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. Interview conducted July 16, in Kyiv local time.
In this interview, Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Karel Bouley examine attacks on LGBTQ rights, shrinking representation in film, anti-gay laws in Senegal and Trinidad and Tobago, and political opportunism targeting transgender people. They also discuss queer cultural influence, Hollywood’s commercial caution, gender-affirming care, sexual diversity, and LGBTQ resilience. Bouley combines political criticism, entertainment commentary, personal reflection, and humour while arguing that discrimination persists worldwide because leaders profit from manufactured fear, prejudice, and scapegoating today.
Karel Bouley: It is July 16. I am very glad you are joining me, and very glad Scott Jacobsen can join me from Kyiv, Ukraine.
I was scrolling through Instagram, and one of my posts has gone viral, at least by my standards. It has received more than 45,000 views, which is very cool. The post is about Cyclospora. You are probably not dealing with this particular outbreak over there because it is occurring in the United States, although Cyclospora itself is certainly not confined to this country. It is a parasite transmitted through contaminated food or water that can cause prolonged, severe, watery diarrhea.
Scott, the hateful comments are amazing to me. All my video said was, “Here is what you should eat, and here is what you should avoid, to reduce your chances of getting sick and having diarrhea for weeks.” However, the comments underneath were negative and horrible.
These are the same kinds of people who did not want to wear masks during COVID. These are the same kinds of people who reflexively doubt scientific guidance. Other commenters are even saying, “The guy is just trying to tell you how not to get sick. Why are you being so despicable?” But they are. They are being absolutely, horrendously despicable.
It shows me that the United States is filled with terminally stupid individuals. I am getting really sick of being here and really sick of having to live around these people because terminal stupidity rears its ugly head every day.
I also saw Erika Kirk, the head of Turning Point USA, telling conservatives to be “happy warriors” when confronted by people criticizing Charlie Kirk. I took her remarks as encouraging confrontation. Whether they legally amount to incitement is another question, but I thought the rhetoric was reckless and ridiculous.
Then we have what the Trump administration did this week, for no reason I can see other than its determination to undo Biden-era policies. The administration formally rescinded a federal rule establishing specific protections and supportive-placement requirements for LGBTQ foster youth. The rule had been finalized under President Biden in 2024.
The rule required federally funded child-welfare agencies to provide designated placements for LGBTQ children when requested, ensure that those placements supported the child’s identity, offer access to appropriate services, and provide relevant training. It did not prohibit religious or conservative families from fostering children as a class. It was intended to ensure that LGBTQ youth could be placed in environments that would not reject or mistreat them because of their identities.
In plain English, do not place an LGBTQ child in a home where the foster parents intend to condemn the child, pressure the child into conversion practices, or treat the child’s identity as something to be fixed.
Now the administration is saying, in effect, “We no longer need that particular federal requirement. Wherever they land, they land.”
This is wrong on so many levels. Some LGBTQ children enter foster care after experiencing family rejection, abuse, instability, or conflict connected to their identities. It would be inaccurate to say that this is how all, or necessarily most, LGBTQ foster children enter the system. It is, however, a serious and documented vulnerability.
Now the government is removing a rule designed to help place already marginalized children in affirming homes. Child Protective Services should protect children. That principle should not become controversial simply because the children happen to be gay, bisexual, transgender, or otherwise queer.
These children need protection from placements in which foster parents may be hostile to LGBTQ identities. Now that specific federal rule is gone. That does not mean every LGBTQ foster child will be placed in danger, nor does it eliminate every state or federal child welfare protection. It does mean that one nationwide set of explicit placement safeguards has been removed. Advocates and former officials argue that this will expose vulnerable children to greater risks of rejection, instability, and mistreatment.
This is going to hurt children, even though the party responsible repeatedly claims that everything it does is about protecting children.
This is going to marginalize children through a political movement that says children must be protected from drag queens. However, when LGBTQ children need concrete protection inside the foster care system, that protection is treated as ideological excess. I hate it. I hate that Trump has another two and a half years in office.
I also hate that tonight, Thursday night, he is going to give a televised address about alleged foreign interference and voting system vulnerabilities connected to the 2020 election. The danger is that he will use newly declassified material to revive his unsupported claim that widespread fraud caused his loss to Joe Biden. U.S. officials and courts have not substantiated that claim.
To be precise, allegations about interference in the 2020 election do not logically invalidate Trump’s separate victory in 2024. They do, however, create a broader problem. If he tells Americans that the country’s election systems are fundamentally untrustworthy whenever he loses, he damages confidence in the same democratic system that returned him to office four years later.
He never seems to think through that contradiction. He wants Americans to believe elections are legitimate when he wins and illegitimate when he loses.
Moreover, now they are picking on LGBTQ children again simply because they can. Before we get to the story I just mentioned, how are things in Ukraine? How are you? What is going on?
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: We are in the middle of a minor heat wave relative to local temperature standards. In terms of bombing and bombardment, there have not been many of the major attacks that I referenced in some of our previous conversations. So far, so good.
I just helped organize a national news event based on the Berkeley Protocol. The United Nations has recognized it as guidance for handling open-source digital information and provides a framework for collecting and preserving material that may be used as evidence in legal proceedings, including investigations by bodies such as the International Criminal Court and national prosecutors. We brought together various experts, worked with organizations that I am collaborating with through a legal hub, and everything went off without a hitch. There have been many events and projects like that.
Bouley: The bigger question is, did you go to Pride? It was last week.
Jacobsen: No, I did not.
Bouley: You could have gone out and gotten us all kinds of great audio at Pride, and instead you were dealing with the International Criminal Court.
