This Gay Week 34: LGBTQ Rights, Pride, Political Backlash, and Global Solidarity

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.

In this interview, Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Karel Bouley examine LGBTQ rights and resistance across the United States, Ukraine, Uganda, Serbia, France, Poland, and Canada. They discuss drag as protected expression, Ukrainian Pride activism, the Lavender Scare, divisions within LGBTQ politics, Ugandan safe houses, religious opposition, rural hostility, and Canada’s Thunderhead monument. Bouley also reflects on queer cultural solidarity and argues that maintaining a broad LGBTQ coalition remains essential against organized political backlash worldwide.

Karel Bouley: I’m gonna miss Dolly. She’s been in my life ever since I was born. My parents watched her and Porter Wagoner on TV. I saw her on the Johnny Carson show when I was 14, and she’s been in my life ever since. She was a stellar human being. She could have been a billionaire but decided to give away a lot of her money. She is a shining example, as we talk about all these other stories going on around the world. She is truly a shining example of what happens if you choose love.

Okay, the story is out of Texas, where a Reagan-appointed judge has pissed off the governor and every Republican in the state by striking down the drag ban in the state.

Seven states have drag bans, and this Reagan-appointed judge struck it down, saying the law was too vague. That drag is a protected First Amendment freedom of speech right, which shall not be infringed, and that Texas nightclubs and venues had no reason to bar or stop drag shows. The main complaint was that they were sexual in nature, and he cited Dolly Parton, saying some could say that her big blonde hair, fully exposed cleavage, and tight dresses made her an item of lust and sexual desire. That under this particular law, cheerleaders, people with any sexuality in them, all of that could then be challenged as illegal or immoral under this law.

He said it was too vague, but don’t despair, Scott. He did offer a solution to the governor and to the plaintiffs. Do you know what that was?

Jacobsen: What?

Bouley: If you don’t like drag shows and find them offensive, don’t go to them.

Jacobsen: Which is the common counter.

Bouley: That was in his ruling. He says that it’s protected speech. It’s a First Amendment right. He said it’s also too vague. Under it, Dolly Parton could be banned. Then, third, he said that it in no way violates anybody’s rights because if you find drag shows offensive, you don’t have to go to them.

It’s a beautiful ruling. I don’t know that they’ll appeal it to the Supreme Court. I hope they do because even these horrible justices that we have will have to acknowledge that drag is freedom of speech like any other theatre, and it must be allowed. It’s a great ruling by this judge, a Reagan appointee, who said, if you don’t like them, don’t go, but otherwise it is protected speech. And under the law as written, people like Dolly Parton or cheerleaders or people in plays could all fall under the law. Therefore, it’s far too vague.

Jacobsen: We understand all this intuitively in other contexts. Remember, George Carlin had a famous bit about you can turn the knob or turn off the radio, change the station or turn down the volume and turn off the radio. I don’t have to be covering this war story with missiles coming down. I put myself in danger knowing that I take accountability and responsibility for that decision.

Bouley: The same viewpoint when Andrew and I were on air, and they would get calls that said, “Why are these gay guys on air? These gay guys shouldn’t be on air.” Their patent response was, “The good news is you don’t have to listen.” Haters listen to you more than people who like you. That’s a fact. Statistically, haters listen longer than people who like you.

Jacobsen: Kharkiv Pride organizers have announced September events, including Pride Fest on September 12, a march coordinated, importantly, with police. As I noted to you, in a prior period of Pride events in Ukraine, there was a period where young men wanted to put poop, feces, in condoms and then fling them at the protesters. They were stopped from their shenanigans.

Participants plan to demand legal recognition of same-sex partnerships and marriages, stronger hate-crime protections and equality, while parallel Pride events occur in Kyiv and Lviv.

Bouley: It would appear to me that in Ukraine, and given since you’ve been there, we have covered LGBTQ stories from the region, which is something I never would have thought of in the past. It would appear the genie is out of the bottle. The Ukrainians are saying, “Hey, look, we serve in the military. We are part of this society, and we want these rights.” It appears they’re not letting up. Pig heads be damned.

