Marval A Rex’s Big Dad Energy | This Way Out Radio Episode #1944

This Way Out
4 days ago
7 min read

During this terrible time of queer and trans erasure, finding a moment to laugh can be another form of protest - especially when the source of the laughter is from an all trans male comedy troupe called Big Dad Energy. The ringmaster behind the group is actor/astrologer/comedian Marval A Rex, whose conversation about its origins after their recent West Hollywood Pride performance at the Los Angeles LGBT Center’s Renberg Theater takes a surprising “star turn” (interviewed by Jason Jenn).

And in NewsWrap: Hungarians turn out by the hundreds of thousands in defiance of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán to march in Budapest’s LGBTQ Pride Parade, 75 men and a woman are arrested in a raid on a “gay party” in Indonesia, India’s transgender women are “legally entitled” to recognition as women according to a landmark ruling issued by the Andhra Pradesh High Court, the U.S. Supreme Court allows parents to “shield” their public-school children from LGBTQ-inclusive material that does not align with their faiths, another U.S. top court ruling upholds key provisions of the Affordable Care Act requiring private health insurance companies to cover the pre-exposure prophylaxis medication known as PrEP, a “guerrilla theatre” Pride Month concert organized by queer-supportive U.S. senators reoccupies the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, and more international LGBTQ+ news reported this week by Melanie Keller and Nathalie Munoz (produced by Brian DeShazor).

All this on the June 30, 2025 edition of This Way Out!

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LISTEN TO EXTENDED INTERVIEW NOW

Complete Program Summary

for the week of June 30, 2025

Marval A Rex’s Big Dad Energy

NewsWrap (full transcript below): Record-breaking crowds clog the streets of Budapest to celebrate LGBTQ Pride in defiance of despotic Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s law banning it [intro’d by brief on-scene sounds] … Indonesian police net 75 people in the city of Bogor in the latest raid on a so-called “gay party” … an Indian High Court rules that transgender women are legally women protected by female domestic abuse laws … the U.S. Supreme Court sides with devout Christian and Muslim parents in Maryland who want to “shield” their children from anything LGBTQ in the classroom … U.S. justices also uphold mandated coverage by national health insurance companies of certain preventative medications, including HIV/AIDS prevention PrEP … a handful of queer-supportive Democratic Senators celebrate Pride hosting some "guerrilla theatre" at Donald Trump’s anti-drag/anti-queer Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. [intro’d by a dollop of LESLIE ODOM, JR. singing The Room Where It Happens from Hamilton] (written by GREG GORDON and LUCIA CHAPPELLE, produced by BRIAN DeSHAZOR, reported this week by MELANIE KELLER and NATHALIE MUNOZ).

Feature: Big Dad Energy. It might be the vibe given off by men when they do stereotypically “dad things” … or it’s a trans masculine stand-up comedy troupe that’s anything but stereotypical in these terrible times of queer and trans erasure. This Way Out’s JASON JENN takes us to the Los Angeles LGBT Center’s Renberg Theater to meet Marval A Rex, the group’s award-winning ringmaster at a performance for West Hollywood Pride (with intro music by ED WYNN from the Mary Poppins soundtrack, and excerpts from Rex’s stand-up performance).

[https://www.marvalarex.com/]

NewsWrap

A summary of some of the news in or affecting

LGBTQ communities around the world

for the week ending June 28th, 2025

Written by Greg Gordon and Lucia Chappelle,

reported this week by MELANIE KELLER and NATHALIE MUNOZ,

produced by Brian DeShazor

[SOUND: CROWD SOUNDS AND MUSIC]

Hungarians and visitors from around the world turned out by the thousands in defiance of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán to march in Budapest’s LGBTQ Pride Parade. Budapest Pride President Viktoria Radvanyi told Agence France Presse, “We believe there are 180,000 to 200,000 people attending.” The record-breaking but low key throng marched on June 28th from Budapest City Hall through the city center before crossing the capital's Erzsébet Bridge over the Danube River.

The autocratic Prime Minister’s governing party rammed a law through Parliament in March that makes it an offense to hold or attend events that "depict or promote" homosexuality to minors aged under 18. Orbán later acknowledged that Budapest Pride was the intended target. Authorities threatened ahead of the march to use facial recognition software to identify parade-goers and punish them with fines of up to 200,000 forints – that’s about 586 U.S. dollars. If charged event organizers face up to a year in prison.