By the way, a few days ago, Secretary of State Marco Rubio criticized the International Criminal Court and reiterated the Trump administration’s opposition to it, arguing that the Court has acted beyond its proper authority. The United States has never been a party to the Rome Statute that created the ICC, although previous administrations have cooperated with it in limited circumstances. His comments reflect the administration’s longstanding position, particularly in response to ICC investigations involving U.S. allies and officials.
Moreover, he should know all about useless bodies. He sits in a Cabinet meeting surrounded by them.
So, back to the story about what Trump felt the need to do. If there were no perceived need for this rule, it would never have existed. In other words, if the Biden administration had not concluded there was a problem requiring additional protections, it would not have adopted the rule in the first place.
Other countries also paid attention when the United States introduced it. Some reviewed their own foster care systems and considered whether LGBTQ youth were being matched with affirming families. I worry that, now that the United States has reversed course, other governments may conclude they no longer need to prioritize those protections either. That would put LGBTQ youth at greater risk.
To me, that is a pretty straight line from ensuring appropriate placement with accepting, healthy families to removing the guardrails intended to protect vulnerable children.
Now let us move to another story. Please tell me a story, and I will tell you what it means.
Jacobsen: There are a couple of interesting news items. GLAAD recently reported that 46 of the 225 major studio films released in 2025 included LGBTQ characters, which works out to approximately 20.4 percent. According to the report, none of those films included a transgender character. GLAAD argues that recent corporate retreats from diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, something we have discussed many times, are now becoming visible on screen rather than remaining confined to corporate policies and boardroom decisions.
Bouley: This is your area of expertise, because I work in the entertainment industry. Let me tell you something. Hollywood likes to think of itself as innovative and as pushing boundaries. It is not. They can be. There are a few cases in which they are. For the most part, Hollywood likes to play it safe because Hollywood likes money. Society likes gay people? Let us put gay people in movies. Is society turning against gay people? Let us take gay people out of movies.
There was a great cartoon called The Jetsons when I was growing up.
Jacobsen: Yes.
Bouley: They had a robot maid named Rosie. One day, she was making fun of George Jetson’s daughter, Judy. She said, “Miss Judy in love. Miss Judy out of love.” That is Hollywood with gay people. “Oh, the president does not like gay people.” Hollywood is in the money business, and that is sad. Here is an interesting point of fact.
One of the biggest film success stories of the year is Obsession. Have you heard about it?
Jacobsen: Yes, I have.
Bouley: He makes a wish using the One Wish Willow. He wishes that she would love him more than anyone else, and she becomes dangerously obsessed with him. It is, in some ways, a film about consent because he uses the wish to override her autonomy and take away her ability to choose.
Both lead actors, Michael Johnston and Inde Navarrette, are openly queer. They play heterosexual characters in the film, but both actors are members of the queer community. The notion that openly queer actors cannot lead a commercially successful Hollywood film is blown out of the water by that movie alone. Obsession became a major box-office success after being produced on a comparatively small budget.
That is the first point. Second, and most importantly, many films and television series with LGBTQ characters have been commercially successful. That does not mean every film with queer representation makes money, or that representation alone guarantees success. It means there is no sound basis for claiming that LGBTQ characters inherently drive audiences away.
Look at Euphoria. It became one of HBO’s most prominent series and placed queer and transgender characters near the centre of its story. It also generated criticism about how some of those characters were portrayed, but its popularity shows that LGBTQ representation is not automatically a commercial liability.
There are films with LGBTQ characters that do very well, and others that do not. Sometimes they fail because they are simply bad movies.
Stop! That! Train! was a bad movie, in my opinion. A comedy should be funny. I am serious. This is not merely because I am not particularly fond of RuPaul. I watched it as someone who loves The Great Race, The Great Escape, Airport, Airplane!, and the large-scale disaster films and ensemble comedies it was trying to parody.
I grew up with the movies that it was referencing. There were films featuring large ensembles of established stars, sometimes actors whose greatest fame had come earlier in their careers, placed in broad, elaborate situations. You had cross-country races in old cars, runaway vehicles, disaster scenarios, and the Airport series.
There was Airport, Airport 1975, Airport ’77, and The Concorde… Airport ’79. These films often featured enormous casts of familiar actors, and they could be great fun.
The Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker team parodied that disaster-film tradition brilliantly in Airplane! Stop! That! Train! clearly wanted to draw from the same tradition, and its distributor explicitly promoted it as being inspired by films such as Airplane! and The Naked Gun. In my view, it did not succeed.
Other films featuring LGBTQ actors or characters are doing well. The notion that studios had to reduce LGBTQ representation for financial reasons is therefore too simplistic.
I think they did it, at least partly, to curry favour with Donald Trump and the political movement surrounding him. Hollywood still wants to avoid antagonizing Trump.
When I say “Hollywood,” let us be realistic. There is no single Hollywood. The film and television business is dominated by a small number of large media corporations, although saying there are exactly five companies oversimplifies the market.
There is now a major antitrust lawsuit seeking to block Paramount Skydance’s proposed acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery. Twelve state attorneys general have challenged the deal, arguing that it would further reduce competition in film distribution and cable programming. A federal judge has temporarily paused the transaction while that lawsuit proceeds.
Many of these companies are controlled by billionaires, large shareholders, or investment firms whose business interests depend heavily on federal regulation and government approval. They are not eager to provoke the president.
So I believe they have begun to say, “Ix-nay on the gay,” because of political and corporate pressure, not because audiences suddenly stopped watching films with LGBTQ characters.
As a footnote, we have discussed this before. Trump’s public record on LGBTQ issues has not been completely consistent. During his early political career, he sometimes presented himself as more accepting than other Republican politicians. His administrations, however, have repeatedly adopted policies opposed by major LGBTQ-rights organizations, particularly policies affecting transgender people.
Jacobsen: Yes.
Bouley: There is a fairly clear political through line. He lived in New York for decades. You cannot swing a dead cat in New York without hitting a gay person, and if you do, the gay person will be angry.
