History shows that LGBTQ+ rights follow a recurring cycle—gains in inclusion often face pushback, and the same warning signs appear worldwide. This radio feature examines three key areas where these battles are fought: freedom of expression, military service, and marriage equality.
From Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” law to Ghana’s harsh anti-LGBTQ+ bill, restrictions on speech signal growing repression. Military service has also been a battleground, with policies like “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and recent attempts to exclude transgender troops revealing deep-seated discrimination. Finally, marriage equality remains under threat, with figures like U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas questioning the future of rulings like Obergefell v. Hodges.
Through interviews from This Way Out from episodes from 25 years ago, and historical context, this episode of This Way Out explores the past and present struggles of the LGBTQ+ community, shedding light on the ongoing fight for equality.
And in NewsWrap: Ghana’s horrific anti-queer bill is being reintroduced by ten member of Parliament, Germany’s government is cautioning its transgender and nonbinary citizens about traveling to the United States, Lesotho’s government and leading queer advocacy group deny U.S, President Donald Trump’s accusation that they received $8 million in LGBTQ+ aid, Trump’s State of The Union address goes on to condemn nonexistent transgender mice and “wokeness,” a bill to ban trans women and girls from competing in federally funded school and college female sports fails in the U.S. Senate, more than 11,000 people took over Oxford Street in Sydney’s queer Darlinghurst neighborhood for the Australian city’s 47th annual Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Parade, and more international LGBTQ+ news reported this week by David Hunt and Melanie Keller (produced by Brian DeShazor).
All this on the March 10, 2025 edition of This Way Out!
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Complete Program Summary
for the week of March 10, 2025
Signs: What You Say, How You Serve, Who You Marry
NewsWrap (full transcript below): The ghastly anti-queer “Promotion of Proper Human Sexual Rights and Ghanaian Family Values Bill” is reintroduced in the Western African nation’s Parliament … Germany’s Foreign Office issues a travel warning for its trans and nonbinary citizens planning to visit the United States because of the Trump administration’s insistence that it only recognizes two genders on visas and passports: male and female … Donald Trump insults the nation of Lesotho in his rambling and lie-filled State of the Union Address, and the Southern African country’s leading LGBTQ advocacy organization disputes Trump’s claim that any such group received $8 million in foreign aid from the U.S.[with Trump audio] … in his longest-in-history SOTU speech, Trump also rails against non-existent “transgender mice” and “woke” efforts at diversity, equity and inclusion [more Trump audio] … Democrats in the U.S. Senate block a Republican-sponsored bill to ban transgender women and girls from female sports programs in federally-funded schools and universities; and hundreds of thousands of revelers celebrate the 47th annual Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras [with brief on-scene sounds of the nighttime procession] (written by GREG GORDON and LUCIA CHAPPELLE, produced by BRIAN DeSHAZOR, reported this week by DAVID HUNT and MELANIE KELLER)
Feature:
The Cycle of LGBTQ+ Inclusion and Repression: A Global Pattern
History shows that LGBTQ+ rights follow a recurring cycle—gains in inclusion often face pushback, and the same warning signs appear worldwide. This radio feature examines three key areas where these battles are fought: freedom of expression, military service, and marriage equality.
From Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” law to Ghana’s harsh anti-LGBTQ+ bill, restrictions on speech signal growing repression. Military service has also been a battleground, with policies like “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and recent attempts to exclude transgender troops revealing deep-seated discrimination. Finally, marriage equality remains under threat, with figures like U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas questioning the future of rulings like Obergefell v. Hodges.
Through interviews from This Way Out from episodes from 25 years ago, and historical context, this episode of This Way Out explores the past and present struggles of the LGBTQ+ community, shedding light on the ongoing fight for equality.
(with features music by BLOOD SWEAT & TEARS, SEAN CHAPIN, LIZA MINNELLI and BUFFY SAINTE-MARIE).
NewsWrap
A summary of some of the news in or affecting
global LGBTQ communities
for the week ending March 10, 2025
Written by Greg Gordon and Lucia Chappelle,
reported this week by DAAVID HUNT and MELANIE KELLER,
produced by Brian DeShazor
Ghana’s horrific anti-queer bill is rising from the grave. President John Dramani Mahama declared the bill “effectively dead” shortly after his January inauguration. His predecessor President Nana Akufo-Addo had refused to sign the Promotion of Proper Human Sexual Rights and Ghanaian Family Values until the Supreme Court verified its legality. That ruling is still pending.
Mahama generally supports the legislation, but says he’d prefer the measure to come from his government rather than as a bill introduced by members of Parliament. Nevertheless, 10 members did that this week with the strong backing of the country’s leading religious figures, according to Reuters.
What’s called under the law “unnatural carnal knowledge” can already get you up to three years in prison in Ghana. The new bill increases that maximum to five years for private consensual adult same-gender sex. Here’s the really alarming part: it calls for up to five years in prison for the “willful promotion, sponsorship, or support of LGBTQ+ activities” -- make that up to 10 years if the advocacy is aimed at minors.
There’s no gender-affirming healthcare in the West African nation, in fact transgender people are not recognized. LGBTQ people have basically no legal protections.
It's not clear if President Mahama would sign the new bill if it passes parliamentary muster. Last year Ghana’s Finance Ministry warned that it could tank billions of dollars in critical funding from the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and from Western nations. And remember, everyone is still waiting for a Supreme Court ruling about the previous bill’s legality.
