This Gay Week 23: LGBTQ Safety, Pride, and Youth Courage

Karel Bouley is a trailblazing LGBTQ broadcaster, entertainer, and activist. As half of the first openly gay duo in U.S. drive-time radio, he made history while shaping California law on LGBTQ wrongful death cases. Karel rose to prominence as the #1 talk show host on KFI AM 640 in Los Angeles and KGO AM 810 in San Francisco, later expanding to Free Speech TV and the Karel Cast podcast. His work spans journalism (HuffPost, The Advocate, Billboard), television (CNN, MSNBC), and the music industry. A voting member of NARAS, GALECA, and SAG-AFTRA, Karel now lives and creates in Las Vegas.

Karel Bouley and Scott Douglas Jacobsen discuss LGBTQ safety amid war, backlash, and visibility, moving from Kyiv missile attacks to Alex Rodda’s murder, Caleb Shomo’s coming out, London Colney Pride’s cancellation, UK trans bathroom restrictions, Senegal’s anti-gay rhetoric, and Daniel Mattingly’s viral Kentucky graduation speech. The exchange argues that democracy, public leadership, and honest self-acceptance shape whether queer youth face fear, silence, violence, or courage—and why Pride remains necessary today, globally, still in public life.

Karel Bouley: What else can I say? Everyone is gay. If they are, we’re going to talk about them this week on This Gay Week with me and Scott Jacobsen, who is still in Ukraine and still alive. Those are two very good things.

All right, it is The Karel Show. I am Karel, and this is This Gay Week with Scott Jacobsen. I actually do this for him and for The Good Men Project, which is a fabulous website. If you have not gone there, go there and read the different stories. It is not an LGBTQ website, but it really is a very interesting site that is doing its best to combat toxic masculinity by highlighting very positive stories.

There are some negative stories there too, but it has a lot of good stuff as well. I am curious how he viewed, well, he probably has not seen it, but there is a show called Adolescence, which deals with toxic masculinity. You write for The Good Men Project, so it is obvious that one of the characters in that show is not a good man. There is a gay guy in it too.

First of all, welcome, Scott. I have to tell you, I was more than a little concerned, more than I have been at any other point during your time in Ukraine, because we have become friends. This last week, we here in America heard the horror stories about this hypersonic missile and all the other things that happened where you are in Kyiv. I was very worried. So I am very glad that you are here, both on the show and physically still on the planet.

Before we get to This Gay Week, give us an update since you are there. We heard a lot this week about hypersonic missiles and more bombs and drones than have fallen on Kyiv in recent months. What is it like there now?

Jacobsen: People were genuinely scared on the morning of the 24th. My understanding is that the bombing lasted about four hours, plus or minus. That probably varied depending on where people were geographically. The estimates were about 90 missiles and 600 drones.

The Ukrainian defenses are exceptionally good against the drones. At a minimum, 70 percent are knocked down, and in some cases up to 90 percent or more. But it depends.

Bouley: If 600 are coming into one place, primarily Kyiv at that time, even if 100 make it through, that is still a serious concern. The same goes for this hypersonic missile they were hyping. They were very proud of it, multiple times faster than the speed of sound and capable of carrying a nuclear warhead.

Jacobsen: So far, though, the reports around its battlefield effectiveness remain mixed. One reportedly misfired into occupied territory, and another struck near Bila Tserkva. I actually talked to a friend whose hometown is there.

The speed of this missile is exceptionally fast. That reporting is accurate. Some hypersonic missiles can reach speeds above Mach 10 because they travel on a high-altitude trajectory before descending at extreme velocity.

Bouley: That is faster than a gay man at a Prada sale. I will tell you that right now. That is fast.

Jacobsen: A Prada clearance sale.

Bouley: Exactly. A Prada outlet store. I am very happy that you are okay. I am not happy that you are in the middle of a war zone, but you are a reporter, and this is what you do. You are thriving and loving it, and I am hating it.

I saw a female behind you there. If I saw that, I would be running around every day going, “Ah!” She was getting something out of the fridge. So life sort of goes on there. Although, with no end in sight, I wonder how long this ridiculousness will keep up. But that is why you are there.

All right, we are going to do stories from This Gay Week, gay and lesbian stories from around the globe, some old, some new.

We are going to start with an older one because it is new again. There is a new show out called Social Media Murders. I watch all of these murder-death-kill reality shows, and this one popped up. Oh, you might like this one. It is actually set in Canada and Great Britain. That is where they pull their stories from. And the guy, you can tell from the accent. Murders sound better when told by a Brit or a Canadian. They have lovely accents.

“Oh yes, we were searching for his body.” “Oh, were you now?”

