Karel Bouley is a trailblazing LGBTQ broadcaster, entertainer, and activist. As half of the first openly gay duo in U.S. drive-time radio, he made history while shaping California law on LGBTQ wrongful death cases. Karel rose to prominence as the #1 talk show host on KFI AM 640 in Los Angeles and KGO AM 810 in San Francisco, and later expanded into Free Speech TV and the Karel Cast podcast. His work spans journalism (HuffPost, The Advocate, Billboard), television (CNN, MSNBC), and the music industry. A voting member of NARAS, GALECA, and SAG-AFTRA, Karel now lives and creates in Las Vegas. Interview done June 12th, 2026.
Karel Bouley and Scott Douglas Jacobsen examine Pride Month amid escalating anti-LGBTQ hostility, from death threats after Bouley’s media appearance to Pride flag bans at Eurovision and UK councils. They discuss manufactured outrage, Budapest Mayor Gergely Karácsony’s dropped charges, Zohran Mamdani’s Queens gender-affirming care clinic, attacks on the EHRC, and Russell T Davies’s Tip Toe. The conversation frames LGBTQ solidarity, trans rights, and public visibility as democratic necessities under pressure during 2026’s grim backlash cycle.
Karel Bouley: It is Pride Month, so you would think there would be great news about LGBTQ people from around the globe. Not quite the case. Scott Jacobsen is here with us live from Ukraine to talk about This Gay Week on The Karel Show and The Good Men Project.
All right, it is The Karel Show. I am Karel, and most of you know that I have had quite a trying gay week. We are going to talk about that with our friend Scott Jacobsen, who is joining us from Ukraine. There he is. There is his cute little face. I want to pinch those little cheeks. Hello, how are you? How is life in Ukraine?
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Things are good. The bombing, or rather the bombardments, have been less frequent, so sleep has been better.
Bouley: And the weather has improved to more than one sunny day, so I am quite happy to speak.
Well, there we go. I am glad you are. Scott knows because I sent him the clip of me on Great Britain News. I am making international gay news this week. A lot of you who have watched my show know that the edited portions I posted on social media have received comments like, “You need to be put in a camp.”
“You do not need Pride Month. You need to go to hell and burn with the rest of the sinners.” The comments go on and on, calling for my death and calling for gay, trans, and bisexual people to suffer harm or be excluded from society.
What is remarkable is that the host went on after I left the show and said she did not understand why Pride Month was necessary because, from her perspective, everything for gay people seemed fine and rosy.
She should watch This Gay Week before making that claim.
The HelloFresh post also sparked an international controversy after it alluded to anal sex. Apparently, that was too much for some heterosexual audiences, who reacted with outrage.
So, Scott, do you want to weigh in on the HelloFresh controversy, or on the comments under my post saying that I should die or burn in hell, or that my community is made up of perverts?
Jacobsen: It is an interesting contrast. I had an interaction today in which someone mentioned several instances of extremist violence carried out in response to what people said or believed. Those perpetrators were often fundamentalist religious individuals, typically opposed to LGBT people and related communities.
Yet here you are, having endured this kind of hostility for decades. What comparable act of mass violence have you committed? None.
There is a significant disconnect between the way many LGBT people are treated and the reality that LGBT communities are overwhelmingly peaceful and are not associated with organized campaigns of retaliatory mass violence.
There is also a disconnect between the claim that “things are great” and the claim that Pride Month is unnecessary.
Bouley: We have heard that argument repeatedly in the Fox News and MAGA media ecosystem.
People ask, “Why do they even need a Pride Month?” Some have even tried to rebrand June as “Traditional Family Month” or something similar, but those efforts have gained little traction.
I sent those comments to the journalist at GBN and said, “You went on air after I left and argued that you did not understand the need for Pride Month. Read these comments, and maybe you will.”
Two days ago on my show, I said it is remarkable that more gay people are not driven toward violent retaliation. Instead, our responses are empathy, compassion, activism, mutual aid, and community organizing.
We respond to homophobia, hatred, and even violence by building stronger communities rather than seeking revenge.
It amazes me. Perhaps not many gay people are armed; I do not know. What strikes me is how peaceful the community remains despite enduring persistent hostility, threats, and discrimination.
Jacobsen: Well, it is also the psychology of justifying acts of violence against some of these minority communities and then blaming the victims, in a sense, saying, essentially, “They made me do it.” Right?
So it is not necessarily an attempt, but an actual example of attempted self-exculpation through the externalization of blame onto the actual victims of that violence.
Bouley: I am not advocating that gay people arm themselves and commit violence. I am just amazed. I am 63. I have been out since I was 13, so for 50 years, everyone around me and I have had to endure really horrible treatment.
