Audio Archive Saves Queer History | This Way Out Radio Episode #1937
- This Way Out
- 14 minutes ago
- 8 min read
This Way Out’s own collection of programs dating back to 1988 is already becoming a valuable tool for LGBTQ+ researchers and educators, even as the extensive process of data sorting and cataloging is getting underway. Project lead and Overnight Productions (Inc,) CEO Brian DeShazor discusses the next steps and the importance of preserving original materials with University of North Texas queer media professor Dr. Tanya D. Zuk.
And in NewsWrap: most queer Catholic groups greet Pope Leo XIV with cautious optimism, the U.S. Supreme Court lifts injunctions to allow the Trump administration’s wholesale discharge of transgender service members to go forward, Governor Janet Mills stops the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s threats to de-fund school lunches due to Maine’s inclusion of trans student athletes, Pennsylvania State Police and other officers storm Pittsburgh’s venerable P Town bar during a star-studded drag show for a “compliance check,” and more international LGBTQ+ news reported this week by Tanya Kane-Parry and John Dyer V (produced by Brian DeShazor).
All this on the May 12, 2025 edition of This Way Out!
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Complete Program Summary
for the week of May 12, 2025
Audio Archive Saves Queer History
NewsWrap (full transcript below): Most queer Roman Catholic Church groups express cautious optimism about the tenure of newly-elected Pope Leo XIV (Chicago-born former Cardinal Robert Prevost) … the U.S. Supreme Court allows Trump’s ban on military service by transgender enlistees to resume even while the constitutionality of the ban continues to be litigated in lower courts, leading Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to gleefully announce deadlines for current trans troops to voluntarily resign, and warn of eventual forced discharges for those who don’t go quietly [with comments by Hegseth and Army Second Lieutenant Nic Talbot and Space Force Colonel Bree Fram] … Maine’s Democratic Governor Janet Mills “saw” President Donald Trump in court over his threat to freeze funding for school lunches for the state’s students if Maine didn’t stop defending trans female athletes [with audio from a mid-February confrontation between the president and the governor and the governor’s May 9th announcement about who won the court battle] … shades of Stonewall, more than a dozen members of the Pennsylvania State Police and other officers raid Pittsburgh’s venerable gay bar P-Town during a star-studded drag show for a “compliance check” (written by GREG GORDON and LUCIA CHAPPELLE, produced by BRIAN DeSHAZOR, reported this week by JOHN DYER V and TANYA KANE-PARRY).
Feature: There’s making history and there’s making history. First, history is made by the people and movements that change the course of events. Then historians “make” history out of whatever documentation is hopefully recorded at the time of those events and hopefully preserved. If that documentation vanishes — either by accident or by design — the work of future historians will be skewed. This Way Out has been recording LGBTQ events as they happen since 1988, and the complete collection of programs has now been archived online. That’s only the beginning. Overnight Productions CEO and NewsWrap Producer BRIAN DeSHAZOR is the driving force behind the preservation project. He talks with co-conspirator University of North Texas queer media professor Dr. Tanya D. Zuk about the next steps to turn the collection into a useful research tool — before the shifting political climate makes such resources disappear (with brief intro music by BILLY JOEL).
NewsWrap
A summary of some of the news in or affecting
LGBTQ communities around the world
for the week ending May 10th, 2025
Written by Greg Gordon and Lucia Chappelle,
reported this week by JOHN DYER V and TANYA KANE-PARRY,
produced by Brian DeShazor
Most queer Catholic groups are greeting the Roman Church’s new Pope Leo XIV with cautious optimism. The former Cardinal Robert Prevost has a questionable record on LGBTQ issues. So, they’re putting a lot of faith in Leo’s first words as Pope, “Peace be with you. … We have to seek together to be a missionary church. A church that builds bridges and dialogue."
There’s not a lot to go on. Born in Chicago, he’s the first U.S.-born pontiff in the Church’s history. He spent two decades as a bishop in Peru and is fluent in five languages. At 69, he’s relatively young to begin a papacy.
What little is known about Leo’s position on LGBTQ people is disturbing. Where his predecessor Pope Francis famously said, “Who am I to judge?” Bishop Provost denounced the entertainment industry at a gathering of bishops in 2012. He charged the media with harboring “sympathy for beliefs and practices that are at odds with the gospel,” like “the homosexual lifestyle” and “alternative families comprised of same-sex partners and their adopted children,” according to a report in the New York Times.
In Peru, Provost spoke out against gender teachings in schools, telling local news, “The promotion of gender ideology is confusing, because it seeks to create genders that don’t exist.”
Nevertheless, the Global Network of Rainbow Catholics expressed hope that “opinions and ideas can change.”
Likewise, DignityUSA’s statement read in part, “We pray that Pope Leo XIV will demonstrate a willingness to listen and grow as he begins his new role as the leader of the global Church.”
New Ways Ministry executive director Francis DeBernardo hopes that Leo “… will further educate himself by meeting with and listening to LGBTQ+ Catholics and their supporters.”