So I became acquainted with the story, and then I did research on it. This story exemplifies what we talk about every week, why Pride is still important and why it is important to talk about LGBTQ issues.

A lot of modern-day LGBTQ youth, Gen Z, Gen Y, Gen X, Gen Alpha, whatever, they hear some of the stories that we do and think, “Oh, it is either in a country I will never visit, or it was in the ancient past.”

I got a great reminder lately that things are happening every day that we still need to talk about and expose because they show why Pride events matter, why legislation matters, and why what we do matters.

By the way, I post the show not only on my social media outlets, but also on SoundCloud through Progressive Voices Network. When we do these This Gay Week episodes, they are always number one. It is currently number one there right now on the Progressive Voices Network.

Jacobsen: That is fantastic.

Bouley: Yes. Congratulations to us. Every week that you and I do them and I post them on SoundCloud through Progressive Voices Network, they rank number one for that week. It almost makes me think I should do a weekly gay show.

But they always rank number one, and I am thrilled that people are listening because I want to tell you all, and maybe tell Scott, because Scott probably did not know, this story was six years ago, which may sound like ancient history in today’s world, but it is not. It was only six years ago. Seven years ago total.

It exemplifies to me how some things never change.

There was a young, gorgeous boy named Alex Rodda. Alex Rodda was a wonderfully bright, flamboyant, and fabulous high school kid, much like myself. But the difference is Alex had access to social media, and that is why his story is featured on Social Media Murders.

He met someone on social media, and they became romantic online and then in person. But then Alex and his friends found out that the person becoming romantically involved with Alex had a girlfriend and was living a completely separate life. No one knew that he also dated young guys.

Now, this was not an older person. It was not a 30-year-old while Alex was only 17. This was someone his age, but someone living a double life.

I know a little about that because, believe it or not, in junior high school and during my first year of high school, I had a girlfriend. We had sex. I fully tried to do what society was telling me I needed to do, and I could not.

Because I met Eddie in my first year of high school and fell madly and deeply in love. Cynthia, my girlfriend, still hates me to this day because she actually thought we were going to get married. We were that serious. I was at her house all the time, we were having sex, and everywhere we went, everyone thought we were a couple and that we were going to end up married.

Then I am like, “Sorry, I love him.”

And she should have known. Come on, it was me.

But I did not. I knew, but I did not want to admit it because this was the 1970s. I knew that my life would be hard, so I desperately wanted to be straight. I tried to be, but I could not. It lasted a year and a half, and then I realized, “Girl, you love Barbra Streisand more than you love your girlfriend, so you have got a problem.”

So I was honest about it. I told her. I did not hide that I was sleeping with Eddie from her. I told her before sleeping with Eddie, and we broke up. Then I went on to sleep with Eddie. I remember that time very well.

In Alex’s case, the guy that he fell in love with, or wanted to date, or whatever, was somehow either outed or afraid of being outed when Alex’s friends found out that this guy was two-timing Alex. To keep his secret, he killed Alex.

That is not an uncommon occurrence in the gay world. We as gay men fall for, or engage in relationships with, men who are willing participants. We are not raping them. They are willing participants. Then all of a sudden, they disgust themselves for what they are doing. They take their hatred of themselves, their self-loathing, out on the person they blame for it.

In this case, Alex’s partner blamed him, and so he killed him. This is something that still happens today. It especially happens to young people, all because a man cannot deal with the fact that he is either bi, which this guy might have been, or gay and on the down low.

This is exemplified again in a story that you may follow. Are you familiar with the rock band Beartooth?

Jacobsen: A rock frontman. Caleb Shomo of Beartooth.

Bouley: So he was married, I believe, to a woman.

Jacobsen: Fourteen years.

Bouley: Fourteen years, and they are going to be separating. He struggled that entire time with his sexuality privately. He did not share it. He self-medicated with alcohol and drugs.

Beartooth, or Bear Claw, or whatever its name is. I think it should be Bear Claw, but whatever.

Jacobsen: Maybe Beartooth was having White Claws.

Bouley: Right. Beartooth. I imagine their demographic is not exactly the gay and lesbian demographic. He came out this week after 14 years of being married to a woman.

It is not uncommon for a man who is dating a woman or married to one to finally deal with his feelings. However, it is also not uncommon for a man who is married to a woman or dating a woman to act on his gay or bi urges and then kill the gay person he has had sex with.

So I wanted to start with this story of the lovely Alex Rodda, who you all should look up. He should not have died. He should be alive with us right now. He should be in his mid-twenties. He should be dating the lead singer of Beartooth. He should not be dead.

Jacobsen: He should not be dead.

