had the impression they were anti-gay. I’ve been calling them Eastern Bloc countries. However, they were part of Yugoslavia, which was non-aligned, rather than part of the Soviet bloc. But I’ve now found that LGBTQ rights and attitudes vary considerably across the region. I need to educate myself.

Jacobsen: Not as anti-gay as you thought.

Bouley: Yeah.

Jacobsen: And there have been people actively working to change things.

Bouley: Let me look up LGBTQ rights in former socialist countries. Slovenia and Estonia both have marriage equality. Slovenia introduced it following a Constitutional Court ruling in 2022, and Estonia’s law took effect in 2024.

Those two countries might be places I visit one day. Slovenia and Estonia. Now, did they do that?

Did they do that because it’s the right thing to do, or because they have their own Helena Vuković advocating locally? I don’t know.

And the Czech Republic, by the way. Prague. Gays love Prague. It wasn’t part of the Soviet Union, but Czechoslovakia was part of the Eastern Bloc. Czechia is now among the more socially accepting countries in Central Europe. It offers same-sex partnerships with expanded rights, and marriage equality has been debated. They don’t have domestic marriage equality yet, but they’ve certainly debated it.

Other countries in the region, including Poland, Hungary, Romania, and Russia, have significant restrictions on recognizing same-sex relationships. However, their laws and political situations differ. Public attitudes vary, too. Cities like Prague and Ljubljana have active queer communities.

I wonder how much distancing themselves from Moscow has influenced that. Russia has made hostility to LGBTQ rights part of its political identity, and some people elsewhere want nothing to do with those values.

Jacobsen: The war may be accelerating that distinction, for sure.

Bouley: Right. Amen.

You sent me a story about the Catholic Church. I hate its hypocrisy. They preach poverty while living amid all that wealth. “The Pope wears Prada,” as the saying goes.

They’ve opposed gay rights while dealing with sexual abuse by their own clergy. Child sexual abuse isn’t the same thing as being gay, by the way. But they’ve got their own sexual problems in the Church.

I’ve known gay priests who were older and wanted older men. I’ve met priests in bars who went out in civilian clothes to cruise and have sex. I had sex with a priest and didn’t know he was a priest until afterwards. And I wasn’t 12 years old.

I don’t like their hypocrisy. It bothers me. But ten Italian bishops attended a conference on ministry with LGBTQ people in Rome. They described it as historic. They attended and heard what LGBTQ people had to say. About 200 people attended, most of them priests, including ten bishops involved in pastoral ministry in their dioceses.

The bishop responsible for this ministry on behalf of the Italian bishops conveyed the personal greetings of Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, president of the Italian Bishops’ Conference.

The Catholics like to have it both ways. They say, “Everyone has dignity, and we welcome gay people,” but they won’t recognize their marriages. Their teaching distinguishes same-sex attraction from sexual activity, which they still condemn outside marriage between a man and a woman.

They now permit informal blessings for same-sex couples, but insist that those blessings don’t recognize the unions as marriages.

I think they’re worried about declining participation in some places and are trying to get more people involved in the Church. They think softening their approach to gay people might help bring younger people in. To me, they’re talking out of both sides of their mouth because they need money.

Any thoughts on Catholics?

Jacobsen: A lot of thoughts on Catholics.

Bouley: I’m a former altar boy, so I can give you some thoughts on Catholics.

Jacobsen: I think the current pope, Leo XIV, has a more legalistic approach than Francis. Francis was more interesting in his public statements. Leo has a background in canon law, and I don’t expect substantial moves toward LGBTQ equality.

Bouley: They’re men who wear robes and gold jewellery. They wear the biggest hats in the world. Philip Treacy wishes he could make hats like that. And many of them live in all-male religious communities.

The Catholic Church is the gayest shit I’ve ever heard. Its opposition to gay relationships always boggles my mind. They’ve set up this entire male-only clerical world, and then they act like gay people are the problem.

Let’s do something fun. Doritos, which I don’t eat, although some varieties are vegan, depending on the ingredients and where they’re sold. They’ve made rainbow crisps in support of gay rights.

Bouley: And conservative heads across America exploded. “Boycott Doritos! Don’t buy Doritos!” If you don’t like drag shows, don’t go. And if you don’t want rainbow Doritos, guess what? No one is going to put them in your shopping cart.

Jacobsen: There’s always regular Cool Ranch. Go for those.

Bouley: Yeah. They were colourful, dyed purple, blue, green, orange, and red, inspired by the Pride flag. They launched that campaign in 2015 in partnership with the It Gets Better Project. That’s Dan Savage’s project, which he co-founded with Terry Miller. Do you know who Dan Savage is?

