This Gay Week 32: Global LGBTQ Rights, Violence, Surveillance, and Queer History

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.

Karel Bouley and Scott Douglas Jacobsen survey LGBTQ rights, violence, surveillance, culture, and historical memory while Jacobsen reports from Kyiv. They discuss Russian repression, anti-gay attacks in Australia and Senegal, dating-app risks, Gay Uncles Day, Pope Leo XIV, Pride awards, HIV in China, Sierra Leone listeners, and John D’Emilio’s scholarship. Their conversation balances alarm over criminalization and violence with evidence of resilience, institutional change, family acceptance, scholarship, and queer visibility worldwide amid backlash in 2026.

Karel Bouley: It is time for This Gay Week on this Thursday, August 13th. Scott Douglas Jacobsen with The Good Men Project is going to join us from Ukraine, from a very special spot in Ukraine. We are going to jump right to it because A, he is in a war zone, B, his power is fading and he is having all kinds of issues, but he is here with us at the moment. If it goes dead, it goes dead. That is just the way it is. But here is Scott and his Ask Scott.

I do not know where he is at. He has that pulsating disco, what is it? Boots and pants and boots and pants and boots and pants disco going on behind him, which is fine. And I am told you are across the street from where MAGA influencer Laura Loomer visited. X

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: She recently traveled to Ukraine, interviewed President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and changed her position on Ukraine.

She renounced Russian propaganda that she admitted to believing. She traveled to Ukraine in late July. She went to the Brodsky Synagogue. Rabbi Moshe Azman, one of those widely described as a chief rabbi of Ukraine, is associated with the synagogue. I have been to Brodsky for services, one during Shabbat and one during Shavuot. I talked to him for about 40 minutes after one of them. She met him and talked to him.

She learned some things, maybe, but when she went and was taking some photography, she was right across the street from Holy Burger, where I am now, near the Brodsky Synagogue.

Bouley: You are at a place called Holy Burger. You are not at a place called Holy Burger.

Jacobsen: It is called Holy Burger. It is across the street from the synagogue.

Bouley: Only on my show. Before we get rip-roaring here, if we go to Instagram, let me look at something. I have been posting our little snippets of our conversations. And the one that we had about Diana Ross, about her doing WorldPride and all of that, 46,000 views. Did you freeze? You froze. Oh no, right at the beginning. Oh Lord, look, he is gone. And I wanted to share with him how many fabulous people, oh, there he is again. We will get back to him. So our post about Diana Ross is already at 46,000 views. That is a lot.

Jacobsen: Yeah.

Bouley: And last week when I posted This Gay Week and I posted our snippets, on Instagram alone, one of ours, the Hunter Biden gay cabal claim, is at 28,000 views. These are significant numbers.

Jacobsen: Those are non-trivial.

Bouley: Yeah. So people are liking them. For some reason, some of my posts on Instagram are doing 30,000 to 40,000 views now. I do not know why. My YouTube is not, but my Instagram is. Scott is there. We are going to do This Gay Week. And it is funny, you sent me a story that I did want to talk about. I wanted to start with it. But I cannot seem to find it at the moment. When we get to it, I will go, oh yeah, that is the story that I wanted to start with. Because it was something that I covered on my show. Here. So on my show, I covered that in San Francisco, gay bars were using AI-assisted ID and face-scanning technology.

Jacobsen: I saw that.

Bouley: They were storing patron information for up to 21 days, not 30, and participating venues could share certain information through the network, including flags on patrons. One thing about marginalized groups, they do not like to be surveilled. And the gay and lesbian community has a long history of being surveilled by police and law enforcement. So when it came to our own bars, we objected, and we objected loudly. Just like in America, we are objecting to these Flock cameras, but that is a different story.

You sent me the story that San Francisco gay bars backed off the AI-assisted face-scanning technology after the uproar. And I think it was so tone-deaf of the gay bars not to realize that gay patrons were not going to be comfortable being surveilled. Some of those people going to those bars may not be out at work or at home. They do not want their face scan and identifying information associated with a gay bar. Maybe that should not be an issue, but in a political climate where people are increasingly concerned about government surveillance and databases, it becomes a serious privacy concern.