It appears that they are going to continue fighting, demanding the legalization of same-sex marriage and the recognition of LGBTQ people as able to adopt. As we spoke about the surrogacy issue that’s going on there, LGBTQ people also want the right to use those surrogates. It looks like popular opinion is with them.

People are focused on the war and eating and the economy and all that. They’re like, let the gays have what the gays want; who cares? We’ve got other things to worry about right now. We’ve made gains before when the country or the world was too busy to be bothered. We took advantage of that and made some strides. Right now in Ukraine, they’re a little too busy to be bothered. Gay people are like, now’s our time. Let’s try to move this forward. And they are.

All events, as you said, are coordinated with the national police, which is important because they’re going to need them. Because a lot of people seem to be on board with it doesn’t mean everybody is. It can get dangerous.

Jacobsen: It’s probably, when you talk to ordinary Ukrainians, a distinction between the generations and their attitudes. Those who are Soviet, those who are immediate post-Soviet, and those who are contemporary young adult Ukrainians.

Bouley: Contemporary young adult Ukrainians, totally for civil rights for the most part. Let them have marriage, let them adopt, all that.

Pre-Russia, dead-set against it. Post-Russia, immediately post-Russia, probably a majority against it. It would go totally majority, and then totally for. That would be the qualitative sentiment. I’d have to do a formal project looking at different surveys. That’s the general qualitative sentiment in conversation with ordinary Ukrainians.

I love how in the article you sent from the Union of Orthodox Journalists, at the bottom it says, “of the so-called Pride Month.” So-called Pride Month. They can’t say part of Pride Month. So-called Pride Month.

Jacobsen: For them, they do this rhetoric that Jordan Peterson does on Pride, where he says, can’t call it Pride. Pride is a cardinal sin. It is a deliberate misreading.

Bouley: Yes, I don’t think Pride would be a cardinal sin. I don’t, but what do I know?

All right! Another good news story. People have gathered outside the EU institutions in solidarity with Poland’s LGBTQ community in Brussels. That is a good story. There are people gathering at other places to show Poland they support the LGBTQ community and recognize that, again, same-sex marriage is on the docket. But it’s great that people in the EU are rallying outside of Poland to support Poland’s LGBTQ community.

As a member of the gay community, I will tell you, it does make us feel good when others in other parts of the world show their support for what we’re doing. It energizes a movement. This will definitely energize the LGBTQ community in Brussels and in Poland. This is a good thing.

The next story we are going to move on to- do you know what that is?

Jacobsen: Lavender Scare? The Lavender Scare? You told me about this earlier. You’re the one who introduced me to this term.

Bouley: You’ve got to watch the show Fellow Travellers with Matt Bomer and what’s his name? My future husband, Jonathan Groff. In the 1950s, while McCarthy was doing his thing, they were also purging gay people from the agencies, the FBI, and the police. It was called the Lavender Scare because they were aggressively pursuing people, making them take lie detector tests. “Have you ever had sex with someone of the same gender? Have you ever gone to this bar?” Much like the Nazis did after the Brownshirts fell.

That was called the Lavender Scare, and it was when businesses went through and purged LGBTQ people. It drove a lot of them into the closet, and there were a lot of lavender marriages, as they’re called. They could bring the lovely wife to the dinners, but later on, they were going off and seeing their boyfriend.

Yes, it’s happening again. The CIA, the FBI, they’ve all spent several decades getting away from the Lavender Scare. That’s because those are the agencies where it took place. They have been getting away from that for decades. Now, under both terms of Donald Trump, they’re going back to it. It is back in effect. Everything old is new again. It won’t end until…

Trump ends, or his administration’s over, or until Congress or someone steps in and says, stop this. But unfortunately, the CIA and others are going to keep doing this. The CIA’s LGBTQ group’s Pride Month celebration, they’re putting an end to minority outreach and recruitment, and the firing of officers for participating in diversity efforts or any transgender-related group chat, whether on or off the clock. It’s the Lavender Scare. It’s a witch hunt.