Jacobsen: Of course.

Bouley: He and I had a long conversation about It Gets Better because I went on a tirade on ABC saying, “It doesn’t get better. It never gets better.” He was upset that I was out there saying that.

Jacobsen: I wish I could have been there to see this.

Bouley: As I remember it, he conceded my point at the end, which was that what gets better is your ability to deal with it. Discrimination can change, but there’s always going to be some hater. There’s always going to be somebody who hates you without even knowing you, just because of who you are. Black, gay, straight, woman, man, Canadian, whatever.

What got better for me was my ability to deal with the haters and put that into perspective. I’m all for helping kids get through that phase by telling them life can get better. I don’t want that to sound like a promise that hatred disappears. Once they get through it, once they have the tools to deal with the hatred, it doesn’t have to be so central to their lives.

As you know, I’m hated every day. I get hate mail and hate comments, totally hateful things that would drive most people to quit or hide. I’ve gotten them my entire life. It never changes for me. I get as many hate comments now as I did 20 or 30 years ago.

What got better was my ability to say, “You know what? Fuck you all. If I want the opinion of an asshole, I’ll fart.”

Their hatred doesn’t mean anything to me anymore. If my dog loves me, my family loves me, and my friends love me, that’s all I care about. Anything beyond that, I don’t fucking care.

The It Gets Better Project helps young people who feel bullied or isolated. Maybe their parents have thrown them out. Maybe they’ve been threatened, or they’re already homeless. Maybe they’re experiencing bullying online or in person. The project offers stories, resources, and support to help them see a future beyond that.

Once they get through it, I think they realize they can change even when the haters don’t. Your ability to deal with those people changes. That’s what happened for me.

Doritos partnered with the It Gets Better Project to support LGBTQ young people. During that limited-edition campaign, fans could get a bag by making a charitable donation of at least ten bucks.

The campaign was originally scheduled to run through National Coming Out Day, October 11, 2015, although the bags sold out early.

I have to tell you a true story. My dear friend DW, Daniel Walto, who everyone thought was gay, has been hanging out with me for 25 years. I married him to his wife. I performed the ceremony, which everyone thought was funny because people thought we were together.

Every October 11 since I met him, every single year, I call him. This will be about the 25th year. I only say one thing: “Hello, DW?”

He says, “Yes.”

I go, “It’s October 11. Do you have anything you want to tell me?”

He’s like, “No.”

Then I hang up, because it’s National Coming Out Day.

Back during that Doritos campaign, you could donate ten dollars to the It Gets Better Project and get a bag. That offer isn’t current. Although if they mail them, you’re going to get a bag of crumbs. But it’s the thought that counts.

When we come back, if you’re a British veteran affected by the military’s former ban on gay personnel, you’ve got fewer than 100 days to apply for financial recognition.

Here is your moment of Zen, everybody. There you go. A moment of Zen. She’s so white in the face now—my little girl.

All right, Scott Douglas Jacobsen writes for The Good Men Project and many other publications. He does more podcasts than I do. He is currently in Kyiv, Ukraine, where we still do This Gay Week. This week, we’re talking about a variety of topics.

In Canada, you have a national LGBTQ monument project, and you’ve provided compensation to people affected by the LGBT Purge, including military personnel. We haven’t had an equivalent broad compensation scheme in the United States. In fact, we’re going in the other direction with the renewed exclusion of transgender service members.

But in the UK, eligible LGBT veterans can apply for restorative measures, including financial recognition payments of up to £70,000. These are veterans who were discharged or otherwise affected by the ban on LGBT personnel serving in the armed forces between 1967 and 2000. The measures followed an independent review of the ban’s impact.

The government’s September 3 announcement marked 100 days until the application deadline, December 12, 2026. Defence Secretary Wes Streeting said, “No one should face persecution or have to hide who they are. The ban caused lasting harm to many brave personnel who served our country. I hope all eligible veterans come forward before the application deadline closes.”

“And I urge everybody across our armed forces and LGBT communities to spread the word.”

Eligible veterans dismissed or discharged because of the ban can receive a financial recognition payment of £50,000. That’s a lot of money. Veterans may also qualify for an impact payment of up to £20,000 for harms such as investigations, harassment, or disciplinary action.

I say bravo. Bravo to the UK. I’d like to see the U.S. do this. Canada did, correct?

Jacobsen: Yes. It’s been two things: addressing the LGBT Purge, our national scandal, and commemorating it through the Thunderhead monument. You noted in previous sessions that Canada was leading the way, if I’m quoting you correctly. It’s Canada’s first national monument dedicated to LGBTQ communities, although it isn’t the world’s first LGBTQ monument.