You know what I mean. New York has a large and visible LGBTQ community.
Trump cares primarily about himself and about which way the political wind is blowing. He discovered that anti-LGBTQ rhetoric, especially anti-trans rhetoric, works with an important part of his political base. So he uses it.
Yesterday’s foster-care decision is an example. Rescinding that rule is not some enormous budget-cutting measure. It is not going to save the government $10 billion. The administration chose to reverse it because it opposed the policy and because it was a Biden-era rule.
Biden lives rent-free in Trump’s head.
His followers have such Biden Tourette’s. Even under the post I made about Cyclospora, the comments were, “Biden this, Biden that, Biden, Biden, Biden.” They literally have Biden Tourette’s.
Trump only cares about what is politically advantageous. If MAGA suddenly embraced gay people, Trump would embrace gay people, too. That is who he is.
Well, God knows no one can suck his. According to Stormy Daniels, it is mushroom-sized. Anyway, let us move on.
So, one more film story.
Jacobsen: Luxury brands are increasingly recruiting actors from Korean, Japanese, and Thai Boys’ Love (BL) and Girls’ Love (GL) dramas as brand ambassadors and campaign figures. The trend reflects the growing international reach of queer Asian entertainment. At the same time, several of those countries continue to have significant legal restrictions or social barriers affecting LGBTQ rights. Entertainment can sometimes become a space where representation advances even when legal equality lags.
Bouley: Those countries are not always a good gauge because, my God, every Asian male pop star looks gay.
I am joking, but you know what I mean. Have you seen BTS?
Jacobsen: I remember there was a woman who managed the pub. She would stay after hours working on her computer, and BTS would be playing on her phone the whole time. She was about 55 years old, a European woman.
Bouley: My gaydar is finely tuned, but when I go to Europe or Asia, it just goes bonkers. Italian men. They all seem gay.
Jacobsen: You have entered the gay Bermuda Triangle?
Bouley: Kind of, yes.
Then there are South Korean K-pop stars. They are impeccably groomed, with beautiful faces, flawless skin, and perfectly choreographed dance routines. They project an androgynous aesthetic that many Western audiences read as feminine or queer. Of course, appearance alone tells you nothing about someone’s sexual orientation.
Many K-pop performers cannot openly identify as LGBTQ because of industry pressures, fan expectations, and continuing social stigma in South Korea. Publicly coming out can still carry significant professional risks.
Representation can make a difference.
Look, I did not like Will & Grace, but it did a lot for the gay community. I did not particularly enjoy it, and today it feels dated in many respects. However, when it aired during the late 1990s and early 2000s, at the same time debates over same-sex marriage were unfolding across the United States, it helped normalize gay characters for millions of viewers. Many scholars and commentators have argued that greater visibility through programs like Will & Grace contributed to increasing public acceptance of gay people, although it was only one factor among many.
The television show Soap had a character named Jodie Dallas, played by Billy Crystal. Jodie was a gay man who, early in the series, considered gender transition before ultimately deciding against it. Looking back, the portrayal reflected the limited understanding of gender identity common in the late 1970s, and many aspects have not aged well.
Was it well written? Not always. By today’s standards, parts of it are problematic. Was it helpful? Yes. Even imperfect visibility was still visibility.
So you are right. Entertainment can open doors in subtle ways, whether through television shows, films, or even advertising.
As I have said before, Hollywood follows the money. If executives believed there were billions of dollars to be made by producing queer-led films, they would greenlight them without hesitation.
Oh wait, they already remake everything anyway. Never mind.
Come on. Jafar. Hello!
Jacobsen: A great character, by the way.
Bouley: All the good characters are.
Bouley: Name one good gay character. Name one bad one. Is there an openly gay villain? I do not have one.
Many Disney villains are queer-coded. They are emperors, aristocrats, sorcerers, or whatever else, and the male villains are often theatrical, impeccably dressed, effeminate, or flamboyant. The films usually do not explicitly identify them as gay, however.
Ursula is certainly a queer icon. Her appearance was famously inspired in part by the drag performer Divine, although Ursula herself is not identified as a lesbian in The Little Mermaid.
Jacobsen: Cruella de Vil?
Bouley: She is a gay icon and a great villain.
In the newer film, however, we learn that Cruella was misunderstood.
Jacobsen: What happened in the new one? I have seen clips, but I do not remember.
Bouley: In Cruella, the woman Estella believes to be her mother is killed when the Baroness orders her Dalmatians to attack her, causing her to fall from a cliff. The Baroness, played by Emma Thompson, later turns out to be Estella’s biological mother.
That is why people might assume Cruella grows to hate Dalmatians. In this version, however, she does not. She eventually keeps the Baroness’s Dalmatians and sends two of their puppies, Pongo and Perdita, to Roger and Anita.
Emma Stone plays Estella, who becomes Cruella. She is a talented fashion designer who is exploited by the Baroness, her powerful and cruel employer. Cruella becomes an antihero and does terrible things, but the film reframes her as someone who has been abused, manipulated, and pushed toward revenge rather than presenting her simply as a woman who wants to skin puppies.
She does create what appears to be a Dalmatian-skin coat, but it is a theatrical stunt. She has not killed the Baroness’s dogs. So, yes, you need to watch the movie. In this version, Cruella is misunderstood.
Many villains are misunderstood once someone gives them an origin story.
Did they not do something similar with Wicked?
Jacobsen: Wicked?
Bouley: Yes. Elphaba, the green woman whom everyone calls the Wicked Witch of the West, is not truly wicked.
Wicked is almost an allegory for our political times. Elphaba discovers that the Wizard behind the curtain has no magical power and maintains control through propaganda, fear, deception, and the persecution of Oz’s talking Animals.