Bouley: Right. But he is. And I want you all to know there are so many of these stories still happening right now, especially to young people, because when you have a Donald Trump and other people in the world who are pushing gay rights backward, who are trying to put people back in the closet, who are trying to punish gay people, when you have that happening, people are less likely to express their bisexuality or their gayness in a positive fashion and more likely to kill or harm gay people because they blame them for their feelings.

I have slept with men who identify as straight, and there have been a couple who tried to get violent afterward. To my advantage, I am five foot ten and rather big, and I do not fuck around. So that got stopped quickly.

But they were so self-loathing. I could not see them anymore.

Jacobsen: We also have the penile plethysmograph studies, I am not remembering the exact title at the moment. I will give you the CliffsNotes version, which you will find very funny. As far as I know, this was peer-reviewed research, and I learned about it in psychology classes.

Bouley: They put straight men in front of straight porn and then in front of gay porn, while attaching sensors to measure penile arousal. A surprising number of the straight men became physiologically aroused by the gay porn.

Jacobsen: Close. The important finding was that those who rated higher on measures of homophobia showed higher physiological reactivity. The blood flow response is not something they consciously control. That is the key part.

Bouley: Every gay man will tell you that the more a man objects to homosexuality, the more likely he is to want to sleep with a man. That is why so many anti-gay Christian ministers get caught with other men. They are suppressing something.

And in the Alex Rodda case, it is the exact same emotional dynamic. The guy he was dating was such a homophobe, and hated himself so much, that the thought of having slept with another man contributed to him killing the other man.

So this is very dangerous. That is why I wanted to bring it up and let everyone listening know: first of all, if you are gay, it might seem fun to fool around with forbidden fruit, but do not. It is forbidden for a reason.

I cannot tell you how many skinheads I had sex with when I lived in Huntington Beach, and then the next week they were out there bashing gays. I literally saw them bashing gay people, and yet I had slept with them the week before.

So this is common. It happens. If you have children and you think they are gay, have these discussions with them. Share the story of Alex Rodda with them. If you have grandchildren, nieces, or nephews, share the story of Alex Rodda. Do not let him be forgotten.

And let there be a lesson that if someone is self-loathing, not fully out, or whatever, you cannot fix them. Run. Do not walk. Run.

And yes, the bigger the homophobe, the more likely they are to actually be gay or want to have gay sex, which explains why Grindr actually crashes at most Republican events.

Jacobsen: That is true. You told me that.

Bouley: Yeah. “The lady doth protest too much, methinks.”

So there is that. That was the first story I wanted to lead with only because I have seen it happen so many times, where people get hurt or get killed. This is happening right now in the trans community as well. A guy will sleep with a male-to-female transgender person. He will then find out that she was once male, and even though she is a woman now, he will commit violence against this trans person for not telling him that she was once male, or simply because he found out.

I had a friend named Neoka. She was trans and had not had bottom surgery yet. And yes, she used to be a sex worker for fun and profit. When we went to West Hollywood and needed drink money, she would go work Sunset for an hour or two, come back, and we would do a night on the town.

God bless Neoka. One time, Neoka came back bruised and bloodied. That was because she did not tell the date that even though she had breasts and looked like a woman, she still had male genitalia. When he reached down and discovered it, even though she tried to stop him, he beat the crap out of her.

So this happens. Know that it happens. If you have a gay person in your life, share the story of Alex Rodda and make them aware that there are dangers to dating someone who is closeted.

And if you are dating someone who is closeted, do not threaten to out them. Walk away. I know you want to say, “Well, I am going to tell your girlfriend,” or, “What would she say about this?” No. Do not do that. You could end up dead.

All right, let us move on to London Colney. It is an example of hate crime leading to a larger cancellation, and I am sure you probably saw the story from Hertfordshire, the den of gayness, all of Hertfordshire.

They had two Pride flags torn down and continued acts of vandalism, so the first Loud and Proud event, which was going to be held at Shirley’s Roadhouse in London Colney, has been canceled.

It is really sad. They were going to have live music from Christina Aguilera, Elton John, and Britney Spears tribute acts, because they could not afford the real ones.

But organizers said banners advertising the event had been removed from outside the venue twice. Fearing for the safety of the people who would show up, they canceled the event.

This shows you that every country is having its issues right now. It is not just America. Every country is having its issues.

That is a sad story, actually, because they were so happy to have their first Pride event, and now they are not.

Jacobsen: I asked you a few weeks ago whether you thought the declines in democracy, going off Freedom House reports over approximately the last two decades showing declines in democratic governance globally and rises in autocratic tendencies, if that trend is correlated, in an evidentiary way, with declines in equality for LGBTQ people in society. I believe we were in agreement that it is quite likely that when you see declines in democratic governance, you also see declines in equality for people within a society.