I think a lot of people were afraid that they could end up on a list. So they did rescind that. We are going to talk about that and so much more when we come back with Scott at Holy Burger, across from the synagogue in Ukraine where Laura Loomer visited, and maybe changed what little mind she has. But we will be back and talk more. If you are not visiting reallykarel.com daily, you are missing out.

Scott, kick it off. Pick a story. Let us go.

Jacobsen: Roulette. You pick.

Bouley: I always lead the way.

Jacobsen: You do.

Bouley: And that is your segment, so you lead.

Bouley: The straight guy and the gay guy are going to fight over who leads. What are we, ballroom dancing?

Jacobsen: Ballroom dancing is fun.

Bouley: I would ballroom dance with you. There is more. But I am the bigger of the two of us. So if anyone has to dip, it is going to be you, because you would fall to the ground if you tried to dip me. I am a big boy.

Jacobsen: Russia designated NC SOS Crisis Group, which assists women and queer survivors of violence in the North Caucasus, as an extremist organization. It is part of the broader anti-LGBTQ crackdown supported by the Russian state.

Bouley: We see this across the globe now where things that I do not want to say have been normalized.

But being gay and LGBTQ is pretty normal in modern society now. And so to combat that, these organizations are trying to label it something other than normal. Here, they are calling trans people “radical gender ideology.” That is what they say in our government when they talk about trans people. They talk about radical gender ideology.

And they are using terms like “extremist” and “radical.” They are doing this across the globe to once again try to make gay people, trans people, or their allies seem like they are on the fringe or extreme, because then you can more easily marginalize them, vote against them, that sort of thing. If you label someone an extremist, if you label a movement extreme, if you label being trans “radical gender ideology,” when you try to oppress those people, it is more palatable.

It is sort of like if you shoot an animal known to be a predator, a lion or a hippo, because hippos kill more people than lions, everyone understands, “Oh, they are a predator. They were going to kill you.” But if you shoot a cute little furry rabbit, everyone is like, “Why are you killing the rabbit?” And it is the same thing.

Those who oppose gay people want gay people to be seen as radical, as extreme, as fringe, that sort of thing. But we are not, and supporting us is not. They are trying to reframe the dialogue to make it easier to make laws against us and to discriminate against us. So if you label these women who simply help other women and other individuals in their lives as extremists, it is easier to say, “We are going to put them out of business. We are going to jail them. We are going to stop their organization. They are an extremist organization.” It is verbiage, but it works, unfortunately. It is a tactic that works.

Jacobsen: Next story?

Bouley: Sure.

Jacobsen: For all the guncles out there.

Bouley: Yeah. Celebrated.

Jacobsen: On August’s second Sunday.

Bouley: You sent me this story, and I said, “Wait a minute, what is Dandenong?” I am like, seriously? And then I found out it was a place in Australia. I am like, “Oh, okay.”

Jacobsen: Dandenong?

Bouley: Dandenong. Five people have been arrested in Dandenong as police investigate alleged homophobic attacks across Victoria. The alarming thing is, first of all, good on the police. Good for making the arrests, good for taking it seriously, good for following through. That is the first thing. But second, it is disturbing that we are seeing more of these kinds of crimes.

Five males have been accused in connection with 11 alleged homophobic attacks in the Greater Dandenong area. Jesus Christ, their city sounds like a dong. Police allege groups of offenders used dating apps and social media to lure victims to locations before assaulting, robbing, threatening, and in some cases sexually assaulting them. We have talked about this, Scott, you and I. Victoria Police have recorded 113 similar incidents since January 2024, resulting in 47 arrests statewide. This is a trend.

Jacobsen: Yeah, it is a trend.

Bouley: And I really need to emphasize here to anyone reading this in your interview, in The Good Men Project, anyone watching this: hookup apps can carry risks. You need to take precautions. Meet somebody first in a public place. Go to a bar, a café, a park, somewhere with other people around.

There have been too many cases involving people who meet through Craigslist, social media, dating apps, Facebook, or other online platforms and end up being catfished, beaten, robbed, or killed. I watch true-crime shows that cover cases like these. There are multiple series about people arranging online meetings and ending up victimized.

