The bold, brash and bawdy life and artistry of Sophie Tucker is captured in a risqué and raucous one-woman cabaret show written and performed by Laural Meade (interviewed by Brian DeShazor).
And in NewsWrap: the largest LGBTQ Pride March in Serbia’s history had several thousand people marching through the capital of Belgrade in defiance of violent threats, an accusation of theft in the midst of a contentious break-up gets two gay male Zimbabweans arrested for sodomy, the Australian Bureau of Statistics is refining questions about sexual orientation and gender identity for its 2026 Census, New South Wales has produced a study on puberty blockers for transgender young people that contradicts the U.K.’s controversial Cass Report, U.S.-based corporations Molson/Coors Brewing Company and toolmaking Stanley Black and Decker bow to right-wing pressure to abandon their workplace DEI programs, and more international LGBTQ news reported this week by Michael Taylor Gray and Melanie Keller (produced by Brian DeShazor).
All this on the September 16, 2024 edition of This Way Out!
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Complete Program Summary
for the week of September 9, 2024
Ms. Tucker Will See You Now
NewsWrap (full transcript below): Belgrade hosts the largest LGBTQ Pride Parade in Serbia’s history — since last year’s event — but it’s unclear if that will move the conservative government to advance queer rights in the Balkan nation … a gay male couple in their twenties in Zimbabwe accidentally out themselves to police and each now faces up to a year in prison for sodomy … the Australian government bows to pressure from LGBTQ advocates and from within the ruling Labor Party and announces the addition of questions about not only sexual orientation but gender identity in the 2026 Census [with brief comments by Treasurer JIM CHALMERS], but intersex people will still be invisible … a new study commissioned by the Australian state of New South Wales supports transgender healthcare, and calls puberty blockers and other current treatments for trans young people “safe, effective, and reversible” … Molson/Coors and Stanley Black & Decker join the list of cowardly companies bowing to rightwing social media pressure and abandoning their workplace diversity-equity-inclusion (DEI) policies and programs, but research suggests that by doing so those companies will lose customers in the long run, and Human Rights Campaign President KELLEY ROBINSON [brief audio] announces a record number of companies participating in its upcoming Corporate Equality Index survey (written by GREG GORDON and LUCIA CHAPPELLE, produced by BRIAN DeSHAZOR with thanks to BARRY McKAY, reported this week by MICHAEL TAYLOR GRAY and MELANIE KELLER) [9:15] + Twisted Trump on Trans Youth (with music by ALICE COOPER and PAUL SIMON).
Feature: The bold, brash and bawdy life and artistry of Sophie Tucker has been fascinating queer people for generations, and This Way Out’s BRIAN DeSHAZOR is no exception. So he was eager to chat with Laural Meade, the woman who’s bringing back the last of the red hot mamas in her one-woman show, Ms. Tucker Will See You Now. (with instrumental intro music by LEA DELARIA, and recorded performances by SOPHIE TUCKER and LAURAL MEADE).
NewsWrap
A summary of some of the news in or affecting
global LGBTQ communities
for the week ending September 14th, 2024
Written this week by Greg Gordon and Lucia Chappelle with thanks to Barry McKay,
reported this week by Michael Taylor Gray and Melanie Keller,
produced by Brian DeShazor
The largest LGBTQ Pride March in Serbia’s history had several thousand people marching through the capital of Belgrade on September 7th. They were not deterred by threats of violence from rightwing extremists or the recent attack on a young gay man for carrying a rainbow flag. Banners urged marchers to “Love and Be Brave.” The procession was protected by a heavy police presence.
Government protection from such verbal and physical violence has been a key Pride demand for years. Blatant discrimination routinely plagues sexual and gender minorities in the socially conservative Balkan nation. Despite record Pride March turnouts both last year and this, demands for the legal recognition of same-gender couples and laws protecting the rights of transgender people have gone ignored. It’s a major reason why Serbia’s bid to join the European Union has stalled.
Several ambassadors from Western countries led contingents in the March. Of course there was plenty of dance music blasting from large trucks, and lots of chanting and waving rainbow flags. Politicians from opposition political parties and a few of the Serbian government’s more progressive members joined in. More banners proclaimed, “No one is free until everyone is free,” “Love wins” and “Homophobia is Sooooo Boring!”
A small “boring” group in the center of the city protested the Pride March behind a banner reading “Parade Humiliation.” They also carried Serbian Orthodox Church symbols and Serbian flags.
Dozens of Russians fleeing the oppressive regime of Vladimir Putin and his war on Ukraine found a home in Belgrade’s Pride March.
A concert and after-party followed the March.
A gay male couple in Zimbabwe is sorry about getting the police involved during their messy break-up -- now each faces up to a year in prison for sodomy. Prosecutors say that Tavimbanashe Chawatama and Leonard Nyakudya moved in together last year, but had a falling out in August over issues of infidelity.