Bouley: Unequivocally. Beyond a doubt. Unequivocally, yes. The thing I have always talked about here in the United States is that the bully pulpit is the most powerful thing the president has. Period. That is the most important thing he has. And Trump uses it a lot. He really is a bully. It is not called the bully pulpit for that reason, but the president,

When a president speaks, people listen. “Careful the things you say, children will listen.”

When a president speaks, people listen. He sets the tone. So when we have presidents like Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Kennedy, or Carter who are generally supportive of LGBTQ rights, even Obama was not for same-sex marriage when he took office, okay? He was not. He made that clear. He later evolved on that issue.

But he also was not anti-gay. He did not preach against same-sex marriage.

So it sets a tone more than anything else. It is not so much that leaders are autocratic. It is more their mood, their speech, and their persona. That affects the people they govern.

Someone who is very far to the right on issues keeps talking that way, and their country swings to the right. Someone who is very far to the left talks that way, and their country swings to the left. Not magically, it is the bully pulpit. It is the message being sent from the top.

Recently, across the globe, it has become much easier for leaders, even in the UK, to either not talk about LGBTQ issues at all or to back away from them.

Adam Mockler was interviewed in The Advocate saying Democrats should not throw gay people under the bus in the next election, which some appear prepared to do. He argued they should double down on support for LGBTQ people because you do not win elections by abandoning a group that supports you.

But even Democrats are now afraid to make gay issues central because of the damage Trump has done.

So yes, autocrats and the erosion of democratic societies do breed more conservatism, which often means fewer LGBTQ rights. Then someone to the left gets power and suddenly gay rights advance again. It is like two Hondas passing on the freeway. Someone to the left comes into power in whatever country you want to name, and LGBTQ people flourish. Then the right takes hold, and LGBTQ rights recede. Then the left again, then the right again. Sometimes you end up roughly equal.

But yes, the president, the cabinet, and the mood set by those people trickle down and affect both policy and the mood of the people being governed.

So in the UK right now, since we are talking about the UK, we have Nigel Farage, who is once again gaining political influence. He backed a preacher who said homosexuality was an abomination. He was criticized for that, but not ostracized. There is a big difference.

And I do not think we should merely criticize these people. We should ostracize them, but we do not.

So Farage gets to back this preacher who says homosexuality is an abomination. Preachers who think homosexuality is an abomination are the real abominations, but that is me. Probably God is on my side with that, if there is one, but I do not believe in fairy tales. I stopped believing in Santa Claus and unicorns.

And I do not believe in the literal truth of their Christ story.

I found out something interesting, not to get off topic, but did you know the Gospels were probably not written directly by Mark, Luke, Matthew, and John? The names were attached later through church tradition. The earliest Gospel manuscripts themselves were anonymous and did not identify authors within the text. So those four Gospels, you can look it up. It is verifiable.

The four Gospels of the Bible, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, were originally written anonymously. They were later attributed through church tradition to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, even though modern scholarship generally does not conclude that those named figures directly authored the texts.

Jacobsen: There are probably linguistic traces suggesting multiple authors, editorial layers, discrepancies in style, referential inconsistencies, and so on.

Bouley: In the original texts, since we are talking about it, and since Nigel Farage now has this preacher out there calling homosexuality an abomination, there was no modern concept or word equivalent to “homosexuality” as we understand it today. In fact, the word “homosexual” did not appear in some English Bible translations until the twentieth century.

The passages people often cite, particularly from Leviticus, are heavily debated by scholars. Some scholars argue those verses referred more specifically to exploitative sexual behavior, temple practices, or abuses involving power and age differences rather than consensual same-sex relationships as understood today.

So throughout the biblical texts, there is no modern framework for homosexuality in the contemporary sense. You can check that. Many scholars will back me up on that.

Jacobsen: Some popular pastors, maybe not necessarily Rick Warren, but someone like Mark Driscoll from the Seattle area, later associated with Trinity Church in Arizona, have framed these issues around the Greek term porneia. That ends up collapsing everything into one category, including premarital sex, infidelity, homosexuality, and other forms of sexual conduct.

Bouley: And look, if God were against being gay, he would not have let his son roam the desert for 40 days with men in dresses. I am just saying.

So there is that.

But anyway, yes, it is very important. And “Jesus Christ” would historically have been closer to “Yeshua.” The English letter J did not even exist in the ancient languages involved.

So Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, recorded a video with Stephen Clayton after Colchester Council applied for a banning order to limit his street preaching. They wanted to limit his ability to stand outside and shout at people.