With those kinds of cases, I worry about using gay hookup apps without taking precautions, because nowadays you do not necessarily know who you are talking to. And with AI, we have not covered this, but there was a gay social app whose founders got into trouble because promotional profiles or images reportedly featured AI-generated men rather than real users. The whole thing became messy.

In this Victoria case, police say groups of offenders posed as legitimate users on dating and social platforms to lure men into meeting them. Victims were then allegedly assaulted, robbed, threatened, or subjected to homophobic abuse. Five males between the ages of 16 and 18 were arrested.

Now, this brings up a bigger question. Sixteen- to 18-year-old kids. Where did they learn to do this, and why are they doing it? When I was 16 years old, the last thing on my mind would have been catfishing someone. We did not have that technology, but still, the last thing on my mind was to harm someone from a marginalized group. So what is influencing kids at 16, 17, and 18 to think this is something to do?

Social media, peers, parents, television, political rhetoric, any number of influences can contribute. This is not necessarily happening in a vacuum. These young people may be absorbing hostility toward the LGBTQ community, and in these alleged cases that hostility appears to have become violence against gay men. That is one of the most disturbing aspects of this story.

And the fact that Victoria Police have recorded 113 similar incidents since January 2024, resulting in 47 arrests, is an alarming pattern.

That is something that needs to be addressed, not just reported on. And I feel the social media and dating companies need to do more to verify that you are who you say you are. How is it that someone can post an AI-generated photo of some hot guy, lure people somewhere, and the app does not make anybody aware that the profile is fake? That is a bigger issue.

Why is there not some kind of vetting process to make you prove you are who you say you are? Whether it is uploading identification, completing identity verification, or doing some kind of proof-of-life video. I laugh because I am picturing Mitch McConnell holding up a newspaper. But there needs to be something to establish that you are who you say you are.

One of these cases is too many. One hundred and thirteen is way too many. And this is just in Victoria. How much of this is happening globally?

Jacobsen: And how much is actually reported, even in the same area?

Bouley: Exactly. As you know, women and gay men may not report violence against them because of shame or fear. Particularly gay men. They may not be completely out, and they may be afraid of how police will respond. In some countries, police still discount violence against LGBTQ people or do not give it a high priority. Historically, women have faced similar problems when reporting sexual and domestic violence.

A lot of gay men may not report what happened because they do not want the embarrassment. It can feel embarrassing that you got fooled or duped. And then there can be additional stigma because it happened through a gay dating app.

Jacobsen: And legal cases like these can take a lot of time. Victims may ask whether the extended legal process is worth it, on top of the possibility of being retraumatized.

Bouley: I agree. I could not agree more.

You sent a cute story. The other day, my niece and nephew sent me a “Happy Gay Uncle’s Day.” I was like, “What the fuck? There is a Gay Uncle’s Day, and all these years you have not been giving me presents?” I want a retroactive Happy Gay Uncle’s Day. But the second Sunday of August is, in fact, International Gay Uncles Day.

And it is international. It is not just in the United States that we honor guncles, as we are called, gay uncles. But it is not just a day for gay uncles. It also recognizes lesbian aunts, queer and trans relatives, extended family, and chosen family. So it is really a day to acknowledge the LGBTQ people in your family and your life.

For instance, my niece and nephew, Jake and Heather, are not biologically related to me. They are Andrew’s niece and nephew, and he has been gone for 25 years, but I am still their gay uncle.

It is a way to acknowledge everybody in your life who may be trans, bi, queer, lesbian, gay, or otherwise LGBTQ, and acknowledge their role in your life on the second Sunday of August.

I really think a story like this speaks to something we mention every week. Gay, lesbian, bisexual, trans, and queer people are woven into families everywhere. Families have gay uncles, lesbian aunts, trans siblings, bisexual relatives, queer cousins, and every other variation of family life. I think Gay Uncles Day shows how integrated LGBTQ people really are in families, and I think it is a very positive thing that we have it.

And I would really like to start receiving gifts on that day. So it is the second Sunday in August. I fully expect gifts, cards, flowers, vegan chocolates, whatever. I deserve them and I want them. And even if it is not the second Sunday of August, please send them. Any day, any week, I will take them.

