The killer who stalked Los Angeles gay bars in the early 80s slipped away twice (for reasons explained by Deputy D.A. Dino Fulgoni), but investigating officer Mike Thies wouldn’t give up. Years later, lesbian policy manager Madeline Brancel rediscovered the life of her gay great-uncle, who was one of the victims (Part 2 of 2, produced by David Hunt).
And in NewsWrap: protections for women and the rights of queer people are among the stumbling blocks to finalizing a deal at the U.N.’s COP29 climate conference, the Parliament of Vanuatu amends its Marriage Act to bans marriage equality, a three-judge panel of the Seventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals lifts the barrier on implementing Indiana’s ban on pediatric gender-affirming healthcare, black gay actor Jussie Smollett’s 2019 conviction for staging a racist and anti-queer hate crime attack on himself is overturned on a technicality, U.S. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson appeases South Carolina Representative Nancy Mace with a policy to restrict use of sex-segregated Capitol facilities based only on birth certificate gender, encouraging words for first-time voters from comedian Wanda Sykes, and more international LGBTQ news reported by Ava David and Michael Taylor Gray (produced by Brian DeShazor).
All this on the November 25, 2024 edition of This Way Out!
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Complete Program Summary
for the week of November 25, 2024
Manhunt: Queers and Cops Catch a Killer (Part 2)
NewsWrap (full transcript below): The Vatican joins Egypt, Russia, Saudi Arabia and Iran to stall queer-inclusive language in the United Nations initiative to fund women’s efforts to battle climate change … lawmakers in the South Pacific island nation of Vanuatu vote to strengthen laws banning civil marriage for same-gender couples … the Seventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals allows Indiana to enforce its ban on reversible gender-affirming healthcare for patients under the age of 18 … the Illinois Supreme Court reverses on a legal technicality the conviction of Black gay actor Jussie Smollett for his 2019 hoax staging of a racist, anti-gay attack against him in Chicago … the thin Republican majority of the U.S. House of Representatives, with South Carolina Congressperson Nancy Mace leading the way, moves to force Congressperson-elect Sarah McBride of Delaware, the chamber’s first transgender member, to use bathrooms, changing rooms, and other sex-segregated Capitol facilities based on the male gender marker on her original birth certificate [with comments by both lawmakers] … and stand-up comedian and comic actress Wanda Sykes offers words of encouragement to first-time young voters in the recent U. S. Presidential election during her mid-November appearance on ABC-TV’s late night talk show Jimmy Kimmel Live [with a snippet of the audio] (written by GREG GORDON and LUCIA CHAPPELLE, produced by BRIAN DeSHAZOR, reported this week by AVA DAVIS and MICHAEL TAYLOR GRAY).
Feature: After the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office let a killer go free —twice — in 1981, a frustrated homicide detective turned to the queer community and media to track down more witnesses and more evidence. In the conclusion of his two-part feature, This Way Out’s DAVID HUNT revisits the manhunt that brought the killer of four gay men to justice (with comments by the lead LAPD detective Mike Thies, prosecutor Dino Fulgoni, and Madeline Brancel, the lesbian grandniece of Robert Sanderson, one of the murder victims, plus 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 23, 2024
Written by Greg Gordon and Lucia Chappelle,
reported this week by Ava Davis and Michael Taylor Gray,
produced by Brian DeShazor
Protections for women and the rights of queer people are among the stumbling blocks to finalizing a deal at the 29th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The Vatican is joining Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Egypt at this week’s COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan with objections to part of the 10-year-old U.N. action plan called “The Lima Work Program on Gender.” The word “gender” has suddenly become an issue.
The initiative increases financial aid to women due to the environmental inequities they face. African and European Union representatives submitted new policy language this year declaring that women’s experiences with climate change can differ depending on their “gender, sex, age and race.” Delegates from the Vatican, Russia and the three Middle East countries expressed concern that the word “gender” could be interpreted to include lesbians and transgender women. All five opponents of the proposed language update reject the very existence of transgender people and outlaw same-gender sex.
U.N. reports conclude that by the year 2050 almost 240 million women and girls will become food insecure due to climate change. Just over half that many men and boys will face the same fate. Small-scale farms are routinely threatened by extreme weather and drought, and most of them are women-owned. “The Lima Work Program on Gender” is set to expire at the end of this year.
COP29 was set to conclude on November 22nd, but negotiations over major disagreements regarding climate financing are expected to continue for days. Global anti-poverty group ActionAid’s Senior Climate Adviser Zahra Hdidou told the BBC during the week, “I think if things continue the way they are it is not looking good for women’s rights in the negotiations.”
The Parliament of Vanuatu has passed an amendment to its Marriage Act that bans the legal recognition and registration of the civil marriage of a lesbian or gay couple. Marriage equality had not been specifically forbidden before, and the South Pacific island nation has not criminalized same-gender sex since its independence from Britain and France in 1980. However, the Justice and Community Services Ministry announced in early November the formation of a committee to draft a Vanuatu version of a “no promo homo” ban on public support for LGBTQ people. Pacific Sexual and Diversity Network CEO Isikeli Vulavou compared the government’s actions to anti-queer backlashes in other parts of the world, telling Australian Broadcasting Corporation Radio, “This is also now happening here in the Pacific.”
