Drag Queen Violinist Thorgy Thor | This Way Out Radio Episode 1939
- Jason Jenn
- May 27
- 8 min read
As Trump-phobia stokes concert homophobia across the U.S. during Pride season, RuPaul's Drag Race favorite Thorgy Thor weaves classical music into her unique performance style (interviewed by Brian DeShazor).
And in NewsWrap: a lesbian couple in Italy can both be legally recognized as the mothers of a child they conceived via in vitro fertilization thanks to a historic Constitutional Court ruling, Moscow's Tagansky District Court levys heavy fines on tech giant Apple for violating laws banning the “promotion” of “non-traditional sexual relations,” a federal judge tries to sidestep a U.S. Supreme Court decision that bans workplace bias based on sexual orientation or gender identity, Iowa’s ban on the discussion of sexual orientation or gender identity in public schools up to the sixth grade can only be applied to mandatory classroom education, U.S. President Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” will take gender-affirming healthcare from thousands of transgender people, a new monument to honor the queer victims of the Holocaust in the Paris public gardens near Bastille Plaza, a 55-by-35-foot transgender pride flag was unfurled on the famed El Capitan site in California’s Yosemite National Park, and more international LGBTQ+ news reported this week by David Hunt and Nathalie Munoz (produced by Brian DeShazor).
All this on the May 26, 2025 edition of This Way Out!
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Complete Program Summary
for the week of May 26, 2025
Drag Queen Violinist Thorgy Thor
NewsWrap (full transcript below): Italy’s top court allows both lesbian co-moms to be legally recognized as parents of their son, born via IVF abroad, for the first time … Russia fines tech giant Apple 10.5 million rubles for several violations of the country’s “no promo homo” laws … a far-right Texas federal judge rules that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 does not protect LGBTQ people from workplace bias, despite a 2020 U.S. Supreme Court decision to the contrary … a U.S. district judge upholds Iowa’s “Don’t Say Gay” law banning classroom discussion of LGBTQ people from kindgergarten to sixth grade, but rules that elective discussions of those subjects are permitted … Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” that gives the wealthiest people in the U.S. huge tax breaks while cutting both Medicaid and Medicare for the poorest squeaks by the House by one vote and heads to a perhaps even more challenging Senate … a new monument to the queer victims of the Nazi Holocaust opens in Paris … drag star and environmentalist Pattie Gonia leads trans and ally activists in unfurling a 55-foot-by-35-foot Transgender Pride Flag on El Capitan, a well-known rock formation popular with climbers in California’s Yosemite National Park (written by GREG GORDON and LUCIA CHAPPELLE, produced by BRIAN DeSHAZOR, and reported this week by DAVID HUNT and NATHALIE MUNOZ)
Feature: Pride Month is upon us, and fear of the Trump administration has led to many venues canceling LGBTQ+ concerts around the U.S. Drag performances and anything even vaguely associated with diversity, equity and inclusion are the prime targets for censorship. That’s what makes a Los Angeles event featuring RuPaul's Drag Race favorite Thorgy Thor special … and This Way Out’s BRIAN DeSHAZOR knows it’s special for an even more intriguing reason (with intro music from West Side Story’s “Somewhere” performed by THORGY THOR).
NewsWrap
A summary of some of the news in or affecting
LGBTQ communities around the world
for the week ending May 24th, 2025
Written by Greg Gordon and Lucia Chappelle,
reported this week by DAVID HUNT and NATHALIE MUNOZ,
produced by Brian DeShazor
A lesbian couple in Italy can both be legally recognized as the mothers of a child they conceived via in vitro fertilization -- this thanks to a historic Constitutional Court ruling. Justices on the country’s highest court decided that denying legal recognition to the non-biological mother would be unconstitutional, violating the rights of the child to care, education and emotional continuity from both parents.
Only married heterosexual couples have the right to access medically assisted reproductive services in Italy. Single women and women in same-gender unions must get them abroad.
Until now, legal recognition of lesbian co-moms in Italy depended on your location. Some local governments have bucked a 2004 law that bans registering the non-biological mother as a child’s co-parent on the birth certificate. That angers far-right Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, whose election campaign included vocal opposition to what she called “gender ideologies” and the “LGBT Lobby.”
To quote the high court’s May 22nd ruling, "These divergent outcomes reflect a shifting social reality to which the legislature has yet to respond."
Italy only granted same-gender couples the lesser status of “civil unions” in 2016. That makes it a prominent exception to marriage equality standards in Europe. Under pressure from the politically powerful Roman Catholic Church, queer couples in civil unions are specifically barred from adopting children.
Lesbian mother Chiara Soldatini told Agence France Presse she would “only uncork the champagne when all those families with two dads can toast with me.” Champagne time may be in sight, even before the ink on the co-moms high court ruling is dry. All surrogacy services are banned in Italy, and non-biological co-dads are prevented from adopting their spouse’s children. However, Agence France Presse reports that a court in Pesaro, Northern Italy has overturned that rule by approving a non-biological gay co-dad’s adoption of his spouse’s child conceived via surrogacy abroad.