And it’s happening right now as we speak. It ended last time; it’ll end again. But lives are going to be destroyed. People’s careers are going to be ended for nothing. Because in our country, it goes the same way as it does in Ukraine. Baby Boomers? No gay, no gay, no gay. Gen X? Gay. Millennials? Gay. Gen Y and Z?

We’re gay! Twenty-one percent of them now identify as gay, with a majority of that being bisexual, by the way. Of the 21 percent, 16 percent identify as bisexual. The rest are gay, lesbian, or trans. But still, that number’s a large number now: 21 percent. It used to be five to seven. We’re not quite bonobos. We’re not quite bonobos. Not yet.

But this will change. These Lavender Scares, these witch hunts, will change as the older people are removed from the agencies. Younger people are all for that. Look who’s winning the elections around the country.

The Log Cabin Republicans, the smallest group of self-loathing queers known to politics, have decided to drop transgender from LGBT to back Trump’s policy. This is an alarming trend that’s worldwide. There are gays in the UK; there are gays all over, I’m sure, in Ukraine, who are now trying to say, “I’m gay, I’m not trans, I’m not bi, I want the L or the B.”

In fact, comedian Matt Mathews here in the United States pissed off a whole lot of gay followers because he’s gay when he said, “No pronouns up in my house, and if you’re born with a tallywack, you’re a boy.” So he climbed the ladder, gave him the power, and now he is denouncing it. It’s happening across the globe.

When we come back, we’ll talk about Log Cabin, but more importantly, I will tell you the why- why they are doing this. I know exactly why they’re doing it, and why the right is encouraging them.

We are back with This Gay Week with Scott Jacobsen of The Good Men Project and me, Karel. I’m every bit LGBTQIA++, baby. We are talking about the fact that the smallest group of self-loathing fit queers in politics, better known as the Log Cabin Republicans, whom I’ve had several interesting encounters with. Let me rephrase: they weren’t interesting; they were frustrating. It’s like trying to teach math to a pig. It frustrated me and pissed off the pig.

But they have decided to drop transgender, the T, from LGBTQ. They don’t even have the Q to back Donald Trump’s policy and to align with the rollback of transgender rights since he returned to office. Scott, do you know why they’re doing this and why they’re being encouraged by the right to do this?

Jacobsen: We can go back a little bit further than that question is going to imply because, as you and I have discussed a couple of times, Mr. Trump didn’t care and, in fact, was passively supportive of LGBT back in the day before it became politically expedient. This builds into capitulation.

Bouley: No.

Jacobsen: Yes.

Bouley: But no, it goes back to the Latin maxim, divide et impera. Divide and conquer. The LGBTQ+ community is a voting bloc. It is an economic bloc. It is a force with which to be reckoned because they have to reckon with it. If you break that group up into smaller factions, it’s no longer as powerful.

The best way to get the group to be less powerful and more fringe is to have them break themselves up. They have found young queers who have no sense of history or obligation to say, “Yes, I’m not trans. Why should I have them in my tent? I’m not even flamboyant. I don’t like those old flamboyant gays.”

And as I reminded people on my show, this is not new. In the 1950s, one of the first organizations ever started was called the Mattachine Society. It’s in my music video for “You Have to Be Proud.” The Mattachine Society thought that we would only get rights and only win if we acted like them.

Women who joined, lesbians, had to wear dresses, had to wear skirts, couldn’t wear pants, couldn’t wear T-shirts, couldn’t wear men’s clothing, couldn’t wear a man’s suit. They had to wear dresses. Gay men couldn’t be all flamboyant. They had to wear a suit and tie, which is what men wore in the ’50s. They had to wear suits and ties. They had to look like their straight counterparts. Public displays of affection were discriminated against. Dancing together in public was frowned upon. This is from a gay group, a gay organization. It was called the Mattachine Society. It is not new.