Minister of Internal Affairs Andrew Napuat explained that marriage is already defined in the heavily Christian country’s constitution as being between a male and a female, and that the amendment to the Marriage Act simply solidifies that restriction. The amended Act threatens the revocation of a celebrant’s license as well as the same-gender couple.
The anti-queer crackdown comes at the behest of the President of Vanuatu’s Council of Traditional Chiefs, who has frequently targeted the V-Pride LGBTQ advocacy group as a threat to the country’s Christian beliefs and traditional values.
The Pacific Sexual and Diversity Network’s Vulavou told ABC Radio it’s really the country’s queer people who, in his words, “feel so threatened by these constant attacks from government parliamentarians [and] church groups. … They have been too afraid to respond to these public attacks.”
A ban on pediatric gender-affirming healthcare in the state of Indiana is going forward -- this thanks to a three-judge panel of the Chicago-based Seventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. They ruled two-to-one on November 13th that the ban did not restrict the constitutional rights of transgender children, their parents or guardians, or medical providers. Their decision to stand by their February ruling gives the state the greenlight to permanently enforce the law.
Healthcare professionals are now forbidden from prescribing puberty blockers and hormone therapy to trans patients under the age of 18. The law ignores the recommendation of virtually every professional medical and mental health organization in the United States that such therapies are reversible, and can often literally be life-saving. To far-right Republican Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita, denying that care is “a huge win for Hoosiers [that] will help protect our most precious gift from God – our children.”
The American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Indiana have been challenging the law. The groups say they are now “weighing [their] options” about a possible appeal.
Black gay actor Jussie Smollett’s 2019 conviction for staging a racist and anti-queer hate crime attack on himself has been overturned by the Illinois Supreme Court. Smollett claimed that two men shouted racist and homophobic slurs, looped a makeshift noose around his neck, and beat him. However, the evidence showed that Smollett had paid Abimbola and Olabinjo Osundairo to help him perpetrate the hoax. The brothers had been extras on Empire, the TV series that featured Smollett. Despite reaching a plea agreement, Smollett was tried by a special prosecutor. He was convicted in 2022 on five counts of disorderly conduct and sentenced to three months in jail, a fine of more than $130,000 in restitution, and 30 months of post-jail probation. He served six days of that sentence before he was released pending appeal.
The November 21st Illinois high court ruling did not exonerate Smollett on the charges. It vacated the conviction on the technical “due process” grounds that the special prosecution should not have taken place.
The justices wrote, “Today we resolve a question about the State’s responsibility to honor the agreements it makes with defendants. Specifically, we address whether a dismissal of a case … allows the State to bring a second prosecution when the dismissal was entered as part of an agreement with the defendant and the defendant has performed his part of the bargain.”
Smollett’s legal woes continue, however. The city of Chicago is seeking reimbursement in civil court for the resources it spent investigating and prosecuting the case. The Osundairo brothers are also suing Smollett and his legal team for damaging their reputations during the trial.
U.S. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson “observed” the Transgender Day of Remembrance by setting bathroom barriers for trans people on Capitol Hill. Johnson chose November 20th to announce the policy requiring members, staff and visitors to use sex-segregated facilities based only on their birth certificate gender. Republican Representative Nancy Mace of South Carolina had already called for such a resolution, and admitted to Sky News that she was specifically targeting incoming Delaware House member Sarah McBride, the first transgender person ever elected to Congress.
[SOUND: Mace, hallway impromptu]
MACE: I want to make sure that no men are in women's private spaces, and it's not going to end here. This shouldn't be going on in any federal property. If you're a school or an institution that gets government funding, this kind of thing should be banned. I think it's sick. It's twisted.
REPORTER: Is this effort in response to Congresswoman McBride coming to Congress?
MACE: Yes, and absolutely, and then some. I'm not going to stand for a man ... you know ... if someone with a penis is in the women's locker room, that's not okay.
Mace could not actually know whether McBride still has a penis, and Johnson was vague about how the policy would be enforced.
McBride herself has said that she will comply with the policy. She’s been criticized by trans advocates for not fighting the ban, especially since staff and visitors don’t have private bathrooms, unlike congressional members. McBride explained her position during an interview on “MSNBC:”
[SOUND: McBride]
What are they talking about there on day one? Is where one member out of 435 is going where she is going to use the bathroom? That is their focus. So this is not a great start. The American people say, mind your own business about where people do their business.
Delaware's Congressmember-elect Sarah McBride.
Finally, stand-up comedian and comic actor Wanda Sykes gave ABC-TV’s late night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel the obvious answer to the question “How are you doing?” in the wake of the U.S. presidential election, but still had some encouraging words for virgin voters:
[SOUND: Sykes with Kimmel]
SYKES: Jimmy, I'm a black woman and a lesbian. How the hell you think I'm doing? (audience laughter) I met a lot of kids out on the lines at the polls. And the first-time voters-- I just want to say to y'all, so proud of you. And I told you that when I saw you. And please don't give up on the system, all right? So just hang in there, and we're going to be all right.
KIMMEL: Excellent. Wanda Sykes. Thank you, Wanda.
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