Bouley: Yes, and now the UK is taking an important step. Canada isn’t the only other country to have offered compensation. Germany has done so, too.

We had “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” enacted under Clinton with congressional approval. Anyone discharged under that policy should have access to the benefits they earned.

The Social Security Administration expanded access to survivor benefits under Biden following court cases. Some surviving same-sex partners who couldn’t marry because of discriminatory laws became eligible, including for retroactive benefits in qualifying cases. It wasn’t automatic eligibility for every domestic partner.

Someone told me I might be able to get Andrew’s. I said, “Mine would probably be more because he died at 34.” He didn’t have as many years of work. But if I didn’t have access to my own, it would have been nice to qualify for his. At least it would have been something.

We spoke earlier about bullying, and It Gets Better. You sent a story from the Electronic Frontier Foundation about improving your safety and security online as a gay person.

Get offline. That’s not what the story says, but if you don’t want to be stung by a jellyfish, don’t go in the ocean. If you don’t want to be bitten by a shark, stay out of the sea.

I think the article is well-intentioned. The advice is to safeguard your login, protect your personal information, watch what you post, and review permissions on social media apps. Consider what you’re sharing when you speak to other people online.

I would say that if you’re openly gay online, you can encounter haters. Precautions can reduce your exposure, but I don’t think there’s a way to guarantee you won’t experience it. Do you see any way a gay person could completely insulate themselves from online abuse? I don’t.

Jacobsen: Becoming as prominent as Lil Nas X at a young age requires considerable resilience. But even if you’re not interested in being a public person, these conversations shouldn’t be necessary. In a society that treated people equally, you wouldn’t have to take precautions simply because of your sexuality.

Bouley: Jacobsen, Canadian, how are you doing?

Jacobsen: Part one is that this shouldn’t be happening at all. Part two is that, given we don’t live in equal societies, even in many relatively open societies, some precautions are necessary. The internet is difficult to avoid, and social media is part of many people’s lives.

For some teenagers, experiences on platforms such as Instagram and TikTok can worsen mental health problems. The effects differ by person, content, and how they use the platform. There are gender-related patterns, too. About sexual orientation—

Bouley: Let me ask you, because social media companies have faced lawsuits alleging they knew young people were being harmed and didn’t do enough. A settlement doesn’t necessarily mean they’ve admitted those allegations, but the questions are serious.

I don’t know whether there’s been a comparable settlement specifically addressing homophobic harassment. Meta knows these comments are being posted. I’ve reported homophobic comments under my posts, and they’ve sent me responses saying, “We’ve left it up because it doesn’t violate our terms.”

Someone calls me a “faggot,” and the response is that it stays up. It’s not just me. You see what I’m saying? They aren’t adequately protecting young people from this kind of bullying.

Jacobsen: No. Teenagers can be adaptable, but a cruel comment can have an immediate emotional impact. That’s the real concern.

Bouley: All right, Scott, you’re under an air raid alert. Get somewhere safe, and hopefully you can get some rest afterwards.

I’m Karel. Be who you want to be, as long as you don’t hurt anybody. We’ll be back next week. Thank you for joining us, particularly under the circumstances you’re in. Hopefully we’ll see you next week, alive and well and not hit by a ballistic missile.

Jacobsen: Always a possibility.

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Scott Douglas Jacobsen is a Writer and Editor for The Good Men Project with more than 2,000 publications on the platform. He is the Founder and Publisher of In-Sight Publishing (ISBN: 978-1-0692343; 978-1-0673505) and Editor-in-Chief of In-Sight: Interviews (ISSN: 2369-6885). He writes for International Policy Digest (ISSN: 2332–9416), The Humanist (Print: ISSN, 0018-7399; Online: ISSN, 2163-3576), Basic Income Earth Network (UK Registered Charity 1177066), Humanist Perspectives (ISSN: 1719-6337), A Further Inquiry (SubStack), Vocal, Medium, The New Enlightenment Project, The Washington Outsider, rabble.ca, and other media. His bibliography index can be found via the Jacobsen Bank at In-Sight Publishing comprised of more than 10,000 articles, interviews, and republications, in more than 200 outlets. He has served in national and international leadership roles within humanist and media organizations, held several academic, media, and research institution fellowships, and currently serves on numerous international boards. He is a member in good standing in numerous media organizations, including the Canadian Association of Journalists, PEN Canada (CRA: 88916 2541 RR0001), and Reporters Without Borders (SIREN: 343 684 221/SIRET: 343 684 221 00041/EIN: 20-0708028), and others.