Outreach Catholic executive director Michael O’Loughlin is more optimistic. He told The Advocate, “From his choice of name honoring a pope committed to justice, to his call for a church focused on peace and dialogue, early signs show that Pope Leo XIV hopes to continue the pastoral outreach of Pope Francis. While we do not yet know how the new pope will interact with LGBT Catholics, the same was true in 2013 on the night Pope Francis was elected, and his pontificate wound up being inspiring to so many in our community.”
The U.S. Supreme Court is allowing the Trump administration’s wholesale discharge of transgender service members to go forward. Along ideological lines on May 6th, the 6-to-3 majority lifted the lower courts’ injunctions to let the policy be enforced even while its constitutionality is argued. There was strong dissent from the minority three liberal Justices Elena Kagan, Ketanji Brown Jackson and Sonia Sotomayor.
Trump’s presidential Executive Order 14183 requires the discharge of all trans service members, regardless of their honorable records. Future enlistments are forbidden. Demonstrably incompetent Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is its gleeful enforcer. In a speech at the Special Operations Forces Week 2025 in Tampa, Florida this week, the breadth of Hegseth’s animus was on full display:
[SOUND: Hegseth]
“We are leaving wokeness and weakness behind. No more pronouns. No more climate change obsession. No more emergency vaccine mandates. No more dudes in dresses, we're done with that s**t.”
Hegseth’s May 8th ultimatum to all transgender service members read: “[I]n accordance with the policy now reinstated, service members who have a current diagnosis or history of or exhibit symptoms consistent with gender dysphoria may elect to separate voluntarily. There’s a timeline here, and eventually, involuntarily if necessary."
The Secretary’s specific directive explained the rules ironically going into effect as of Pride month: "The eligibility window to self-identify for voluntary separation is extended to June 6th, 2025, for Active Component Service members, and July 7th, 2025 for Reserve Component Service members.” After that “involuntary separation processes” will begin for those who have not yet resigned.
Transgender people in the U.S. armed services have been on a real roller-coaster-ride. Trump banned trans troops during his first administration, then President Joe Biden lifted it. Now they’re at least temporarily banned again.
Second Lieutenant Nic Talbot of the U.S. Army Reserve is a lead plaintiff in one of the lawsuits challenging the trans military ban. He used his uniform as a symbol of his courageous stand during an interview with CNN.
[SOUND: Talbot]
I do remember kind of putting this on for the first time and I was starting to think I was never gonna get to wear this, and here I am. And especially now, you know, getting to be a lieutenant and getting to wear my rank. I worked really hard for this. I think it's … it's just absolutely ridiculous to insinuate that trans folks and trans service numbers are, you know, going home and trying to pretend to be something that we're not.
Colonel Bree Fram has spent more than two decades in the service, the last four years in the U.S. Space Force. She was defiant on Baltimore, Maryland TV station WJZ:
[SOUND: Fram]
I know at my core what I stand for, and I believe in the ideals of America and the oath that I swore to defend. When that ruling came out, I and thousands of other transgender service members were doing the jobs and the missions that the military has assigned to us. I've served over 22 years in uniform and if there's one thing, I can guarantee that whether it is in uniform or not, my time of service is not done.
Maine’s Democratic Governor Janet Mills got the last laugh this week when the U.S. Department of Agriculture backed down from its threats to de-fund the state’s school lunches program. Mills’ confrontation with Donald Trump over her state’s laws protecting transgender female athletes went viral in mid-February:
[SOUND: Mills v. Trump]
TRUMP: Is Maine here, the governor of Maine?
MILLS: I’m here.
TRUMP: Are you not going to comply with it?
MILLS: I’m complying with state and federal laws.
TRUMP: Well, I'm … we are the federal law, so you better comply …
MILLS: We’re going to follow the law, sir.
TRUMP: … you better comply because otherwise you're not getting any… any federal funding.
MILLS: See you in court.
[SOUND: Mills]
Well, I did see him in court …
Governor Mills delivered the follow-up at a May 9 press conference:
[SOUND: Mills con’t]
… and on May 2 just one month after the USDA letter the USDA has backed down and they have agreed to stop freezing funds for the school lunch program that feeds 172,000 kids in Maine and it's good to feel victory like this. We took him to court and we won.
Finally, it was shades of Stonewall at Pittsburgh’s venerable P Town bar on May 2nd. More than a dozen members of the Pennsylvania State Police and other officers stormed the venue in the middle of an Another Party Pittsburgh drag show. The raiders held off for a full-length rendition of Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody before ordering patrons and performers out for half an hour while they conducted what they called a “compliance check.”
The issue was apparently overcrowding. However, a statement from Mayor Ed Gainey verified that the bar had undergone renovations during the COVID lockdown and that the owners were waiting for an updated permit from the city. That revision would have accommodated the crowd size that night.
Well-known trans model and performance artist Amanda Lepore was a guest performer. It was widely reported that some officers asked her to take a selfie with them as she waited outside with the other queens and patrons.
Drag queen extraordinaire Indica was the evening’s host. She led fellow performers and close to a hundred patrons in an a cappella sing-along of Chappell Roan’s Pink Pony Club while waiting outside in the rain.
As Q-Burgh commented, “Despite the interruption, the night became a moment of resistance, solidarity, and improvisational beauty. It reminded everyone there that drag isn’t just entertainment, it’s political. And when the music stops, the queens don’t. They just take the stage wherever they need to, even if it’s the street.”