We will talk more about limiting street preaching when we come back, but I am all for it. So this guy, Clayton, preaches for the Bread of Life Church. There was a complaint against his street preaching, particularly after he said:

“Adulterers, all fornicators, all sodomites, all drunkards, all thieves, all blasphemers, all liars, all mockers, their home shall be in the Lake of Fire.”

Which honestly sounds like a party I would want to attend. He was out there saying they are all going to live in the Lake of Fire, which is obviously the address you want if you are hoping for a fun afterlife.

Jacobsen: I am sure they meant sparklers, not fire.

Bouley: Exactly. In the same session, he told listeners that people are offended by words in the Bible such as judgment, sin, and repentance. He said they are offended when the Bible says homosexuality is an abomination.

The council asked him to show the exact scripture that explicitly says “homosexuality is an abomination,” and he could not, because there is no verse using that modern terminology.

Jacobsen: That is embarrassing.

Bouley: Well, because there is no such scripture. So Nigel Farage got criticized for hanging out with him. As far as I am concerned, I do not like either of them.

Nigel Farage is not going to become prime minister. I know there is turmoil and Starmer may or may not survive politically, but Farage is not going to be the next one. While we are in the UK, let us talk toilets, because people are obsessed with bathrooms.

In your lifetime, have you ever heard this much discussion about bathrooms? Ever?

Jacobsen: It is not a major issue for me personally.

Bouley: Well, it is for your government, my government, and the government of the UK.

Jacobsen: Except while camping. Then it can become urgent.

Bouley: Why can we not just treat public bathrooms like camping? When you are out in the woods, there are no male or female bathrooms. It is just any port in a storm, go.

Jacobsen: The important question there is whether there is a bear around.

Bouley: Exactly. So, according to new guidance from the Equality and Human Rights Commission in the UK, single-sex spaces such as changing rooms and toilets should be used on the basis of biological sex. This guidance was approved by ministers following the recent UK Supreme Court ruling regarding the legal definition of sex under equality law.

Under this interpretation, a trans woman, someone born biologically male who identifies and lives as a woman, would generally not be permitted to use women’s toilets or changing rooms under the proposed guidance.

And I am gobsmacked.

So what you are saying is that a male-to-female trans person who presents socially and physically as female, with breasts, makeup, hair, perhaps even gender-affirming surgery, is supposed to go into the men’s restroom? That is somehow going to be easier to explain to your child than that person quietly using the women’s restroom, where your child probably would not even notice anything at all?

Does it not seem like they are creating the very problems they claim they are trying to solve?

And again, is there going to be some kind of national genital inspector? Is “bathroom junk checker” going to become a job description?

Because how is anyone supposed to know? If you are a woman in a women’s restroom and another woman walks in, beautiful woman, ordinary woman, whatever, and she goes into a stall and pees, how are you going to know?

So here is what I want to have happen. I want a family, a man and his kids, to be in the men’s restroom. Then I want a woman who is vivaciously gorgeous to walk in, go up to the urinal, and whip out a schlong that would make a donkey proud. I want that guy to explain that to his kids.

Because that is what these policies are asking for. They are literally creating problems for themselves.

And up until Donald Trump got elected into office, almost no one anywhere had a public problem with trans people using bathrooms. I had not heard it in the news. The Advocate was not writing about it for decades. It was not on the legislative agendas of countries throughout most of my lifetime.

But suddenly, suddenly, Donald Trump takes office, and the entire world is worried about where trans people pee.

Jacobsen: Including Mr. Trump. You noted before that he did not seem to have much issue at all with LGBT people before becoming heavily political.

Bouley: I cannot believe I am saying this, but it is true. Donald Trump was actually comparatively tolerant toward LGBTQ people before he ran for political office. He spoke many times about people having equal rights. He often said gay people did not bother him and that he was fine with it, he lived in New York, for the love of God.

Now, Black people? That was a different story. There were the Central Park Five ads, the housing discrimination lawsuits against his properties, and all of that. He absolutely had a documented history there.

But with gay people, the shift largely came later.

Remember what he is: an opportunist. When he ran for office, he realized that parts of the MAGA movement had strong anti-LGBT sentiments. So suddenly he adapted to that environment. And even now he is inconsistent on it.

He has said at times that he has no problem with gay people, that gay people support him, and so on. Then ten minutes later he will condemn trans people or support policies such as conversion therapy-adjacent rhetoric.

He has no stable moral compass. He moves in whatever direction he thinks benefits him politically. If it is advantageous to speak against gay people, he will do that. If it is advantageous to support them, he will do that too.

He is for something until he is against it.

And I hate people who change their opinions simply because they want to be popular.

We have spoken about Senegal a lot. We talked back in March about new laws there severely punishing gay people. I had to send this story because I loved what the leader said about “Western tyranny.”