She also discovers that the Wizard is using captured monkeys. He manipulates Elphaba into casting a spell that gives them wings so that he can use them as spies. Once she understands what he is doing, she frees them and refuses to cooperate with him.
The Wizard and Madame Morrible then vilify her for knowing the truth and refusing to participate in their system.
Glinda, played by Ariana Grande in the films, is Elphaba’s friend, not her sister. Elphaba’s sister is Nessarose. Glinda understands more of what is happening than the public does, but she initially remains inside the system because she wants popularity, acceptance, status, and influence.
Glinda does not marry Fiyero. She becomes engaged to him, but Fiyero loves Elphaba and eventually leaves with her. Jonathan Bailey plays Fiyero in the film adaptation.
The person labelled the Wicked Witch is not simply wicked. She is condemned for challenging the Wizard and exposing his treatment of the Animals. Anyone who tells the truth about an authoritarian figure risks being portrayed as dangerous. That is why the story feels so current. None of these political tactics is new.
In Wicked, Glinda is not purely good, and Elphaba is not purely bad. Glinda compromises herself to be admired and accepted. Elphaba refuses to compromise her principles, even when the Wizard offers her status and power in exchange for silence.
She is allowed to join him. All she has to do is stop objecting to what he is doing. She refuses, enchants a broom, and flies out of the window during “Defying Gravity.”
So Wicked reverses the moral framework of The Wizard of Oz. The supposedly good witch is morally compromised, while the supposedly wicked witch is resisting an oppressive government.
Moreover, yes, it is a gay musical. We have claimed it. That is ours.
Jacobsen: I think I went to Universal Studios in high school with our drama and acting classes. We may also have seen Wicked.
Bouley: Well, there is proof right there that you are straight. You cannot remember whether you have seen Wicked?
Jacobsen: No, no. We saw it. We went to see the musical way back in the day.
Bouley: Oh, okay. I saw it with Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth.
Jacobsen: Aren’t you famous?
Bouley: That was something. They originated the roles of Elphaba and Glinda in the original Broadway production.
They were wonderful. Moreover, yes, we are doing This Gay Week and talking about Wicked. If you do not like it, so freaking what?
Many of the movies that gay people turn into icons, and I am sure “iconify” is not technically the word I want, have deeper sociological meanings.
Jacobsen: You are doing Sarah Palin now. “That is a word for me.”
Bouley: Well, you knew what it meant, and the purpose of language is communication.
The movies we embrace and place on pedestals often have deep social meanings. Sometimes they do not. Sometimes they are good fun. However, The Wizard of Oz, which provided the world and characters later reinterpreted by Gregory Maguire’s novel and the musical Wicked, has accumulated enormous cultural and sociological significance.
It also has Munchkins. The word “Munchkin” is appropriate when referring to the fictional people of Oz, although using it to describe people with dwarfism can be offensive.
I think queer audiences embraced The Wizard of Oz and Wicked partly because of their messages. One of those messages is: do not automatically believe the man behind the curtain, particularly when he is telling you to fear or hate other people.
In Wicked, the talking Animals are being persecuted and stripped of their rights. Some are losing their ability to speak, while others are forced into hiding or driven out of Oz. Doctor Dillamond, who is a professor and a talking Goat, is removed from his position. The government turns the Animals into scapegoats.
Does any of that sound familiar?
There are many themes in those stories that resonate with marginalized people.
Younger gay people may not remember films such as What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? or All About Eve, but those movies contain layers of meaning that became especially important within gay culture. They deal with performance, rejection, aging, ambition, humiliation, survival, and people living outside respectable society.
Here is a trivia question. In an interview conducted by filmmaker Errol Morris, what did Donald Trump identify as his favourite movie?
Jacobsen: Knowing Donald Trump, I would say The Wizard of Oz.
Bouley: Citizen Kane.
Jacobsen: Well, he probably wanted to be the William Randolph Hearst-inspired character.
Bouley: Yes. Ironically, he may eventually resemble Kane at the end of the film: enormously wealthy and powerful, but isolated inside the world he built for himself. Here is a better trivia question about Citizen Kane. What was Rosebud?
Jacobsen: What was it?
Bouley: In the movie, Rosebud is the name of Kane’s childhood sled. However, there is also a famous story about what the name supposedly meant outside the movie. “Rosebud” was William Randolph Hearst’s intimate nickname for part of Marion Davies’s anatomy. Hearst did strongly oppose Citizen Kane. His newspapers refused to advertise or review it, and people associated with him pressured theatres not to show it. The film’s portrayal of a powerful newspaper magnate and his mistress was widely understood to draw on Hearst and Davies, even though Kane was a composite character rather than a direct biography.
The controversy hurt the film’s initial distribution, but it did not amount to Hearst successfully banning it everywhere. Nor is there solid evidence that the alleged sexual meaning of “Rosebud” was the sole reason for his campaign against it.
Jacobsen: Oh, well. This is your area. That is amazing. I love it.
Bouley: Do not try to one-up a queen on movie trivia, honey. Do not even try. Okay, next story.
Jacobsen: More than 100 people have reportedly been detained in Senegal since February amid an intensified crackdown on LGBTQ people.
In March 2026, Senegal enacted legislation increasing the prison sentence for consensual same-sex relations from the previous range of one to five years to a range of five to ten years. The law also criminalizes the promotion or financing of homosexuality.
Accounts from Senegal describe arrests based on text messages, photographs, accusations, and personal associations. LGBTQ people have also reported family violence, social rejection, and pressure to undergo conversion practices. So the problem rears its head once again. What are your thoughts?
Bouley: I cannot wait until a future Democratic administration in the United States tells Senegal and other governments, “You can continue doing this, but the United States will not continue providing unconditional support.”
That is what I would like to see. Right now, politicians in Senegal and elsewhere may find it politically beneficial to intensify anti-gay sentiment.