Did you ever have a gay uncle or a lesbian aunt or anything like that?

Jacobsen: Should I break that boundary?

Bouley: So you did have a gay uncle. You have to be proud. I have to ask, by the way, you are in Ukraine. Did you see the eclipse yesterday? Did you get the eclipse there in Ukraine?

Jacobsen: I did not even look. I have been running around. I have not even timed it out. I did just do a news story with a friend, and we talked about how in Spain and Iceland thousands of people wanted to see it and went out to see it.

Bouley: They said around 80,000 tourists went to Iceland to see it.

Jacobsen: For context, Reykjavík has a population of roughly 140,000 people, so that would be a very large influx relative to the capital’s size. Some people are very excited about this.

Bouley: Iceland was in the path of totality, which meant it got completely dark, like night. That is a very cool thing in the middle of the day. I have been in an eclipse where I was in the zone of totality, and it is probably one of the weirdest, eeriest, coolest things you will ever experience. Everyone should experience it once in their lifetime. I can see how, in medieval times, people might have thought the end was near or that something supernatural was happening.

It literally goes completely dark in the middle of the day, and the atmosphere can change noticeably. It is very otherworldly. Ukraine also experienced a partial eclipse, although it was not in the path of totality. We did not get much of it in the United States where I am in Las Vegas, but parts of the northern U.S. had some visibility. I was wondering if you went and saw it, but obviously you did not. You are just too busy out there in the world.

Did you see the planetary alignment, all seven planets?

Jacobsen: No.

Bouley: You can still see the Perseid meteor shower. It is active this week.

Jacobsen: I guess I could see that.

Bouley: Pope Leo has elevated voices seen as supportive of LGBTQ inclusion and women’s ordination to important Vatican advisory roles. You sent the story about 15 new consultors to the Vatican office overseeing religious life.

But I have to ask you, does this ring hollow to you? Because he is the pope. He has enormous authority. He could move Church policy much further on gay people and on same-sex relationships. The buck stops with him.

Jacobsen: I am ambivalent about more than two things here. I have several competing reactions. On the one hand, he is a religious figure. On another hand, he is a political figure. On a third hand, the Roman Catholic Church is an old, slow-moving institution.

So the movement of a pope, especially within a conservative religious tradition and within an institution governed by canon law, tends to happen incrementally. If he is moving things in a more progressive direction, part of what he may be doing is setting institutional conditions that outlast his own pontificate.

Bouley: Do you think him being American has anything to do with his stance on LGBTQ people as pope?

Jacobsen: Being American does not tell me much. Being from Chicago tells me more.

Bouley: I agree. There are many Americans who are hostile to LGBTQ people, but Chicago has a different political and social culture. By the way, Chicago was hit hard this week by severe weather, including multiple tornadoes and damaging winds.

Here is the thing. The Catholic Church has a retention problem in places like the United States. More people raised Catholic have left the Church than have converted into it, and younger adults are especially likely to be religiously unaffiliated.

They want young people. What we are seeing in the elections in the United States right now has some Democrats nervous because younger voters are turning out for progressive candidates, including some democratic socialists. The results are mixed, but there is clearly an appetite for generational and political change.

Just the other day, in one of the primaries, voters elected a progressive Democrat. Young people are saying they want change, and they want substantial change. They want the kind of urgency Donald Trump has brought to conservative politics applied to progressive issues.

If the Catholic Church wants to maintain relevance with younger generations, I think it is going to have to move faster. Young people such as yourself do not necessarily want to sit around and wait 20 years for change. If they believe change can be made now, they want it now. They do not want to wait until they are 60.

That desire for change does not always move left. You see younger voters moving in different political directions in the United States and Canada. But there is clearly impatience with established institutions.

I think the Pope needs to step on it myself because I think people would support it. Not everybody, but I think a lot of people would.

Jacobsen: I did an analysis of him when he first became pope. If I recall correctly, I was saying not to expect significant change on a couple of issues. LGBTQ issues were one of them.