Go ahead and read the headline. I want to hear it from somebody else because it is so absurd.

Jacobsen: This is from Le Monde, a prominent French publication. Senegalese Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko denounced what he called Western “tyranny,” claiming that Western powers are seeking to impose homosexuality globally.

Bouley: It is about time! The Global Gay Agenda is finally here.

Jacobsen: I am not aware of any serious evidence supporting the idea that Western governments are attempting to “impose homosexuality” globally, even within subcultures or activist spaces.

Bouley: Well, I will say this: in the 1940s, the United States military did reportedly explore bizarre concepts, including theoretical chemical weapons intended to affect soldiers’ sexual behavior. So history occasionally gets weird.

That is true. It is researchable. No, this is factual. You can look it up. During the Cold War era, the U.S. military and defense researchers explored a number of bizarre theoretical ideas, including proposals for so-called “gay bombs” that were speculated to affect enemy troop behavior. Most of it never moved beyond proposals and was widely regarded as pseudoscientific nonsense.

The idea was that if they deployed such a weapon against enemy soldiers, the troops would either become distracted or lose cohesion. That shows you how little respect many people had for gay people at the time.

Jacobsen: They also hired psychics and explored paranormal research during that era. There was a lot of nonsense, on the Nazi side especially, but also at times on the American side.

Bouley: As far as we know, none of that worked, and we do not possess magical homosexuality weapons. So I am not sure how we would supposedly “impose homosexuality” on the world.

But the Senegalese leader seems to think that the West, which is simultaneously busy banning trans people from bathrooms, is somehow trying to impose homosexuality globally.

First of all, dude, you live in Senegal, where there are major economic and social issues. There are bigger fish to fry.

Second, nowhere in the article does he explain this “tyranny.” He does not provide concrete examples of how Western countries are supposedly imposing homosexuality on the world.

Jacobsen: It rides a broader anti-Western sentiment that exists globally right now, for some understandable historical reasons and also for many less defensible reasons. But in general, it externalizes responsibility and becomes politically useful rhetoric.

As you were noting earlier, there is a parallel with Donald Trump and political opportunism. If the mood of a country turns against gay people, some politicians will amplify anti-gay rhetoric. If the mood shifts in favor of gay rights, those same figures may suddenly sound supportive.

Bouley: If the mood of his country were strongly pro-gay, Trump would probably be sucking dick at the podium. I am just saying. I am tired of this.

Jacobsen: There are African states, and you are aware of this, where horrific things still happen. I saw a heartbreaking documentary featuring a lesbian woman discussing corrective rape, where straight men raped lesbian women believing it would somehow make them straight. That happens in other contexts too, but this documentary focused specifically on that. And in a similar way, the “problem” in that worldview is not the violence itself. The problem, to them, is that she is lesbian. That becomes the target.

Bouley: Right. And that is not far off from reparative therapy. There are religious organizations and conversion-therapy-style programs right here in the United States that have historically pressured young gay men into sexual relationships with women in attempts to “make them straight.”

It does not work. They spend most of their time talking about Euphoria and doing their hair. I finally watched Euphoria. I had never seen it because I thought, “Why do I want a teen drama?” But I do love Jacob Elordi. I had no idea Zendaya’s character was surrounded by so many queer storylines and that there were so many LGBTQ themes in it. I was like, “What is this show?”

So I started watching Euphoria, and I can see why the right gets upset about it. It portrays youth honestly. Young people are struggling. They are trying to figure themselves out, especially sexually. At that age, people often do not have all the answers, and experimentation and uncertainty are part of growing up.

But yes, corrective rape, I have heard of that. Have you ever heard of a gay man “correctively” raping a straight man in an attempt to make him gay? Have you ever heard of that?

Jacobsen: No. In fact, the earlier part of today’s show was about almost the exact opposite phenomenon: shame-based reactive violence. A person engages in behavior that conflicts with what they believe society permits, and then reacts violently because the behavior reflects their actual orientation or desires.

Bouley: Then you get the Beartooth case.

Bouley: Beartooth. Thank you. Now, I am forgetting that. See, if it had been called Bear Claw, we all would remember it.

Jacobsen: Right. In many of these cases, people end up living under lies. Society pressures them into denying who they are, and then we wonder why some act out in destructive ways. It is because they are being forced to pretend to be someone they are not.

Bouley: Exactly. And to end today, we have something actually nice. Which brings us to a gay Kentucky eighth grader, which right there already sounds like the setup for a miniseries. I could pitch that to a studio immediately: A Gay Kentucky Eighth Grader. Say no more. Let us sign the paperwork and get the show produced.