I looked into the history of sexuality in Africa. It is inaccurate to speak about “African culture” as though the entire continent had one culture or one attitude. Africa contains thousands of societies with very different histories.
What we can say is that same-sex relationships, gender diversity, and social roles that do not fit modern Western categories existed in various precolonial African societies. Some communities tolerated or incorporated them, while others imposed restrictions. Certain African religious traditions also included deities or spiritual figures whose sex or gender was fluid, dual, or changeable.
European colonial governments later introduced or formalized many of the criminal laws used against same-sex relationships. Christian and Islamic religious influences, local political interests, and modern foreign funding have also shaped contemporary anti-LGBTQ movements. Colonialism is a major part of the history, but it is not the only explanation for every country or every law.
Like Hollywood, governments often change their behaviour when the political or financial incentives change. Senegal might reconsider these policies if maintaining them carried serious diplomatic or economic consequences.
It may take governments, including a future Democratic administration in the United States, to say, “You are free to enact that policy, but we are free to reconsider our relationship with you.”
That could change the political calculation.
Gay and transgender people are easy scapegoats because they are relatively small and politically vulnerable minorities. Politicians can use them to mobilize supporters, distract from other problems, or demonstrate religious and cultural loyalty.
I cannot know what every politician privately believes. Some may genuinely hold these views. Others may be exploiting prejudice for votes, influence, or money.
Donald Trump probably does not personally spend much time thinking about LGBTQ children in foster care. What mattered politically was that the protection was associated with Joe Biden and conflicted with the priorities of Trump’s coalition.
A great deal of the hostility directed at our community is ideological, but some of it is also opportunistic. Politicians and activists discover that attacking LGBTQ people earns attention, votes, donations, or access to power, so they continue doing it.
At least with religious conservatives such as Jerry Falwell, you knew their beliefs were sincere. They were fully committed to it. They genuinely believed what they were saying, however harmful those beliefs were.
With someone such as Erika Kirk, I do not know what she privately thinks about transgender people or drag performers. What I can say is that anti-transgender rhetoric is politically and financially useful within the movement she represents.
I will tell you what I have observed as a 63-year-old gay man: when hostility toward LGBTQ people becomes politically or financially detrimental to a public official, government, or state, their convictions can change remarkably quickly.
The moment it costs politicians votes or money to be anti-gay, they change their tune. To me, that means many of them do not really have the courage of their convictions. They are doing it for ulterior motives. A lot of anti-gay rhetoric is politically convenient.
Ten years ago, if you had asked most people whether transgender issues ranked among their highest political priorities, I suspect very few would have said yes. Most people would probably have said, “Why would I care what a transgender person does?”
Now, transgender issues have become one of the central topics in many conservative political movements, especially in the United States and parts of Europe. Whether the general public actually considers them a top priority or not, they have certainly become a major focus of political messaging on the right.
Meanwhile, countries such as Senegal have enormous challenges. They should be worrying about access to clean water, feeding their people, improving economic opportunities, and strengthening public health.
They should focus on improving life for everyone rather than targeting a small minority of the population. However, they do not. I believe much of that is politically or financially expedient. It helps politicians consolidate support or gain influence within government.
We will continue talking about these horrors.
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Bouley: Here is one piece of good news. A federal judge has temporarily blocked parts of the Justice Department’s effort to obtain records relating to gender-affirming care at a New York hospital, concluding that the government had not shown sufficient grounds to overcome federal medical privacy protections under HIPAA while the litigation proceeds.
It is funny. We cannot even get straightforward information about Mitch McConnell’s health because of HIPAA, and rightly so. However, there have been efforts to obtain records relating to transgender health care.
Oh, and get this. You can look this up. Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth has approved a mandatory annual testosterone screening program for active-duty service members aged 30 and older. The program is intended to identify clinically low testosterone and, where medically appropriate, provide testosterone replacement therapy.
The irony is obvious.
These same political figures frequently condemn gender-affirming hormone therapy for transgender patients, while simultaneously authorizing hormone replacement therapy for cisgender male soldiers with medically diagnosed testosterone deficiency.
Now, to be clear, the medical purposes are different. Testosterone replacement therapy for hypogonadism is not the same treatment as gender-affirming hormone therapy for transgender people. They are prescribed for different diagnoses.
However, both involve the medically supervised use of hormones to align a person’s body with clinically recognized health needs. That is why critics point to an inconsistency in the political messaging.
Jacobsen: There has been an interesting footnote to this. The Department of Defence’s program establishes mandatory annual screening for testosterone deficiency for active-duty service members aged 30 and older. The screening itself is mandatory. Treatment, however, depends on medical evaluation and clinical eligibility.
Bouley: You might not be “man enough” to be a soldier, according to the test. Colleagues, in effect, “What if we conducted this test in Congress? Are you brave enough to serve in Congress? Should you be encouraged to undergo hormone therapy because your testosterone is too low?”
Mitch McConnell’s testosterone level is probably around 2, as testosterone levels often decline with age. His wife probably has more testosterone than he does. That is assuming he is alive. I am still not entirely convinced. Anyway.
Pete Hegseth has announced that active-duty service members aged 30 and older will receive annual testosterone-deficiency screening. Service members found to have clinically low testosterone may be offered testosterone-replacement therapy, although treatment is voluntary. I call that gender-affirming care.
They do not understand the contradiction, or they refuse to acknowledge it. This is how intellectually inconsistent these people are. I cannot think of another country that conducts mandatory annual testosterone screening across its military.
Can you?
Jacobsen: It is not something I have previously considered researching. This is an interesting question, but I do not claim the United States is the only country without checking the military health policies of other nations.
Bouley: Believe me, there cannot be many. They would be afraid of the results. Especially in Asia. Kidding. Kidding. All right, go ahead before I start talking about Troye Sivan and his underwear. Go on. Throw it at me. I am ready.