To have a faction inside the gay community that says, “I’m not that flamboyant queen. I’m not a drag queen. I’m not this.” They do it because they’re self-loathing and stupid, and they think if they appease the homophobes, in some way it’s going to be easier for them. They’re idiots. They were idiots then. They’re idiots now.

Our tent not only is big enough to include LGBTQIA, but it should include them all because every one of those groups has gone to bat for a person with AIDS. Trans people have supported gay men. Trans people have supported gay women. Gay women have supported gay men, certainly during AIDS. Gay women have supported trans people, queer people, bisexual people. We overlap. To break us up is stupid. It fits the right’s agenda. They’re too stupid to know.

Jacobsen: Is this why people were suspicious around terms like “the alphabet people,” or even individuals who have an insane amount of content on it, Dave Chappelle, who are pushing this type of rhetoric as well?

Bouley: Yes.

Jacobsen: I.e., it’s not a bloc. It is a set of individual groups, and they’re virtually treated as such.

Bouley: Yes. This is more of a conservative capitulation to them.

Jacobsen: Yes.

Bouley: Yep. They do it because of divide and conquer. If you can break all those letters down, bisexuals are 16 percent. If you remove bisexuals from LGBTQ and it’s LG, and the bisexuals are like, “I’m not a gay man. I’m not trans,” then you remove 16 percent of our voting bloc. You remove 16 percent of our economic bloc. It is not an accident, and the right wing is behind it. Idiot gays are falling for it. They did in the ’50s. I’m sure in the ’70s and the ’90s and every other decade, there’s always been some conservative gays who have said, “But we’re not them.” Yes, you are queer. You suck dick. Move on.

You found rather happy stories this week.

Jacobsen: It was a good week, and I’m aware of the context. In Uganda, there is Uganda’s Douglas Project, the Peter Tatchell Foundation.

Bouley: The Peter Tatchell Foundation. They are funding LGBTQ safe houses.

Jacobsen: That’s incredible.

Bouley: The Douglas Project, coordinated with Out and Proud African LGBTI, will provide safe premises, food, support, farming, income to sustain the project, sport and music activities for LGBT+ Ugandans facing homelessness, underemployment, poverty, and social exclusion. The £15,000 was raised from the Foundation’s appeal to friends and supporters earlier this year, including Sir Ian McKellen, who presented a check to OPAL outside Uganda House in London. Peter Tatchell and PTF operations manager Simon Harris coordinated the fundraiser. Great news. Money raised; people who desperately need it are going to get services.

Peter Tatchell said that LGBTQ Ugandans are living under some of the harshest anti-gay laws in the world, with maximum sentences of life imprisonment and even execution by hanging.

Many face rejection by their families, eviction from their homes, and dismissal from their schools and jobs. They suffer mob violence, police harassment, blackmail, sexual assault, homelessness, and poverty. We are proud to fund the project, which will provide housing, safe houses, employment, skills training, food, and social and friendship networks.

Bouley: That is life-saving to queer people in Uganda. That’s life-saving.

Jacobsen: It is.

Bouley: The Dolly thing has affected me. It affected me in profound ways. I know that sounds weird because I didn’t know her. But no one has said one bad thing about her after her death. That’s special.

When you are one of the few people on planet Earth that everybody loves, you’re doing something right. She was an optimist. She took bad situations, even her cancer, and she was always looking for the good. She was always looking to find middle ground, to get along, to not judge, to spread love and joy. She was such a talented songwriter, a strong woman in entertainment. I thought to myself, I want more of that.

I want more on my show and in life. I want to be happier. Dolly chose. It was a choice to be Dolly Parton. That was a lot of work, as she said. It took a lot of money to look that cheap. She chose a life of campiness, joy, non-judgment, and helping others. Every day she helped somebody else. Every single day she did some charity work.

