A series of murders centering on the Los Angeles gay men’s bar scene leads investigating officer Mike Thies to join forces with the community for an unprecedented search for the killer. (Part 1 of 2, produced by David Hunt)
And in NewsWrap: Russian orphans will not be finding new homes in countries where gender transitioning is available, Uzbekistan’s ruling National Revival Party’s government is drafting a measure to outlaw the discussion of LGBTQ subjects, a bill to prevent Ohio’s transgender students from using the appropriate bathroom at school awaits Republican Governor Mike DeWine’s signature, iconic lesbian feminist “Bastard Out of Carolina” author Dorothy Allison dies at the age of 75, the first out queer contingents will march in the Staten Island St. Patrick’s Day Parade, and more international LGBTQ news reported by Sarah Montague and Joe Boehnlein (produced by Brian DeShazor).
All this on the November 18, 2024 edition of This Way Out!
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Complete Program Summary
for the week of November 18, 2024
Manhunt: Queers and Cops Catch a Killer (Part 1)
NewsWrap (full transcript below): Russia’s lower house of parliament approves bills to ban the adoption of Russian children by people in countries that allow gender transitioning, and to outlaw any promotion of “non-traditional families” by media outlets that dissuade couples from having children; Uzbekistan’s government proposes a Russia-like “no promo homo” bill to ban the “promotion” of LGBTQ-related discourse; Ohio Republicans in the state legislature approve a bill to restrict access by trans students and school staff to sex-segregated campus facilities, such as bathrooms and changing rooms, based only on their birth certificate gender — at press time, it awaits the signature of Republican Governor Mike DeWine; iconic lesbian-feminist writer Dorothy Allison dies, reportedly from cancer, at the age of 75 [with excerpts from an early 1990s chat with Allison discussing her best-known work, Bastard Out Of Carolina]; it was announced this week that queer contingents will be welcomed at the 2025 St. Patricks Day Parade in New York’s Staten Island for the first time in 60 years (written by GREG GORDON and LUCIA CHAPPELLE, produced by BRIAN DeSHAZOR, reported this week by MARCOS NAJERA and ELENA BOTKIN-LEVY).
Feature: Relations between law enforcement and the LGBTQ community were hostile in the decades after Stonewall. Queers breaking out of the closet were often unlucky enough to find themselves handcuffed in the back seat of a police cruiser — picked up in police raids on bars and baths. So, you may be surprised to learn that cops and queers set aside their differences in Los Angeles in 1981, at least long enough to bring a killer to justice. In the first part of a two-part feature, This Way Out’s DAVID HUNT has the story of a West Hollywood manhunt with a Hollywood ending (with comments by the lead LAPD detective Mike Thies, and music by JAMES BLUNT, MICHAEL WITT and MICHAEL SHYNES).
NewsWrap
A summary of some of the news in or affecting
global LGBTQ communities
for the week ending November 16, 2024
Written by Greg Gordon and Lucia Chappelle,
reported this week by Marcos Najera and Elena Botkin-Levy,
produced by Brian DeShazor
Russian orphans will not be finding new homes in countries that support gender transitioning. State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin sponsored the bill in the lower house of parliament, where its final reading was approved. He wrote on the Telegram messaging app, “It is extremely important to eliminate possible dangers in the form of gender reassignment that adopted children may face in these countries.”
Volodin named at least 15 countries where those so-called “dangers” exist for adopted Russian children, including Australia, Argentina, Canada, and many European nations. Adoptions by U.S. citizens were halted after the negligent death of a Russian child in 2013. Russia banned adoptions by same-gender couples anywhere the same year.
Another measure advanced in the State Duma would add “childless propaganda” to the ban on “LGBT propaganda.” As the birth rate tumbles and more than a hundred thousand Russian soldiers die in Ukraine, the bill prohibits the distribution of any material that dissuades couples from having children. Same-gender parents and other “non-traditional families” are also not to be depicted. Fines for media outlets that violate the restrictions run up to 5 million rubles – about 50,000 U.S. dollars.
The adoption ban and the censorship of “childless propaganda” both passed on November 12th. They now go to the parliament’s upper house, the Federation Council. President Vladimir Putin’s signature can be presumed, since a bill would not pass parliament if he did not already approve.
Duma Speaker Volodin defended the enactment of both bills by writing on Telegram, “It is necessary to do everything so that new generations of our citizens grow up oriented toward traditional family values.”