He is especially trained in canon law. He earned both a licentiate and doctorate in canon law, so he approaches institutional questions partly as a canonist.

When he makes institutional changes, I would expect them to be fairly deliberate and legally structured rather than dramatic overnight reversals. So you can have Catholic groups in the United States pushing strongly for change while the Vatican moves much more slowly.

Bouley: I always roll my eyes at it all. The pope is protected by the Swiss Guard, and to join you have to be a Swiss Catholic man, generally between 19 and 30, unmarried when entering, and you have to meet military and other requirements.

Jacobsen: Yes. These are good cultural hypocrisies to point out, but substantively, on policy, I do not expect enormous change.

Bouley: Let us get to a good story out of Amsterdam, where WorldPride was held. The United Nations Development Programme, UNDP, and ILGA World honored five equality champions with the International Pride Awards, which I fully expect you and me to win next year.

During a special ceremony at the WorldPride Human Rights Conference, the 2026 International Pride Awards celebrated individuals and organizations whose courage, leadership, and commitment are advancing equality for LGBTQ people around the world.

The winners were South African Deputy Minister Mmapaseka Steve Letsike, Dutch human rights organization COC Nederland, longtime Chilean trans activist Marcela Dimonty, Ugandan trans pastor Aggie Dennett Harmon, and Indian disability rights advocate and LGBTQ ally Dr. Satendra Singh. Eligible recipients from low- and middle-income countries will each receive a $10,000 grant to support their ongoing work.

We talk about a lot of bad stuff here, but there are still a lot of good people in the world trying to make a difference. These five are among them.

Jacobsen: I interviewed the UNDP here.

Bouley: So they are everywhere. And the UNDP is doing good work. Thank you, UNDP. And the UNDP does not just concentrate on LGBTQ issues. You interviewed them there about something else, correct?

Jacobsen: Yes.

Bouley: About the war, I would imagine.

Jacobsen: Yes, as you might imagine.

Bouley: I am glad you are doing more interviews about the war. I told you, you have to get busy. You are sitting in a freaking war zone. Capitalize. Which sounds like an odd thing to say, “capitalize off war.”

Jacobsen: It is not “capitalize” in the sense of exploiting it. It is more in the sense of emphasizing the fact that I am here and reporting on it.

Bouley: Exactly. You are a journalist. You are in a war zone. You are not selling Zelenskyy T-shirts on the corner.

Jacobsen: No. There is actually Putin toilet paper.

Bouley: What?

Jacobsen: When I bought this hat, which is light and good for the heat, I remember this lady selling toilet paper with Mr. Putin’s face on it.

Bouley: You have just given me a billion-dollar idea. I am making Trump toilet paper. I am going to put Trump on toilet paper so people can wipe their ass with the man. I will cut you in 50-50. You gave me the idea.

Jacobsen: Mr. Trump only on the premise that Mr. Trump and Mr. Putin are kissing and there is a big heart around them.

Bouley: With AI, I could do that very easily. Before we go to a break, I have to ask: have they made a big deal in Ukraine, or have you heard, that President Trump was secretly moved out of Turkey using an airport catering truck as cover?

Jacobsen: A friend of mine told me about this, and it seems sort of like Dilbert meets 007.

Bouley: I told my listeners it is right out of one of those comedies where they are trying to get a body out of a hotel room. “Put him in the catering container.”

Reports say the security operation was prompted by an Iranian assassination threat. Trump was moved using an airport catering truck as cover before boarding a smaller military aircraft while a decoy Air Force One continued the public itinerary.

Bouley: Here is the story, Scott. Reports said there was a credible Iranian assassination threat, and Trump was moved covertly using an airport catering truck before boarding another aircraft. A decoy aircraft continued the expected route with members of the press corps aboard.

If there had actually been an attack on the decoy aircraft, journalists could have been put at risk.

Jacobsen: If there were substantial, credible evidence of a threat, then I do not care whether they are Fox News, MSNBC, or anyone else. I am just glad they are okay.

Bouley: I said the same thing. I do not like some of the Fox News people, but they are journalists.

Jacobsen: We can debate the quality of the journalism, but that is separate from whether anyone deserves to be harmed.