And I thought to myself, I want to be more than that and less angry and less mad at the world. The world has given me great reason to be mad at it. Right now, gays, lesbians, especially trans people, have a lot of reason to be discouraged and to be angry at what’s going on in the world. But anger is a choice. As I age, I’m starting to think maybe being more Dolly wouldn’t be such a bad thing.

To channel it into something good. That’s why the story from Uganda, where in the UK they’re raising money for Ugandan safe houses. What could be more noble than that? The world needs to be a little more Dolly. She would love this story. She would adore it, about a French senator slamming Christianophobia over a gay bar’s Holy Phallus party.

Jacobsen: In France?

Bouley: Yes. French right-wing Senator Stéphane Ravier, who has never seen a penis, has accused a Marseille LGBTQ bar, it’s in Marseille for the love of God, of promoting unrestrained Christianophobia after it hosted a satirical party on the Catholic Feast of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary with the Holy Phallus. That’s great.

This came up in America with the Dodgers. Are you familiar with the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence?

Jacobsen: Is this the one from John Oliver?

Bouley: No, it goes back to the 1980s, to AIDS. They wear the nun outfits with the white face makeup and the big, huge eyes and cheeks, and they’re overdone. But they dress as nuns. Their names are Sister Mary Take It All and stuff like that.

The Sisters were being honored. They do a ton of charity work. They were being honored by the Dodgers, and some right-wing Christians got wind, had a fit, and the Dodgers canceled it. There was such backlash that the Dodgers had to redo it because the Sisters do such good charity work. But the Catholic League didn’t think so. In the end, the nuns with the makeup won. All praise the Holy Phallus! Sorry.

We gays, we praise the phallus.

All right, it is This Gay Week with Scott Jacobsen, who did not know what he was stepping into this week. Over there in Ukraine, in Kyiv, in an undisclosed location, we keep him hidden away. We must protect him. Someone should have protected Dolly. Then Tim Curry. First Dolly and then Frankenfurter? Jesus Christ, the universe wants to kill 80-year-olds. There’s one at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue that it could take. But whatever.

Jacobsen: I got a question for you. Do you think culturally the Dolly death will be felt, and is being felt the way Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death felt?

Bouley: No, I equate it to the way that Judy Garland felt. So, youngster, let me explain a few things. Let me gay-splain to you. I’ll gay-splain to you. Or queer-splain. Queersplaining.

The mythology of Stonewall. There is mythology of Stonewall. Some of it’s rooted in fact, and many things contributed to the Stonewall riots. It wasn’t one thing. The Village was tense because of the Vietnam War. It wasn’t just gays in the Village. There were Blacks who didn’t want to go be drafted. There were war resisters. There were the gays. There were the Italians and the prostitutes because they were deemed lesser people. In fact, the Stonewall Inn was a Mafia bar.

And it was a bar for degenerates. It was not a bar for gays. It was not a gay bar. There were no gay bars. The Stonewall Inn was a bar for drug addicts, prostitutes, drag queens, gay people. Subsequently, we still hang out with all those people because they’re so much fun.

It was the day of Judy Garland’s funeral, and queers were on edge that day because Judy had died. Judy, to this generation of gays in the late ’60s, Judy was it. She was the Streisand. In fact, the duet of Judy and Barbra is still played and sung to this day because it was the older Judy passing the torch down to the 20-year-old Barbra.

When Judy died and her funeral happened, they were at the Stonewall Inn watching Judy Garland’s funeral. They were emotionally raw because of the funeral. The cops would normally call the Stonewall Inn and tell them they were going to raid because they were on the take. That night, the cops did not call ahead, which pissed off the mob, by the way.

When they came in and forced their way into the bar, the queens had already had enough. They were emotionally wrung out from Judy’s death and from the funeral. They were in a state where they didn’t want to take any crap from anybody. There’s part of this mythology around Stonewall that Judy Garland’s death contributed to the start of the riots. It’s a pretty good theory. It’s held up over all these years.