As Nyakudya was moving out, Chawatama accused him of stealing money. They went to the Harare police station over the alleged theft, but their cell phones revealed recordings of them having sex. That’s a violation of Section 73 (i) of the country’s penal code, a remnant of British colonial-era rule. It outlaws what it calls “… any act involving physical contact … that would be regarded by a reasonable person to be an indecent act ….” Those convicted of sodomy are liable for a fine and/or imprisonment for a year.
LGBTQ advocacy groups note that the police ignored the issue of the missing money that had prompted Chawatama and Nyakudya to seek their help in the first place. They’ve each been released on the equivalent of 50 U.S. dollars bail.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics will include questions about sexual orientation and gender identity in its 2026 Census. The ruling Labor Party had made a campaign promise to conduct an inclusive Census. However, officials had apparently ended up omitting any LGBTQ questions in a misplaced desire to avoid a “culture war” controversy.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese responded to the widespread criticism from queer rights groups and his own Labor Party last week, saying that questions about sexual orientation had been added. The absence of questions about gender identity prompted renewed criticism. That issue was addressed, and Treasurer Jim Chalmers updated Australian Bureau of Statistics policy again late this week during an interview on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation:
[SOUND: Chalmers]
The message that we want to insure that Australians hear from us today is that we understand the feedback that we got, we listened to that, we took it very seriously, we listened very genuinely, we said that we would find the best way to do this, and I believe that we have and we will, and the ABS will continue to refine the actual wording of the questions now that this additional topic has been added.
There’s still another painful omission, one that Intersex Human Rights Australia CEO Dr. Morgan Carpenter finds “devastating.” In his words, “It means we won’t get much-needed information on the health and wellbeing of people with innate variations of sex characteristics.”
Australia is making more gender identity news this week with an independent study commissioned by the state of New South Wales. The report concluded that the benefits of puberty blockers and other reversible treatments for transgender young people far outweigh any potential drawbacks.
That flies in the face of the U.K.’s controversial Cass Report, which reached the opposite conclusion. Under Britain’s Tory government, the Cass Report was used to temporarily ban pediatric gender affirming treatment in England, Scotland and Wales. The in-coming Labour Party government has signaled that it will make those restrictions permanent.
The Sax Institute is an independent non-profit that advocates for evidence-based healthcare solutions. It studied 82 papers on gender-affirming healthcare, including 17 focusing on puberty blockers that found them to be “safe, effective, and reversible.”
The report found that earlier studies in Australia had been poorly conducted for several different reasons. It concluded that the papers in their study “reported positive results across the domains of body image, gender dysphoria, depression, anxiety, suicide risk, quality of life and cognitive function …” According to the Sax Institute, “neutral and some negative findings were also reported in these domains,” and that “… two studies reported no changes in mental health care use following gender-affirming pharmaceutical care.”
The Institute said that further research is still an absolute must.
Finally, chalk up a couple more points for conspiracy-pushing social media troll Robby Starbuck and his rightwing minions. Two more U.S.-based corporations are bowing to their pressure to abandon policies encouraging diversity, equity and inclusion in their respective workplaces. This time it’s Molson/Coors Brewing Company and toolmaking Stanley Black and Decker.
Starbuck’s campaigns to “expose” what he calls companies’ unsavory “woke” policies has thus far brought down the DEI programs of Tractor Supply, John Deere, Jack Daniel’s, Harley-Davidson, Lowe’s Home Improvement and the Ford Motor Company.
In the long run, companies may find that running away from diversity means running away from customers. The Human Rights Campaign Foundation’s 2024 LGBTQ+ Climate Survey revealed that eighty percent of LGBTQ+ U.S. adults would boycott a company that rolled back its inclusive workplace policies. More than half said that they would use social media to encourage others to join a boycott.
Are workplace DEI policies really vanishing? Not according to the Human Rights Campaign’s upcoming Corporate Equality Index, to be published in early 2025. The queer advocacy group annually measures how a company’s policies and practices benefit LGBTQ workers. HRC President Kelley Robinson announced record participation in their Index survey this week. She told CNBC Squawk Box host Andrew Ross Sorkin that she sees no reason to panic about the highly publicized retreats away from DEI policies.
[SOUND: Robinson]
You know, I think that we’re not telling the whole story here. Sure, there are a handful of companies making these poor, short-sighted decisions. So while you may see Ford backing away, you have every other major automobile manufacturer in this country that’s participating in the CEI. This is, bottom line, the best thing to do for businesses, and that’s why I think that we’re seeing so much energy from employees, from consumers, and from shareholders starting to push back on these decisions these companies have made.
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