Jacobsen: Trinidad and Tobago’s criminalization of consensual sex between men has reached its final appellate stage.
The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in London has heard activist Jason Jones’s appeal challenging provisions of the country’s Sexual Offences Act. Trinidad and Tobago’s High Court struck down the relevant provisions in 2018, but the Court of Appeal restored their application in 2025 because of the Constitution’s savings clause, which protects certain older laws from constitutional challenge.
The current law criminalizes consensual same-sex intimacy between men. “Buggery” carries a maximum sentence of five years, while certain other sexual acts can carry a maximum sentence of two years.
The Privy Council has not yet issued its judgment. The ruling could influence constitutional litigation elsewhere in the Caribbean, especially in countries where colonial-era laws remain protected by savings clauses. What are your thoughts?
Bouley: Has he won his appeal?
Jacobsen: Not yet.
Bouley: In other words, consensual sex between men is still illegal in Trinidad and Tobago?
Jacobsen: Yes. The law is currently in force while the Privy Council considers its decision. No firm date for the judgment has been announced publicly.
Bouley: I have always said that, if you do it properly, it should be illegal in every country. Human beings may be the only species arrogant enough to think they can declare consensual sexual intimacy legal or illegal. Same-sex sexual behaviour itself has been observed throughout the animal kingdom, including among numerous primate species.
There was a song in the early 1990s called “People Are Still Having Sex.” It had the line, “This AIDS thing is not working.” Some radio versions removed or altered the AIDS reference, but the original song came out in 1991, not the 1980s.
I think of that song often because that is the reality. There are always going to be gay people, and there is always going to be gay sex. Your laws are not working. Your discrimination is not working. We are still here, and we are still going to have sex whether it is legal or illegal. If you do it properly, it is illegal in 20 states.
However, homosexuality is not going to disappear. Governments have tried criminalization, religious condemnation, imprisonment, violence, forced treatment, and social exclusion. None of it has eliminated gay people.
The history is more complicated than saying persecution began exactly 2,000 years ago with Christianity. Different societies have treated same-sex relationships in very different ways, and persecution has arisen under several religious and secular legal systems. Christianity nevertheless played a major role in the development and enforcement of anti-sodomy laws in Europe and many European colonies.
You would think governments in Senegal, Trinidad and Tobago, and elsewhere would understand the point by now.
We are in 2026. They might as well allow us to live freely because we will be here regardless of what they say, what they do, or what they legislate.
We are not going away. We cannot be legislated out of existence because sexual diversity is a naturally occurring part of humanity.
And straight people keep making us.
So we are never going away.
I do not understand how these privy councils, supreme courts, parliaments, governments, and self-appointed moral authorities imagine that a proclamation can stamp out homosexuality.
It has never worked.
Jacobsen: To another point. I probably made this point in two previous conversations. Homosexuality is an ancestral trait. It has existed throughout human history and across cultures. Eliminating it would require fundamentally changing aspects of human biology and evolution.
Bouley: Right. And they cannot do that. They have tried, and some people would like to. Researchers have searched for biological factors associated with sexual orientation for decades. They have found that sexual orientation is influenced by a complex combination of genetic, prenatal, hormonal, developmental, and environmental factors. There is no single “gay gene,” and there is no scientifically validated way to change a person’s sexual orientation.
I do not understand why governments keep legislating against it. There are so many other problems on this planet that deserve attention. Yet every week we come on this show with another list of governments. These are presidents, prime ministers, legislators, ministers, and heads of state spending time on something they cannot eliminate. Is there not something in the Serenity Prayer about accepting the things you cannot change?
You cannot eliminate homosexuality. Accept it. Move on. But they cannot. Why? It goes back to what I said earlier. Because, in many cases, it either earns them votes, makes them money, or both.
Jacobsen: That is why the issue becomes politically useful.
Bouley: Otherwise, why would anyone care what Karel does in his condominium in Las Vegas with another consenting adult?
They would not.
People usually do not care until political leaders, media figures, or activists tell them they should.
Many MAGA supporters were not especially focused on transgender issues until conservative politicians and media made them a central political issue. Similar political dynamics have occurred in parts of the United Kingdom and elsewhere.
Most people are too busy living their lives. They have jobs, bills, families, community work, religious commitments, or other causes they care about. There is this hard rock band, Beartooth.
Their lead singer, Caleb Shomo, recently spoke publicly about his sexuality. Now reports say he has separated from his wife after many years of marriage. People immediately want to know what that means.
He was married to a woman for years. Does that mean he is gay? Does it mean he is bisexual? Does it mean he discovered something about himself later in life? None of us knows.
Sexual orientation and identity can be complicated. Some gay people marry opposite-sex partners before coming out because of social expectations, religious pressure, or because they are still figuring themselves out. Others identify as bisexual. Others change the language they use over time. Only he knows his own experience.
Jacobsen: That is a much more reasonable way to understand it. People sometimes struggle for years before feeling able to live openly as what they understand to be their authentic selves.
Bouley: Exactly. Speaking of movies, have you seen The Invitation?
Jacobsen: No, although I know Olivia Wilde.
Bouley: Not Olivia Wilde. Different movie. The Invitation revolves around a couple who become involved with another couple, exploring themes of sexual openness, relationships, and consent.
That brings me back to the larger point.
People often imagine the 1970s as this era of complete sexual freedom. That image is exaggerated, but there certainly were communities where attitudes toward sex were much more relaxed than they became during the AIDS crisis.
The point is not that everyone behaved the same way. It is that social attitudes toward sexuality have shifted dramatically over the decades.
Orgies happened. Throughout history, including in European royal courts, there is substantial historical evidence that same-sex relationships, affairs, and sexual encounters occurred, even if they were not publicly acknowledged. Accounts from the Tudor court, including during the reign of Henry VIII, describe numerous sexual intrigues, although historians disagree about specific individuals and allegations.