Dolly Parton’s death is to a younger generation of gays. Some of the olders who know Judy Garland, because she was 80 after all. To Gen X gays and even millennial gays, it’s a big deal that she died. When Barbra dies, it’ll be Baby Boomers that freak out. When Diana Ross dies, I don’t know. Diana’s amassed a huge young gay following on TikTok and Instagram.

I see many young gays who are going to see her now, and she’s 82 and fabulous. But yes, when one of our divas dies, it does change things. Today on KGAY Radio in Palm Springs, the only LGBTQ station in the country that’s 24/7, their lunchtime was Dolly Parton remixes. Last night at seven o’clock in Palm Springs, there was a candlelight vigil for Dolly Parton. I would not have gone, as it was 107 degrees outside.

But in San Francisco, there were candlelight vigils for Dolly Parton. In New York, in the Village, there are vigils planned in the gay community for Dolly Parton. RuPaul’s Drag Race did an entire Dolly Parton-themed show where every queen had to be Dolly Parton. So yes, it is a big deal culturally that she’s dead. It will change things. Yesterday, Wednesday, we had a judge citing Dolly Parton in a ruling to strike down a drag ban. If that’s not cultural gravity, I don’t know what is. It’s a big deal.

Not as big as the Holy Phallus. The event’s promotional material presented it as a humorous celebration featuring a mock blessing by the Holy Phallus, followed by a quiz on the sexuality of religious figures. There were gay religious figures. It’s rumored Joan of Arc was a lesbian. Look at her, for the love of God. Jesus, he roamed the desert for 30 days with men in robes.

Probably no underwear because they would get ripe out there in the desert. It had a drag show and a DJ set. In an Instagram post cited by La Dépêche du Midi, the organizers wrote that August 15th was the day Catholics headed to Lourdes and proposed reclaiming the date for their own purposes. That did not sit well, having it on that date, with the far-right-wing Ravier. She criticized the political background of people associated with the establishment, making allegations about their links to the French left and to anti-fascist activism.

She better be careful because, as I recall, France still has the guillotine, and I believe it was the far left that used them on the far right. If I were her, I’d be ixnay on the phallus, but that’s me. I find that story amusing, which is why I thought we should do it.

Do you want to go to Serbia? You ever been to Serbia?

Jacobsen: I was there this year. I was there for a big conference. I gave a 15-20-minute talk. Maybe one of the only Canadians there, or at least even North Americans there. Maybe one or two were there.

Bouley: Boy, your country is getting more and more pissed at us every day.

Jacobsen: General sentiment is that way, but not everyone. There are some capitulators.

Bouley: Belgrade has had Pride events. They started about 25 years ago.

Jacobsen: 2001.

Bouley: The headline says…

Jacobsen: Congratulations to them.

Bouley: Yes, good for them. “Room for All: LGBT Pride Caravan Meets with Hostility in Small-Town Serbia.”

In mid-July, gay activists in Serbia headed for the southeastern town of Pirot, the second leg of this year’s Pride Caravan to raise awareness about gay issues and protest widespread discrimination.

Their first event passed without incident despite threats posted in advance on social media. Much like in Long Beach, the gay float received threats on social media. They held it anyway, and it went fine.

The caravan never made it into Pirot, however. On the town’s outskirts, they were stopped by police, who warned them that opponents of the event were waiting for them on Central Warriors Square. The police said, “We can’t arrest everyone.”

They are peaceful citizens. They’re not doing anything at the moment. However, should you proceed, we fear that will change. What religion is in Serbia? Catholic?

Jacobsen: Christianity. Serbian Orthodox Church is pretty big.

Bouley: Yes. I’m not surprised that in small-town Serbia this would happen. I thought of that because of small-town Serbia. In large cities in Serbia, there’s obviously been LGBTQ advancement. They’ve had Pride events for 25 years. But in the small cities, it’s still dangerous to be gay. The cops knew it. They told these guys, hey, don’t bring your caravan into town.