Bouley: Exactly. I did not rejoice when people I disagreed with politically were attacked, and I would not be happy if Sean Hannity were harmed. I am not that person. Maybe I was more like that when I was younger. I played “Ding-Dong! The Witch Is Dead” when Ronald Reagan died. I would not do that today. I am 63. I have learned.

I do not care who they are reporting for, whether it is NewsNation, Newsmax, Fox, MSNBC, or anyone else. They do not deserve to be shot out of the sky, particularly if authorities had warning of a credible threat.

Last week we reported that Apple’s China App Store was removing some gay dating apps at the request of Chinese regulators. But there is also a Chinese gay social and dating app called Blued, B-L-U-E-D.

Blued previously halted new user registrations after media reports raised concerns about minors using the platform and some underage users contracting HIV after meeting people through the app. That particular Blued story dates to January 2019, so it is historical context rather than a new 2026 development.

Blued was described at the time as the largest social networking app for gay people in the world. So not only did China have a major gay app, it had one of the biggest globally. That seems incongruous when Chinese authorities have also pressured Apple to remove gay dating apps from the Chinese App Store. Maybe part of the distinction is that Blued originated in China, while platforms such as Grindr did not. China’s regulatory approach to LGBTQ platforms has not been consistent.

Jacobsen: Also try running a bureaucracy managing more than a billion people.

Bouley: Yeah. China has substantial gay communities and queer social scenes, particularly in larger cities, although LGBTQ organizations, advocacy, media, and public expression have faced increasing government restrictions. I did not realize places like Chengdu, Beijing, and Shanghai had such visible gay communities. I have this image of China as uniformly dark and oppressive, and then you see these highly modern cities and vibrant communities.

Jacobsen: Every country has mixed realities.

Bouley: That is true.

The 2019 report, citing Chinese media and academic research, said minors were using Blued and that some teenagers were hosting livestreams. It also reported concerns about teenagers arranging sexual encounters through the app, having unprotected sex, and contracting HIV.

I do not know enough about HIV education in China. I would like to research that because I do not know whether the gay community there has access to the same level of HIV-prevention messaging that people encounter in places like the United States. China does have HIV-prevention programs, testing, and treatment initiatives, but censorship and restrictions on LGBTQ organizations can complicate outreach to some communities.

Jacobsen: UNAIDS reported in 2024 that about 1.4 million people were living with HIV in China, with women accounting for approximately 23.7 percent.

That means roughly three-quarters are men, although that does not mean all of those men are gay or bisexual.

Bouley: 1.4 million out of a population of more than a billion is a relatively small percentage nationally. I would have thought the number was higher. Do you think HIV is underreported because it is China?

Jacobsen: There can be stigma surrounding HIV and other health conditions, which can discourage testing or disclosure. That happens in many societies. But I would not assume the national estimate is substantially wrong simply because it comes from China.

Bouley: Blued, B-L-U-E-D, had around 40 million registered users at the time of the 2019 report. It was created by Ma Baoli, a former police officer who left policing and built the service from an earlier gay website into a major social network. Grindr, the Los Angeles-founded gay dating app, was also owned for several years by a Chinese company. Did I know that?

Jacobsen: No, and neither did I.

Bouley: Grindr was Chinese-owned? Beijing Kunlun Tech acquired Grindr beginning in 2016. U.S. national-security authorities later raised concerns about the Chinese ownership of sensitive user data, and Kunlun sold Grindr in 2020 to the U.S.-based San Vicente Acquisition group for 08 million. Grindr is no longer owned by a China-based company.

I remember that now. They were effectively told that the Chinese ownership presented national-security concerns, so the company was sold to American investors.

San Vicente Acquisition, a U.S.-based investor group, bought Grindr for about $608.5 million in 2020. Grindr later went public on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker GRND in November 2022.

Okay, I was freaked out there for a moment. But it was Chinese-owned for several years.

I want to show you something, Scott Douglas Jacobsen, because I find this interesting about our show, our little This Gay Week. I can see which episodes are being downloaded where and when. For the last six weeks, my podcast has been in the top 25 on the particular podcast chart I monitor in Sierra Leone.