Russian style “no promo homo” may be coming to Uzbekistan. The ruling National Revival Party’s government announced late this week that it’s drafting a measure to outlaw the discussion of LGBTQ subject matter. Russia’s original ban also inspired similar legislation in Bulgaria, Georgia, and Hungary. Some of these laws prohibit talking about LGBTQ people in public schools, others censor the topic more generally in public life. Milliy Tiklanish Party leader Alisher Qodirov pointed to a post allegedly by U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s daughter Ivanka. In it she reportedly claimed that her father would end federal funding to public schools that promote “inappropriate sexual content and transgender ideology.”
Qodirov wrote on Telegram, “We are working on adopting a law prohibiting any kind of propaganda in this regard.”
He did not give any specifics about the legislation.
Uzbekistan is a socially conservative predominantly Muslim Central Asian nation that already punishes gay male sex with up to three years in prison.
Transgender students would not be able to go to the appropriate bathroom at school in the U.S. state of Ohio under a bill approved by the Republican-dominated state legislature. It allows access to sex-segregated school facilities based only on birth certificate gender. The “Protect All Students Act” states, “A school shall designate each student restroom, locker room, changing room, or shower room that is accessible by multiple students at the same time, whether located in a school building or located in a facility used by the school for a school-sponsored activity, for the exclusive use by students of the male biological sex only or by students of the female biological sex only.”
Intersex school students or staff are not covered.
The bill won approval in the state Senate on November 13th by a strict party line vote of 24 to 7.
The Ohio Center for Christian Virtue called it “a huge victory for children and families.”
Republican Governor Mike DeWine has yet to announce if he will sign the bill into law. He has previously expressed support for the concept. His office is reportedly conducting a legal review of the measure.
About a dozen other states have similar so-called “bathroom bills,” including Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Utah. Like Ohio, those states voted Republican in the recent presidential election.
Iconic lesbian feminist writer Dorothy Allison has died at the age of 75 at her Northern California home. The multicultural lesbian literary and arts journal Sinister Wisdom reported that the cause of death was cancer.
Allison published prose and poetry in journals and other books during her lengthy literary career. She was born in 1949 in Greenville, South Carolina to a 15-year-old mother. Sinister Wisdom described her childhood as “difficult … marked by poverty and sexual, physical and emotional abuse.”
Allison is perhaps best known for her multi-award-winning semi-autobiographical novel Bastard Out of Carolina. She talked about its genesis in an early 1990s interview:
[SOUND: Allison]
Bastard Out of Carolina was the first novel that I published, and it took me 10 years to finish writing it. I started it in a series of short stories, and it surprised me when it became a national bestseller and a finalist for the National Book Award. Truthfully, what I really wanted to do in that novel was essentially two things. I wanted to tell a true story about family violence and incest, true in the sense that it was totally real and accurate to my lived experience and took people deep inside something they didn't wanna know about. And the other thing I wanted to do was put on the page a memorial to the family that I loved: a huge, violent working-class family that had problems with liquor and poverty, and generally being thought poorly of [chuckle].
Dorothy Allison’s wife Alix Layman died in 2022. Allison is survived by her son Wolf, and many friends.
Finally, out queer contingents are going to be part of the Staten Island St. Patrick’s Day Parade for the first time in 60 years. LGBTQ groups fighting for inclusion had failed to get intractable longtime Richmond County St. Patrick’s Day Parade Committee president Larry Cummings to change his mind. He told The Irish Voice in 2018 that the St. Patrick’s Day Parade “is not a political or sexual identification parade.” However, the gavel officially passed to Edward Patterson on October 30th, and credit goes to him for the Committee’s change of heart. The Pride Center of Staten Island is now formally invited to march in the next parade, on March 5th, 2025. Other queer groups will also be welcomed.
The Pride Center’s Executive Director Carol Bullock has battled Cummings for years. Her acceptance beamed, "This event is a time-honored tradition that brings people together from all walks of life to celebrate Irish culture, and we are excited to be part of this vibrant community celebration.”
The ban on LGBTQ people at New York’s better-known St. Patrick’s Day Parade in Manhattan was lifted in 2014. The parade in the Bronx allowed queers to march under their own banners for the first time in 2022.
This year’s official, non-inclusive Staten Island procession was followed two weeks later by the Staten Island Business Outreach Center’s alternative Forest Avenue St. Patrick’s Day Parade, that welcomed queer delegations and their employees.
The new committee’s decision was personal for Kamillah Hanks, a Democratic City Council member who represents Staten Island’s north shore. She told a news conference that her half Irish transgender stepdaughter will be able to participate in the celebration for the first time. In her words, “Inclusion matters.”