It makes me realize that as a gay person, even though cities aren’t the safest, we are still safer in larger cities than we are in rural areas because they tend to be more conservative and more religious.

Jacobsen: I get the biggest pushback in any conversation in support of LGBTQI+ from three groups. Traditionally, for me, ultra-religious communities. That’s quite natural. Rural communities or individuals, regardless of socioeconomics, ideologically or familially…

Bouley: Or in the South.

Jacobsen: Or in the South.

Bouley: But one of the things we don’t emphasize enough is when we do these stories from around the globe, and some of them are bad, they are often from rural communities, small little countries, or isolated places.

This show will chart in Sierra Leone. I have not gone lower than number 20 on the chart in Sierra Leone in three weeks. Three weeks I’ve been in the top 20, every one of my shows, including This Gay Week, which is interesting to me because Sierra Leone only has one gay protection. That’s for the workplace, and it’s barely enforced.

In rural cities in Sierra Leone, it’s not a good situation. It’s always the smaller communities that are the challenge. That’s the same thing here in the United States. Las Vegas, three million people, being gay here, is it a big deal sometimes? But not for the most part, no. But go to Tonopah, go to Carson City, go to Reno, which are much smaller cities. Yes, being gay is still an issue in Nevada, even though you would think not.

Jacobsen: They’ll see it as someone from Canada. That’s a Western thing. We don’t want you imposing LGBT on the blank place. Or you’re from the big city, or you’re some elite intellectual type, or whatever it might be.

Bouley: It’s as if they don’t have gay people in rural places in every region of the world. Tennessee is a homophobic state. Nashville is filled with gays, and then there are the rural areas, and there’s gay farmers. There’s a whole gay farming community. We found out here on the show. Remember the gay farmers? Who knew?

We’ll end with a story from your country. Your real country, not the one you’re currently in. Canada’s Thunderhead Monument is slated to be unveiled in Ottawa on Friday. The monument is also a vision that was brought to life by a team of Winnipeggers. They won an international design competition to start the design of the monument. They are, in fact, Shawna Dempsey and Lorri Millan.

If they’re not lesbians, they should change their hairstyles because they have shorter gray hair, like me. The monument depicts the strength, hope, and resilience of queer communities in Canada, including the Indigenous.

Canada is putting up a monument to say, “We’re sorry. We treated you like shit. We know it, and we’re sorry.” That’s pretty cool.

Jacobsen: It’s a good… I mean, Canada’s pretty good on these issues now. And this is a continuing moment of a good trend. As with any country, they can always go back, so I’m somewhat a little bit hesitant.

Bouley: Because you guys had your Lavender Scare. You had a Lavender Scare in Canada. It was the LGBT Purge, a systematic, decades-long campaign by the Canadian government to identify and expel thousands of queer members of the Canadian Armed Forces, the RCMP, and members of the federal public service between 1950 and 1990.

That is exactly what the Lavender Scare was here. You guys had the LGBTQ Purge. We had the Lavender Scare. We didn’t keep it up until the ’90s. A class-action lawsuit was launched in 2016 against the federal government over the purge, and a settlement was reached in 2018. I don’t suppose we could sue the federal government here.

In addition to compensating survivors, the LGBT Purge Fund was established as a nonprofit corporation to manage the fund.

Of the settlements that were dedicated to reconciliation and the memorialization effort. The Thunderhead Monument is the first of its kind in the world. Canada’s leading the way in the apology movement. I say good for you.

Jacobsen: This is helpful for societies that may be with less functional democracies or less responsive institutions.

Bouley: That’s where Trump leaves in 2028. Are you telling me that I wait till 2038, till I’m 73, to start seeing some positivity again in the United States gay community?

Jacobsen: The United States is famously adaptable and rapidly changing, but it could happen sooner.

Bouley: I want cash. Fuck that. I want cash. I want money for what Donald put me through.

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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.