This movie, The Invitation, largely focuses on the wives exploring attraction to one another while the husbands watch or encourage it.
I am thinking, come on, turn it around. Turn it around on them. Explore the husbands, too.
The gay community has definitely embraced The Invitation. By the way, it is being called one of the best films of the summer. If you get a chance to see it, see it.
The Odyssey is coming out, too. Classical Greek society included well-documented forms of male same-sex relationships, particularly among some elite groups and in military contexts, although modern concepts such as “gay” do not map neatly onto the ancient world. We do not always talk about that when these stories are adapted for modern audiences.
What else? In other gay news, Madonna has another number-one release worldwide. She has one of the longest-running successful careers in popular music. We helped do that.
Her marketing team has always understood that LGBTQ audiences have been among her most loyal supporters. Grindr even sponsored her Times Square appearance in New York. That was not inexpensive.
Now, a little gossip.
There have long been rumours about Senator Lindsey Graham’s sexuality. Laura Loomer has publicly repeated those allegations. There have also been media reports and individual claims of encounters with Graham.
However, Lindsey Graham has never publicly identified as gay or bisexual, has consistently denied speculation about his sexuality, and no allegation has been conclusively established through verified evidence. It is therefore more accurate to say that his sexuality has been the subject of longstanding public speculation rather than to state it as fact.
If he were gay or bisexual, I would genuinely feel sympathy for someone who came of age in South Carolina during the early 1970s. In 1970, when Lindsey Graham was eighteen, it was not realistically possible for many people to live openly as gay in much of the American South. That social reality undoubtedly shaped many lives.
More broadly, there are undoubtedly politicians around the world who remain closeted because they believe honesty about their sexuality would end their careers.
Since we seem to be entertainment-themed this week, Cara Delevingne has become the first openly lesbian woman to appear alone on the print cover of the relaunched Playboy magazine.
Isn’t that something? I wonder how straight men feel about that. Playboy has traditionally been marketed toward heterosexual men.
Barbra Streisand also appeared in Playboy. The magazine published an interview and photographs connected with the promotion of her work. Around the Superman album era, there were publicity photographs, including some that were ultimately not published.
Dolly Parton famously posed for Playboy in 1978, wearing the iconic Playboy Bunny outfit. Years later, she recreated the look for her husband Carl Dean as a birthday surprise.
As a straight man, how do you feel about Cara Delevingne, an openly lesbian woman, appearing on the cover of Playboy?
Jacobsen: No objection. Congratulations.
Bouley: Exactly.
There is this old stereotype that “all a lesbian needs is a good man.”
Please. That stereotype has been around forever, but it says far more about some straight men’s fantasies than about lesbians.
Anyway. Another study made the news.
It reported that lesbians, on average, report masturbating less frequently than many other groups. The researchers suggested that one possible explanation is higher reported sexual satisfaction with their partners. As with all survey research, these are population averages and certainly do not describe every lesbian relationship.
Do you consider masturbation cheating?
Jacobsen: No.
Bouley: I used to.
That is how possessive I once was. One time I went somewhere without Andrew. We usually went everywhere together. I forgot something and came back home. Andrew was masturbating.
I was genuinely hurt.
I remember saying, “Why couldn’t you wait for me? I was going to be home soon. Why didn’t we have sex before I left?” He looked at me as if to say, “I was just taking care of myself.”
I gave him such a hard time. Looking back, I feel bad about that. It is one of those moments in life that still makes me cringe because I was wrong. When I was in my twenties and thirties, I was incredibly insecure.
I was overweight, people regularly called me ugly, and Andrew was gorgeous. I constantly worried that he could find someone better.
People reinforced those insecurities. They would actually come up to us and say, “Why are you with him? You could do so much better.”
They said it to our faces.
One night at the Mineshaft in Long Beach, when we were on KFI, a man walked up to Andrew, looked at him, pointed at me, and said, “You are gorgeous. Why are you with him?”
I never forgot that.
Another time we were at a clothing-optional resort in Palm Springs. I got out of the hot tub to get us drinks. When I came back, a group of men who were attracted to Andrew had deliberately positioned themselves between us so I could not get back to my husband.
I moved right through them and said, “He is mine. If anything ever happens with any of you, it will involve both of us—not him by himself.”
The gay community can be incredibly supportive, but it can also be brutally appearance-focused.
Gay men can be just as judgmental about physical appearance as anyone else.
That reminds me of something I wanted to mention.
David Archuleta has been enjoying a resurgence in popularity.
Matteo Lane—who is enormously talented as both a comedian and an opera singer and recently appeared on Broadway—receives a great deal of attention online, and many entertainment outlets have noted that his highly visible social-media presence, including frequent shirtless photographs, has contributed to his public profile alongside his artistic accomplishments.
Now, Troye Sivan is returning with a new album, and one of the promotional photographs shows him wearing a trench coat over lace underwear.
Sometimes it feels as though gay male artists are expected to market themselves through sexuality as much as through their work.
I think that is unfortunate.
Why does that happen?
Part of it is that appearance plays an outsized role in many corners of gay male culture, just as unrealistic beauty standards affect many heterosexual spaces.
People often expect their partners to look like models while ignoring those same expectations for themselves.
It is a difficult dynamic.
Do we want more views?
Maybe I should help.
Oh, God. Do I need a D-cup or what is going on?
No, I cannot do it.
But it does seem that on Instagram, many gay male creators feel pressure to present themselves either half-naked or in elaborate drag performances if they want to maximize attention.
Look at Adam Lambert.
He has a terrific new record out. He is an extraordinary singer.
Yet he does not receive the same kind of online attention as some others.
Why?
Who knows? Social media rewards many different things, and image is certainly one of them.