I mean, literally today on Instagram, people are calling for my death, saying I should be put in a camp, all kinds of things. And my big crime is that I suck better dick than they do. I am being flippant about that, but my big crime is that I love someone of the same gender, and that I am not like them. That is the big catchphrase: I am not like them. And because I am not like them, they are outraged.
Trans people are being murdered in alarming numbers across the globe. LGBTQ people are being oppressed in alarming numbers across the globe. We are going backwards across the globe. I am always amazed that we do not respond more violently, because wars have been started over less. Iran did less to the United States to start this war than straight people have done to gay people historically. So it is just amazing to me.
Now, along those lines, it is Pride Month. You would think that things like Pride flags would be commonplace and everybody would be used to them. Not true.
Eurovision has banned Pride flags from the contest stage. Nothing is gayer than Eurovision. I mean, come on. They launched ABBA’s career.
Jacobsen: ABBA were one of the higher-ranking winners, actually.
Bouley: Right. They launched ABBA. People love Eurovision. They love gays on Eurovision. And yet now they say you can fly the flag of your country, but you cannot fly a Pride flag. That is a step back. That is not a step forward. Eurovision has a ton of gay fans. This won’t endear them to the show.
Jacobsen: Entirely true. The justifications tend to be pretty thin for rejecting this. Granted, it is the symbolic aspect of this sort of cultural war, but it still matters because it is such a prominent event, and such a prominent gay event.
Bouley: Hello. Eurovision is the gayest song contest around. It is gayer than American Idol, and that is hosted by Ryan Seacrest, for the love of God.
Anyway, another Pride issue: a Reform-led Barnsley Council in the UK will no longer fly the Pride flag on Town Hall, even during their Pride festival. Oh, wait, they are not having one because the Reform council there cancelled it too. They are not alone. They are among over 200 places I found in the news this week that are now banning Pride flags from their town halls, city buildings, corporate headquarters, and so on.
You have to wonder how a flag pisses people off so much. It is not a Confederate flag. It is not a swastika. It is just a rainbow. And yet, apparently, Scott, it appears to piss off a lot of people.
Jacobsen: That is a big aspect of a lot of this commentary too. Even if, for instance, we were to do a rundown – which I wanted to do – of the big picture globally and historically around the facts of LGBTQ equality and repression, individuals from the populations I mentioned will often say, “It is insulting.” They will not say, “It is not factual.” They will say, “It is insulting.”
So knowledge of the history can be insulting to some individuals, yet that does not override the fact that you are trying to present a factual history. Obviously, we do this series weekly, and it is primarily about contemporary factual history with some interpretive lenses. You obviously have more personal experience and knowledge of the subject matter. But I often encounter that as pushback: “It is insulting,” rather than “It is not factual.”
Bouley: You know, that is very interesting. One of my shows this week was called “The Outrage Machine,” about how social media is, fundamentally, an outrage machine. Donald Trump’s presidency is an outrage machine. All of this hoopla that we cover across the globe about LGBTQ rights comes from the outrage machine.
These people are not really upset about gay people. Most of them do not know any gay people, or, if they do, they are family members. They are not really that upset about gay people. They are being told what the outrage of the week is. This week, the outrage is Pride flags.
It is Pride Month, so Pride flags are everywhere. Therefore, they tear them down and show how outraged they are. At what? What are they mad at specifically? You cannot corner these people on this. They do not have anything.
They do not know what they are mad at. They are mad because they are told to be mad by their preacher, their political leader, or somebody else. But they do not know why they are angry.
If you ask them, “What negative things have LGBTQ people done to society?” or “How has a gay person negatively affected your life?” they do not have an answer, because we have not.
It is manufactured outrage. It always has been, and it always will be. We are not a majority of the population. Trans people are less than 1 percent of the population. How can you be mad at less than 1 percent of the population? That is like being mad at white rhinos. Oh, wait, there are none. But you know what I am saying. It is like being mad at a species that has only 1 percent of its population left. It is ridiculous. Their outrage is manufactured.
Jacobsen: If an individual has had a bad experience with another person who happens to be from that background, then that is an individual matter. It is not a community crime. It is not an indictment of an entire group. We do have many cases of denominational religion, for instance, or political ideology as a whole, being used to commit crimes and acts of violence, or to justify them.
Bouley: Yes, particularly against gay people.
Jacobsen: Yes. So, if someone has had a particularly bad personal experience, I am not going to gaslight them about that. But in terms of what we are usually talking about in this segment – group rights, collective policy, public life, and institutional issues – that argument does not hold.
Bouley: No, it does not. Sometimes, good things happen. The charges have been dropped against Budapest Mayor Gergely Karácsony over the 2025 Pride March.