Germany’s government is cautioning its transgender and nonbinary citizens about traveling to the United States. It’s a clear reaction to the Trump administration’s declaration that only two genders are legally recognized in the United States.
Germany’s Foreign Office advisory says that citizens seeking temporary visas must declare themselves to either be male or female to get into the United States. It further warned, “Travelers who have the gender entry ‘X’ or whose current gender entry differs from their gender entry at birth should contact the relevant U.S. diplomatic mission in Germany before entering the country and find out the applicable entry requirements.”
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has officially eliminated the “X” gender option on passports. The American Civil Liberties Union is currently suing the State Department on behalf of seven plaintiffs challenging the new male or female only passport policy.
Rubio’s late February memo obtained by The Guardian tells immigration officials around the world, “In cases where applicants are suspected of misrepresenting their purpose of travel or sex, you should consider whether this misrepresentation is material such that it supports an ineligibility finding.” That so-called “misrepresentation” includes declaring a gender that differs from their birth sex on visa applications. It could mean a permanent ban on entering the U.S. The Department of Homeland Security is also targeting transgender athletes – right before this year’s World Pride in Washington, D.C. and ahead of the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles. Critics fear that the directive will ultimately be used to ban all foreign transgender and nonbinary people from entering the United States.
[SOUND]
Trump: … $8 million to promote L.G.B.T.Q.I.+ in the African nation of Lesotho, which nobody has ever heard of [laughter]
U.S. President Donald Trump’s State of the Union Address was a record-setting almost-two-hour marathon of lies and bizarre claims.
Lesotho’s leading queer advocacy group was dismayed by Trump’s accusation. The People’s Matrix spokesperson Tampose Mothopeng told Agence France Presse, “We are literally not receiving grants from the U.S. We have no idea of the allocation of eight million dollars. We do not know who received or is going to receive that money. We do not have such moneys or a contract that would even reach a quarter of half of that money.”
Lesotho’s government is, “not taking this matter lightly," according to Foreign Minister Lejone Mpotjoane. He told the French news agency, “We did not expect a head of state to refer to another sovereign nation in such a manner.”
An official letter of protest will be delivered to the Oval Office – which Lesotho has heard of.
[SOUND]
Trump: $8 million for making mice transgender [laughter] this is real [laughter]
Well no, it’s not. This eyebrow-raising claim during Trump’s State of the Union Address again demonstrated the incompetence of the administration’s effort to slash allegedly wasteful spending. In their zeal to erase transgender people from government policy, they targeted a government-funded study involving transgenic mice. Put simply, a transgenic mouse’s genes have been modified to better reflect how human tissue reacts. They are invaluable in biomedical research.
CNN factcheckers found three National Institutes of Health awards totaling less than half a million dollars that involved giving feminizing hormones to monkeys to understand their impact on susceptibility to HIV. Nothing about mice at all.
Trump crowed about all his anti-trans executive orders, and also targeted diversity, equity and inclusion programs – DEI -- derisively describing such efforts as “wokeness.”
[SOUND]
Trump: Because we are getting wokeness out of our schools and out of our military and it’s already out and it’s out of our society, we don’t want it. Wokeness is trouble, wokeness is bad, it’s gone. It’s gone. And we feel so much better for it, don’t we? Don’t we feel better?
Do we?
On the positive side, President Trump’s anti-trans efforts were dealt a serious setback in the U.S. Senate this week. Every Democrat voted against the Republican-sponsored “Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act.” The measure intends to ban trans women and girls from competing in federally funded school and college female sports. Trump’s executive order to accomplish the same goal is already being challenged in court.
The bill was stopped by a cloture vote – that’s a procedural motion in the Senate that requires 60 votes to end debate and move forward. The final tally fell nine votes short.
It had sailed through the Republican-controlled U.S. House in January, but has now died in the upper chamber.
Democratic Senator John Hickenlooper of Colorado accused clueless lead sponsor of the bill Republican Senator Tommy Tuberville of Alabama of “trying to churn the social wars.”
The Human Rights Campaign’s Kelley Robinson said, “bills like these send the message that transgender kids don’t deserve the same opportunities to thrive as their peers simply because of who they are.”
Finally, more than 11,000 people marched, dance or rolled down Oxford Street through the queer Darlinghurst neighborhood in Sydney for the Australian city’s 47th annual Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Parade. An estimated 200,000 spectators were there to cheer them on. The traditional Dykes on Bikes Parade leaders were followed by the First Nations and first Mardi Gras participant entries. Celebrating the theme “Free to Be,” people in several parade entries carried signs reading “protect trans kids.” The nighttime festivities featured more than 180 floats and marching units from community service groups, local businesses, and major corporations.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore and Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek were among the public officials to join the procession.
More than 10,000 people were expected to party until dawn at the marque eight-hour Mardi Gras Party rave at Moore Park. The official closing party capped the 16-day Mardi Gras festival the following night.
This Way Out Sydney correspondent Barry McKay speculates that political statements were somewhat muted during the Parade because of recent Israeli-Palestinian unrest. The most “out there” contingent he reports came thanks to Vice President J.D. Vance and the unrest in the U.S.: a marching band of lesbian childless cat ladies.