He is usually fully dressed—sometimes in wonderfully theatrical outfits—and perhaps that does not generate the same viral engagement.
I will put my shirt back on.
Nobody wants to see that.
I always joke that I would make a great reverse stripper.
I would walk in naked, and people would throw money at me to put my clothes back on.
All right.
Do you have anything you want to close with?
Jacobsen: No. It has been an unusually busy week here, so I have not had the opportunity to cover as much news as I would have liked. Overall, though, compared with many of the weeks we have covered this year, this has actually been one of the less discouraging ones.
Bouley: I think that is because we deliberately chose to spend some time on the more humorous aspects of what has been happening.
We also looked at these issues realistically.
Countries such as Senegal will likely continue to pursue these policies unless there are meaningful political, legal, diplomatic, or economic incentives to change course.
In my view, governments such as the United States, Canada, members of the European Union, and others have opportunities to encourage respect for human rights through diplomacy and, where appropriate, through foreign-policy decisions.
When governments conclude that discrimination carries greater costs than benefits, policies often change.
You know…
The world sometimes seems determined to make life difficult for LGBTQ people.
You hear it in the news every week.
But we have never accepted that we should disappear.
We never have.
And we never will.
Despite discrimination, we continue to dance, sing, create art, make films, write books, compose music, build businesses, serve in professions, and contribute to society.
We remain present in boardrooms, offices, classrooms, laboratories, studios, and everywhere else.
People cannot erase us because we have always been here.
Many older LGBTQ people understand that especially well because they have spent their entire lives watching society try—and fail—to push them aside.
That is one reason I enjoy doing these conversations every week.
No matter how difficult the stories become, there is always resilience to talk about alongside the hardship.
These Gay Week episodes are consistently among the highest-rated programs on SoundCloud and the Progressive Voices Network.
Whenever Scott appears on my regular show, people tell me how glad they are to see him, how relieved they are that he is doing well, and how much they enjoy our conversations together.
People often comment that we work well as a team.
It matters to have allies who understand these issues.
That is why I keep doing these programs.
You understand both the difficulties and the larger perspective.
Yes, these stories can be depressing.
But we are not going anywhere.
There will always be difficult stories to report, and it is our job to interpret them honestly while also finding reasons for hope and resilience.
So when I hear another story from Africa, I remind myself that countries are not fixed forever.
Policies change.
Cultures evolve.
Governments change.
History keeps moving, and eventually many societies do, too.
Governments often move with the political winds. When the prevailing winds are supportive of gay rights, they become supportive. When the winds turn against gay rights, they become hostile.
Nelson Mandela, for example, had a more complicated personal and political evolution than people sometimes acknowledge.
He came from a different place, generation, and cultural background, and I do not think he began his public life with the language or understanding that we would now associate with an LGBTQ ally. But he evolved.
Under Mandela’s leadership, South Africa adopted the 1996 Constitution, which became the first national Constitution in the world to prohibit discrimination explicitly based on sexual orientation. He also supported the broader principle that the rights protected after apartheid had to apply to everyone.
Coretta Scott King became another important ally.
I do not want to attribute to her an earlier opposition that I cannot substantiate. It is well documented that she publicly linked gay and lesbian rights to the wider civil rights struggle. She said that homophobic policies were incompatible with a free society and emphasized that gay and lesbian people had participated in the campaigns associated with the Black civil rights movement.
She also objected when people presumed to know exactly what Martin Luther King Jr. would have said about every contemporary issue. That is understandable. Nobody should casually speak for someone who is no longer here.
Still, many LGBTQ people believe that Martin Luther King Jr. would have supported gay rights today.
Everything I know about the man leads me to believe that he would have opposed punishing people because of who they are. He was a Christian minister, but his public moral framework emphasized human dignity, nonviolence, and resistance to injustice. That remains an interpretation, because none of us can know precisely how he would have responded to every modern debate.
We go through cycles.
Things become terrible, then somewhat tolerable, then genuinely hopeful, and then the backlash begins again.
We have leaders who advance LGBTQ rights, such as Barack Obama and Joe Biden, and then leaders such as Donald Trump, whose administrations have pursued policies that LGBTQ advocates regard as deeply harmful.
We also have enormous differences within regions. It is too broad to say that all of Africa is hostile or that all of Europe is safe. South Africa has constitutional protections, while several other African countries criminalize same-sex intimacy. Likewise, European Union members vary considerably in their laws and social attitudes.
As an LGBTQ person, you learn that progress is always a balancing act.
Sometimes the balance shifts heavily toward anti-gay and anti-transgender policies. Sometimes it is closer to even. Sometimes we win more than we lose.
But we know not to give up.
That is why we have to discuss these stories.
We need to support organizations such as Rainbow Railroad and local activists challenging discriminatory laws. We need to support LGBTQ people in African countries without treating Africa as a single culture or imagining that change can be imposed from abroad.
We also need to support LGBTQ Ukrainians, including service members fighting both Russia’s invasion and for equal recognition within their own country.
LGBTQ Ukrainian soldiers and veterans have campaigned for registered partnerships and the associated rights that heterosexual spouses generally receive, including hospital access, medical decision-making, inheritance, and burial arrangements. Ukrainian LGBTQ military organizations continue to argue that people serving their country should not be denied legal recognition for their partners.
We have to stand behind them and say, “Yes, we are with you.”
That is why these stories matter. They help us understand who needs support and where that support might make a difference.
Behind every negative story, there is usually someone resisting it.
An activist is challenging the law, a lawyer is filing an appeal, a soldier is demanding equality, a journalist is exposing abuse, or an organization is helping someone escape danger.
That resistance is one of the most important parts of every story.
All right, stay safe and stay away from the bombs.
We will talk again next week.
I am Karel.
Be who you want to be, as long as you do not hurt anybody.
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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.
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