The Pride March was effectively banned, but others said, “No, we are still going to do it,” including the mayor, who said, “Yes, let’s go. Let’s have Pride.” Then conservatives sought to punish them because they disobeyed orders and held the Pride event.
Now the mayor and others involved in the event have had their charges dropped. That is good news. It is good news for Pride Month.
They should not have been charged in the first place, and the festival should not have been banned either. But given that charges were brought, at least they have now been dropped. Maybe if they had been carrying a Pride flag, the charges might have continued. But they did not, so at least that is good news coming out of the European Union.
The charges against Budapest Mayor Gergely Karácsony have been dropped in connection with his support for the 2025 Pride March. It does not say anywhere in the story whether there will be a Pride March in 2026, but I doubt it. It does not really say.
I am glad, because this could have brought serious penalties. It could have really disrupted his life. But Hungarian prosecutors dropped the charges against Mayor Gergely Karácsony.
The event took place in June 2025 despite warnings of potential legal repercussions under Viktor Orbán’s government. Orbán is no longer prime minister. Péter Magyar is now prime minister, and his government appears to be responding to public pressure, including polling indicating support for protecting gay rights.
And so the new prime minister, even though he is not especially LGBTQ-friendly, does like his job. So he is starting to ease the country’s stance on LGBTQ rights.
The mayor said, “Neither freedom nor love can be banned in Budapest.” Oh, yes, they can. That is a naive statement because, yes, they absolutely can.
In April, the European Court of Justice ruled that Hungary’s anti-LGBTQ law violated EU law and infringed the European Union’s founding values, including equality, human dignity, and minority rights.
Citing that ruling, Hungarian authorities used a technicality to get out of the situation. They essentially said, “Well, the EU says we are violating your rights, and we are. So let’s drop these charges, act like this never happened, and then the EU will be happy.”
So once again, it is a case of someone doing the right thing, not because they want to, but because they are being shamed or forced into it. But at least they are doing something right.
Do you want to talk about Mamdani, my favourite socialist? So Mr. Mamdani has supported expanded access to gender-affirming care. A new transgender care clinic in Queens will provide services to adults, but not to minors under 19.
Jacobsen: Do the age rules differ state by state with some of this?
Bouley: Yes and no. Some states are banning gender-affirming care for minors, which they define as anyone under 18. Some states have laws about people who want to transition before puberty or before adulthood. There is no single national standard for when trans people can transition or what care they can receive.
The states are handling it in their own ways. Red states are generally restricting or banning it. Blue states are generally trying to protect access. Donald Trump does not want it to happen. His administration has tried to restrict gender-affirming care for minors.
So it is a patchwork, sort of like abortion now. Some states allow it. Some states do not. Some states restrict it in different ways.
In New York, I think Mamdani is trying to do the right thing without being too provocative. In other words, opening a trans health clinic is the right thing to do. He knew that if younger people received care there, it would come under greater scrutiny and backlash.
Limiting it to people 19 and over reduces legal and political risks, including those from the federal government, because everyone going to the clinic will be an adult. Gender-affirming care can include mental health care, hormone therapy, and other medical support. Again, many states do not want to allow minors, or people under 18, to access that care.
They would like to make it a national law. They would like Congress to pass a law saying you cannot medically transition until you are 18. Congress has not done that, or really much of anything, including stopping a madman from going to war.
So in New York, Mamdani wanted to do something right during Pride Month, but he did not want to do anything that would put him in the middle of a major controversy. It is not a win-win. It is a win, or maybe half a win.
It would have been a win-win if any person of any appropriate age, with proper medical care and consent, could go there and receive gender-affirming care. But limiting it to people 19 and older also avoids the whole parental consent issue and everything that comes with that.
I am not going to slam him. At least he is doing something good for the trans community rather than something bad. Right now, that is something we have to count as a lucky star.
Mamdani supported a gender-affirming care clinic in Queens. How appropriate. Come on, let’s put the trans clinic in Queens.
It could have been Brooklyn. It could have been the Bronx. Nope. Put the trans clinic in Queens. It was probably running down the list of possible places: “Wait. No. Let’s do that one. Let’s do it there. Trust me on this one.”
I am sure that is what his gay aide said: “Just trust me. You are going to put it in Queens. It will be in June. You are going to open a trans clinic in June in Queens. Win, win, win, win.”
Scott, the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), had to move staff away from one of its offices after an attack on the building. Its chair, Baroness Kishwer Falkner, told MPs that fears for staff safety had escalated following the UK Supreme Court ruling on the Equality Act’s definition of sex.
Giving evidence to the Women and Equalities Committee, Falkner said the watchdog had been forced to relocate staff because of an attack on the building, following vandalism linked to a group that had also targeted conferences and the office of Health Secretary Wes Streeting.