Moscow's Tagansky District Court is levying heavy fines on tech giant Apple for violating laws banning the “promotion” of “non-traditional sexual relations.” The court charged Apple with three different administrative offenses and a separate charge of failing to restrict users’ access to content that is illegal in Russia. More specific information is not available because Apple’s lawyers asked that this week’s hearings be closed to the public. The fines totaled 10.5 million rubles– that’s about 97,000 U.S. dollars. Russian President Vladimir Putin gleefully signed the 2022 so-called “no promo homo” law to cover the entire population with the same ban on the “promotion” of LGBT propaganda” that had applied to minors. Russia’s Supreme Court in 2023 declared some mythical “international LGBT movement” to be “extremist.” That makes Pride celebrations and all public advocacy for queer equality acts of ‘terrorism.”
Apple has yet to publicly comment.
The same Texas federal judge who tried to ban the abortion bill mifepristone now thinks he can overrule a U.S. Supreme Court decision that banned workplace bias based on sexual orientation or gender identity. Far-right state Attorney General Ken Paxton had challenged guidelines established by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission under the Biden administration in 2021. The guidelines were intended to bring EEOC into compliance with the Supreme Court’s 2020 anti-bias workplace decision, Bostock v. Clayton. The agency recommended that employers honor their workers’ preferred pronouns and allow them to wear dress code-appropriate clothing and have access to sex-segregated bathrooms and other facilities that conform to their gender identity.
Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk of the Northern District of Texas decided this week that those anti-discrimination provisions in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, do not, in fact, protect LGBTQ people. He called the EEOC guidelines “inconsistent with the text, history, and tradition of Title VII and recent Supreme Court precedent.”
The rightwing judge-shopper’s favorite claims that the Bostock decision only forbids discriminatory termination, but that anti-queer harassment and other forms of bias are okay.
It's highly unlikely that Kacsmaryk’s ruling will withstand further legal scrutiny.
Iowa’s ban on the discussion of sexual orientation or gender identity in public schools up to the sixth grade can be enforced, but the restrictions can only apply to mandatory classroom education. U.S. District Court Judge Stephen Locher said that schools must allow elective programs on campus that address those subjects. Locher’s divided decision allows requiring school officials to out students to their parents while it approves teachers mentioning their same-gender partners.
Republican Governor Kim Reynolds had enthusiastically signed the law passed by the Republican majority in the state legislature.
Thousands of transgender people are set to lose their gender-affirming healthcare under U.S. President Donald Trump’s so-called “big, beautiful bill.” The Republican-controlled House of Representatives approved it in the wee hours of the morning this week. It gives the country’s wealthiest people major tax breaks on the backs of lower-income citizens who will lose coverage under federal Medicaid and Medicare programs. It particularly prohibits coverage under those programs for all gender-affirming healthcare nationwide – for adults as well as for minors.
Medicaid is a joint federal-state program that offers healthcare to people with low incomes. It currently serves about 152,000 transgender people, according to the queer think tank Williams Institute.
Trump was reportedly on the phone haranguing several wavering Republican Congressmembers to vote for the bill. In the end, two Republicans joined all Democrats to oppose it, resulting in a slim one-vote majority approval.
The bill now goes to the Senate, where a noteworthy number of Republican members have expressed misgivings – either because the cuts to Medicaid and Medicare are too harsh, or because they’re not draconian enough. A simple Republican majority may not be enough to pass it in its current form. If the Senate makes any changes, the bill must go back to the House.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune says getting the bill to the president’s desk by Independence Day, July 4th is his “goal and the aspiration,” but the reality is more complicated. There may be time for queer advocates and other opponents to scuttle the worst parts of it.
In Paris, a giant steel star wand lay on the ground in the public gardens near the Bastille Plaza, a new monument to honor the queer victims of the Holocaust. A plaque on the memorial designed by French artist and queer activist Jean-Luc Verna reads, “Stuck in the ground, this wand is not (only) magic. Like a memory that we would like to bury, a part of forgotten memory, it emerges from the earth to call us to remember. The prerogative of fairies, the starry wand offers a matte black stainless steel side and a mirrored side, evoking the dark hours of History as much as hope and light. Leaning towards visitors, the shadow it casts can appear as a shelter and as a threat that History will repeat itself.”
The official unveiling was on May 17th – the International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia, or IDAHOBIT. Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo said, “Historical recognition means saying ‘this happened’ and ‘we don’t want it to happen again’.”
Deputy Mayor of Paris and a longtime LGBTQ+ rights activist Jean-Luc Roméro echoed that theme. He said, "We didn't know, unfortunately, that this monument would be inaugurated at one of the worst moments we're going through right now. … We’ve never experienced such setback in the United States, with what’s happening to trans people.”
Amsterdam, Barcelona, Tel Aviv, and Sydney all have monuments to the queer victims of the Holocaust.
While more solid numbers don’t exist, many historians believe that from 5-15,000 LGBTQ people from across Nazi-occupied Europe were sent to concentration camps during World War II.
Finally, a 55-by-35-foot transgender pride flag was unfurled this week on El Capitan, the famed and challenging wall-climbing site in California’s Yosemite National Park.
Organizers tout it as the largest flag ever hung on the mountain.
One of the lead organizers was Pattie Gonia, a well-known drag queen and environmentalist. Their media statement proclaimed, in part, “Trans people are natural and Trans people are loved. … We are done being polite about trans people’s existence. Call it a protest, call it a celebration — either way, it’s giving elevation to liberation. … Trans existence is not up for debate. …. We can only make progress when we embrace diversity, not erase it. … Let this flag fly higher than hate.”
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