At Stuart Academy in Louisville, a gay eighth grader named Daniel Mattingly gave a graduation speech.

And he was the graduation speaker. This is obviously a smart kid, because we usually are. At the end of the speech, he said, “This school is fucking ridiculous,” referring to the racism and homophobia he experienced there. The clip has since gone viral.

Jacobsen: But that was very brave.

Bouley: It really was. And here is how I see it: the fact that this eighth grader in Kentucky felt empowered to do this means two things. First, he has good parents, or had a strong support system around him.

Second, there is an element of fearlessness to him, because think about where he grew up, how he grew up, who he was speaking in front of at Stuart Academy in Kentucky, and what it took to actually make that speech.

We often talk about bad things, but he apparently said, “This school does not know better than to give an angry gay kid a microphone.”

Jacobsen: I love that line.

Bouley: Apparently, the school did not know better than to give an angry gay kid a microphone.

The school had asked him to speak because of his involvement in student council. So student council must have been even more fire.

He said:

“When my father died, I was in sixth grade, sitting alone at lunch every single day. I was getting bullied by the people I called my friends. I missed an ungodly amount of school because of my dad’s death and my mom’s sickness.”

Then he said:

“It was not very different in seventh grade. After my mom died, I was being taken care of by my sister, who taught me how to clean around the house, but she was struggling with grief and other personal problems while in an extremely abusive relationship.”

He also discussed relationship difficulties and the impact on his mental health.

“Not having any friends took a toll on me. I was close to committing suicide the week my boyfriend, my only friend at the time, broke up with me.”

This is a kid speaking right now, in 2026.

“In fact, it still affects me. My best friend Ava is the only reason anybody knows my name in this school.”

Do you hear this? We know from last week that LGBTQ youth suicide rates and suicidal ideation remain alarmingly high.

He continued:

“I had a speech ready to cheer on and encourage any oppressed youth, which makes up the entirety of this school.”

Is that not an interesting statement?

Then he said:

“I was told by Mr. Dawson and Ms. Imes that there is a time and a place. My speech was too negative and too controversial.”

And then:

“This school is built on racism, sexism, and homophobia. I encourage everyone here today to stand up for yourself, even if it makes a scene. This school is fucking ridiculous.”

I only hope, my sincerest wish, is that this kid, Daniel Mattingly, runs for office someday.

Because he showed his speech to the authorities. They told him not to do it. Then he sat down at the microphone and delivered it anyway.

Congratulations to this kid.

Jacobsen: Daniel, if you or someone who knows you ever happens to see this podcast in the future, and if the proper guardian permissions are in place if you are still underage at that time, I would happily interview you and profile your story. It deserves attention.

Bouley: And he goes, “I am on the news now, so I guess it got where it needed to go.” He is happy the story went viral, and he is happy it made the news because he wanted to call out Stuart Academy. And I love how he said something so powerful that he probably does not even realize how powerful it is:

“I had something ready to encourage any oppressed youth, which makes up the entirety of this school.”

That is such a powerful statement. We think all kids are well-adjusted except for the minorities, the gay kids, the Black kids, whoever. Nope. Every single middle school kid feels oppressed in some way, shape, or form. They feel put upon, or like the world is too much.

Every single one of them.

And when we start recognizing that, that it is not just the gay kids, that every kid in middle school is trying to fucking figure it out, then maybe we can actually help them instead of making things worse.

And Daniel said:

“This school is fucking ridiculous.”

Jacobsen: I love that line.

Bouley: “Ridiculous.” From an eighth grader, okay? Run for office, please. I was my graduation speaker too. I was in twelfth grade at Long Beach Poly.

Jacobsen: I am not surprised.

Bouley: At the Long Beach Arena. Eighteen thousand people in attendance because our graduating class was 2,700 people.

Jacobsen: Those are Madison Square Garden numbers.

Bouley: Yes! Oh yeah. I have always been in the big time. And I will never forget it. I look back on it now and laugh, but I still remember my opening line because it was so gay.

I walked up there in my cap and gown with my A Star Is Born-era Barbra Streisand perm, the exact same hairstyle she had in A Star Is Born, done at Jon Peters’ salon, the same place that styled her hair. Jon did not do mine personally because if he had, I probably would have slept with him, and Barbra might have gotten mad at me.

So I walk up there and stand in front of twenty thousand people. It did not faze me at all.

And my opening line was:

“What are you doing the rest of your life?”

“Well, that is the musical question posed by Marilyn and Alan Bergman in the song of the same name from the Barbra Streisand album The Way We Were.”

Now, you might not think that was groundbreaking, but I went to an overwhelmingly Black high school where nobody knew Barbra Streisand from bupkis.