This is yet another case in the UK of an organization connected to LGBTQ rights and equality coming under attack and, for the safety of its own people, having to move to another location.
You do not really picture the modern-day UK as being that homophobic, but it appears that, there as here and elsewhere, anti-LGBTQ sentiment is on the rise. Again, I think it is manufactured outrage, but people are acting on it online.
I know this attack was rooted in something online. I know it was fueled by something online, or something very much like that.
Yes, the Supreme Court ruling there was misguided, but I do not think the perpetrators of this attack were carefully studying it. I think they were online, got worked up into a frenzy, and went and attacked a building, which is how things seem to go now.
So it is sad that EHRC staff had to move because they did not feel safe. That seems regressive, does it not?
Jacobsen: Violence is not the answer. If you have a social disagreement, take it to the political arena. That is what it is for. Unfortunately, some people who do these things have not been raised or trained to handle disagreement that way.
Bouley: Let’s leave on a bit of entertainment news that is upsetting a lot of people. Spoiler alert: if you are going to watch Tip Toe, or if you have watched it but have not seen the ending, stop here.
Tip Toe was created by one of the world’s best LGBTQ writers, Russell T Davies. I have had the pleasure of meeting, speaking with, and interviewing him. It is his new show. Alan Cumming stars in it, alongside David Morrissey.
It is about exactly what we are discussing now. It is a five-part miniseries about two neighbours: one gay, one straight. The straight neighbour is essentially a homophobe. Across the five episodes, Alan Cumming’s character goes out of his way to try to coexist with his neighbour. But ultimately, the homophobic neighbour, who could be compared to MAGA in the United States, does not buy it and does not want it.
The final episode has upset people because, spoiler alert, Leo, played by Alan Cumming, is found hanging from a lamppost outside his home. His neighbour and his neighbour’s friends did it.
What Russell T Davies wanted to show is that when these kinds of emotions are left to fester and grow – and when they are fueled by online hatred and everything else – they can very often end in violence and death. That is what we have been discussing using real-world examples.
Even though this show was set in a different time period, so many of the commenters discussing the show are saying, “This feels like today. This is too real. This is hitting too close to home. This feels like the modern day.”
Sadly, a community is at a place where the murder of one of its people in a fictional drama set years ago can hit so close to home today. The show has been very well received, very well acted, and very well written – another classic from Russell T Davies. It is just sad that it has such a horrifying ending, yet it is realistic.
I take it you have not seen Tip Toe or heard of it?
Jacobsen: I have not seen Tip Toe, and I had not heard about it. But thematically, that would not feel unfamiliar.
Bouley: Russell T Davies is my age, so he went through the AIDS crisis. He has been through ACT UP. He has been through all of the movements that we have had – him in the UK, me over here.
He writes a lot like I talk, in the sense that the weight of everything that has happened is not lost on him. He remembers it. He carries those scars with him. He writes about that in all of the shows he has written. They have been very realistic, and this show is, too.
Alan Cumming, who is fabulous and openly gay, has said that it was a rough show to do. It was a rough ending to the film. Part of the problem for him was that it felt very present-tense, too. He could see this happening in today’s world.
That is sad when you are showing hate from 30 or 40 years ago and then realize it could happen now. His last show, It’s a Sin, had the same kind of resonance.
Russell T Davies has written many fabulous LGBTQ shows, and he often sets them in the past because he sees those moments as pivotal in our history: fighting for our rights, living through AIDS, and all of that.
But it appears from our fiction and current news stories that we are back to fighting many of those same battles. Maybe they are not centred around AIDS now. I think trans people are the new AIDS. I know that sounds odd to say, but they used to hate us because of AIDS. Now they hate us because we support trans people.
I was told on that GB News program by the host that gay people would be better served if we did not ally ourselves with trans people. She said that trans people are not in our Venn diagram, so why do we support them, especially if it is hurting us?
I said, “That is exactly why we support them: because they are being marginalized, and they need our help.”
Jacobsen: There is something subtle and deceptive in that attempt to separate people – the whole “alphabet people” rhetoric. It is a way of saying these groups are individuated and therefore should not be unified.
Bouley: We are not going to break apart the alphabet. But we will try to find good stories for next week on This Gay Week. We have Scott Jacobsen in Ukraine, and I think he is just going to move there. He is going to take up residence. It is Pride Month, so next week we will try to find some prideful stories. I will let you look.
Then that is all for this week. Scott and I bid you a civil adieu. I am Karel. Be who you want to be, as long as it does not hurt anybody, and we shall be back next week.
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Scott Douglas Jacobsen is a Writer-Editor for The Good Men Project with more than 1,900 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 fellowships, and currently serves on several 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.
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Photo by Cecilie Bomstad on Unsplash