Jacobsen: You were mentioning that.

Bouley: I found that during the weeks we have been there, the most downloaded episode has been This Gay Week. It has almost double the downloads of my normal episodes in Sierra Leone.

So I asked ChatGPT today about Sierra Leone. Same-sex sexual activity between men remains criminalized under the country’s colonial-era law, although enforcement has historically been uncommon. Sex between women is not specifically criminalized under that provision.

That distinction goes back to the way many British colonial laws defined prohibited sexual acts. They focused on sexual activity between men rather than treating male and female same-sex relationships identically.

What I find interesting is that in a country where LGBTQ people have limited legal protections, This Gay Week gets roughly double the listeners of my regular podcast there.

Then we have Senegal, where authorities have arrested dozens of men in an intensified crackdown on alleged same-sex activity. Good Lord, someone dropped the tray, honey.

Senegal is cracking down. By August 7, authorities said 71 men had been arrested and charged with “unnatural acts,” while charges against another 28 people were dropped. Some prominent people have also reportedly faced accusations related to homosexuality.

Senegal’s National Assembly passed legislation in March 2026 that substantially increased penalties. The new law provides prison sentences of five to ten years for same-sex sexual acts and also criminalizes the “promotion” or financing of homosexuality. I am reading more of this story. The conditions being described are pretty grim.

So that has been This Gay Week. We actually had some good stories this week. It was not all doom and gloom.

He sent another one that we did not get to, about John D’Emilio. He has a memoir out, and we should get him on the show. The recent controversy at the Stonewall National Monument, including federal changes to LGBTQ-related language and the removal of the Pride flag from the federal flagpole, resulted in protests and litigation. The episode is relevant because efforts to restrict or erase queer history are not entirely new.

According to D’Emilio’s new autobiography, Making Gay History: Memoir of a Scholar-Activist by John D’Emilio, professor emeritus of history and gender and women’s studies at the University of Illinois Chicago. He notes that if we jump back to the late 1960s, there would have been virtually no LGBTQ history to ban from classrooms and very few LGBTQ-positive books to remove from libraries.

That is a sobering point. As terrible as it is today to hear about books being removed, gay history being suppressed, and attempts to rewrite queer history, the fact is that decades ago there often was not much openly LGBTQ history available in mainstream classrooms or libraries in the first place.

We have come a long way in a relatively short period of time. It is a shame that there are efforts to move backward, but there has still been real progress. When I was in school in the 1960s and 1970s, and then graduated in 1980, there were very few books about gay people available to us. There were not many stories. They did not teach about Harvey Milk. He was active at the time, but we certainly did not cover him in social studies class.

So from that perspective, while it is terrible that we are seeing efforts to roll things back, there has still been progress. There are books. There is scholarship. There is important work being done and acknowledged. In the 1960s, 1970s, and even into the 1980s, much of that history simply was not acknowledged in mainstream education.

That is really interesting. D’Emilio’s book traces how queer history moved from being virtually nonexistent as an academic field to becoming an established subject with a large body of scholarship. He uses his own career as evidence of that development.

He shows how history became a resource for the gay rights movement as it fought oppression and sought equality. His career also illustrates how scholars helped establish LGBTQ history as a legitimate academic field.

That is another thing. There are now queer studies courses. We did have some gay-related material in my human sexuality class in college around 1981 or 1982, but that was within a broader sexuality course.

Now there are courses specifically devoted to LGBTQ history, queer studies, LGBTQ arts and culture, and the roles of LGBTQ political figures and social movements.

So as far backward as some things have gone, there is still reason for hope. There are ways to learn about LGBTQ history. There are ways to read about it. Many public libraries still carry these books. Bookstores still sell them. I just went to Barnes & Noble, and they had LGBTQ books available.

When I went to libraries and bookstores in the 1960s, 1970s, and early 1980s, you usually did not find a dedicated gay or queer studies section. Today you often do.

And that is progress.

So I will leave it there, on a positive note about progress.

I am Karel. You be who you want to be. Have a great rest of the weekend, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Get outside. Do something fun. Get away from the news. Get away from the scrolling. Get away from your little rectangle of doom.

—

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.