Had I said Gladys Knight or someone like that, maybe.

At the time, it was The Sequence or the Sugarhill Gang, “Hip hop, a hippie to the hippie, the hip hip hop.” That came out when I was in school, in high school. Then The Sequence did the response record, “Funk You Up.” Angie Stone came out of The Sequence, a great vocalist who recently died in a car crash.

But anyway, I will never forget this.

I was in a play at Long Beach Poly, and I played the big gay guy. I was very gay on stage, and I had a gang-member nemesis, a Crip. He hated gay people. For some reason, he came to the play. I still do not know why.

So he comes backstage, and I am thinking, “Well, I am going to die on opening night. He is going to come back here and kill me,” because he had made it pretty clear he wanted to.

Instead, he walks up to me and says, “I have to stop teasing you.”

I said, “Okay, why?”

And he said, “You are really talented. You are extraordinarily funny. You carried the whole play. Your speech was wonderful. I have to fucking leave you alone now.”

Then he said, “By the way, you are protected now. Nobody is going to bother you.”

And I remember thinking how funny it is that when you live authentically, when you are out, proud, and no longer terrified of being judged or even hurt because you have to be yourself, you sometimes break down walls.

And I bet this kid, because he said he had no friends and was bullied, I bet he has friends now. I bet even some of the kids who bullied him before respect him now because he stood up, was not afraid, and said, “This school fucking sucks. This school is fucking ridiculous.”

I bet even the biggest homophobe in the school thought, “Yeah, he is fucking right.”

I am into the gays. Daniel gives me hope.

And because, as I said, the phrase “gay Kentucky eighth grader” already tells you something important: necessity is the mother of invention. And not just human invention, desperation has something to do with it too.

Jacobsen: Desperation can often be reframed as necessity.

Bouley: He was desperate for friends, for acceptance, for love. And he finally had enough and spoke out against it.

I hope there are going to be more kids in Kentucky like him. I am sure he has already given hope to some kid somewhere in Kentucky who heard that speech and now feels better about their own life.

Kentucky being one of the states we should maybe just get rid of.

That was actually my topic on the show Wednesday. I watched a documentary on Abraham Lincoln, and I contend that America did not really make it to its 250th birthday. I honestly believe America, as originally conceived, effectively fractured in 1861 with the beginning of the Civil War and the secession crisis.

If you look at the former Confederate states, Texas, Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, Florida, the Carolinas, and others, you can still see deep political and cultural divides that trace back to that era.

That is modern MAGA territory. Those are the states where white Christian nationalism has significant support. Many people there reject ideas about pluralism, equality, LGBTQ rights, and multicultural democracy.

And I think the Civil War never emotionally ended for a lot of this country. Legally, yes. Militarily, yes. But culturally? No.

That is why we continue having these fights. There are large parts of the country that fundamentally do not agree on what America is supposed to be.

And I am tired of kids like Daniel having to stand up against their schools in Kentucky when, frankly, he would probably have a much easier time in places like New York, Massachusetts, Washington, Oregon, or California.

They do not want what we are selling.

Jacobsen: “Real Americans” has become a phrase used in a very exclusionary way in some political subcultures.

Bouley: Exactly. It is like a different country.

All right, we will hopefully be back next week with more This Gay Week with Scott in Ukraine. I do not know when he is leaving Ukraine. He is becoming my Ukrainian friend.

Someday, maybe by the time I am a citizen, he will be back in Kansas.

—

Scott Douglas Jacobsen is a Writer-Editor for The Good Men Project with more than 1,900 publications on the platform. He is the Founder and Publisher of In-Sight Publishing (ISBN: 978-1-0692343; 978-1-0673505) and Editor-in-Chief of In-Sight: Interviews (ISSN: 2369-6885). He writes for International Policy Digest (ISSN: 2332–9416), The Humanist (Print: ISSN, 0018-7399; Online: ISSN, 2163-3576), Basic Income Earth Network (UK Registered Charity 1177066), Humanist Perspectives (ISSN: 1719-6337), A Further Inquiry (SubStack), Vocal, Medium, The New Enlightenment Project, The Washington Outsider, rabble.ca, and other media. His bibliography index can be found via the Jacobsen Bank at In-Sight Publishing comprised of more than 10,000 articles, interviews, and republications, in more than 200 outlets. He has served in national and international leadership roles within humanist and media organizations, held several academic fellowships, and currently serves on several boards. He is a member in good standing in numerous media organizations, including the Canadian Association of Journalists, PEN Canada (CRA: 88916 2541 RR0001), and Reporters Without Borders (SIREN: 343 684 221/SIRET: 343 684 221 00041/EIN: 20-0708028), and others.