Dozens of European Union Members of Parliament and other politicians from across the continent marched in the Parade. Liberal Mayor Gergely Karacsony helped skirt the official barriers to the event and marched with opposition party members and other city officials.

The massive Pride march dwarfed a neo-Nazi group’s tiny “white, Christian, heterosexual men and women” only counter-demonstration.

What authorities called a “gay party” in the Indonesian city of Bogor was raided on June 22nd. Seventy-four men and one woman were arrested in the latest police action in an on-going crackdown. “Reports from the public regarding ‘gay activities’” initiated the bust on a villa in the city’s Puncak neighborhood, according to authorities. Sex toys, four condoms and other evidence of alleged “gay activities” were confiscated.

Muslim-majority Indonesia has no secular national laws against same-gender sex. Strong societal taboos remain, however. Queer defendants are often charged with violating the Pornography Law, which criminalizes “material that contravenes community morality.” As Amnesty International’s statement pointed out, “Ambiguously worded laws on pornography are often exploited to deliberately target LGBTI people, denying them the basic right to privacy and the right to enter into consensual relationships.”

The Bogor raid about 40 miles south of Jakarta on the island of Java is not unique. Fifty-six people were arrested in Jakarta itself on February 1st at an alleged “gay party.” Yet another Jakarta hotel so-called “gay sex party” was raided on May 24th with nine arrests.

The 75 most recent detainees are facing up to 15 years in prison for violating Indonesia’s Pornography Law.

India’s transgender women are “legally entitled” to recognition as women – this according to a landmark ruling issued by the Andhra Pradesh High Court. In his June 16th decision, Justice Venkata Jyothirmai Pratapa rejected the argument that only women who can bear children qualify as “women.” He wrote that previous court rulings showed that prohibiting trans women’s right to identify as women “amounted to discrimination.”

Pokala Shabana brought the case to the high court in 2022. She was seeking protection from her abusive in-laws under a section of the Indian penal code. Her husband’s parents fought her on the grounds that as a trans woman she was not covered by laws forbidding cruelty against a woman by a husband or relatives.

The court’s decision to uphold Shabana’s legal standing as a woman establishes a precedent for similar cases in the future. It ensures that trans women can access the same critical protections against domestic abuse available to cisgender women. However, Shabana lost her case due to lack of evidence of the abuse.

The U.S. Supreme Court capped its current session on June 27th with two cases that revolve around conservative religious beliefs. One allows parents to “shield” their public-school children from LGBTQ-inclusive material that does not align with their faiths. The other requires health insurance companies to pay for certain types of preventive care, including HIV-blocking medications like PrEP.

The first ruling is in Mahmoud v. Taylor. Montgomery County Public Schools in Maryland had initially allowed parents to opt their children out when LGBTQ-themed books were made available in classrooms in October 2022. That process became excessively cumbersome to administer, and there were also concerns that the policy potentially violated anti-discrimination laws. When school officials ended the opt-outs in twenty-twenty-three, devout Christian and Muslim parents then sued to have them reinstated. The high court took their side.

Far right Justice Samuel Alito wrote in the 6-to-3 majority’s opinion, "We have long recognized the rights of parents to direct 'the religious upbringing' of their children … And we have held that those rights are violated by government policies that substantially interfere with the religious development of children."

There was strong dissent from the Court’s three progressive Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kaga and Katanji Brown Jackson. Sotomayor’s scathing minority opinion warned that the ruling "threatens the very essence of public education.” She wrote, “The Court, in effect, constitutionalizes a parental veto power over curricular choices long left to the democratic process and local administrators. That decision guts our free exercise precedent and strikes at the core premise of public schools: that children may come together to learn not the teachings of a particular faith, but a range of concepts and views that reflect our entire society. … The reverberations of the Court’s error will be felt, I fear, for generations.”

The second directly LGBTQ-related end-of-term Supreme Court ruling was in the case of Kennedy v Braidwood. It upholds key provisions of the Affordable Care Act that require private health insurance companies to cover preventive care, such as cancer screenings, vaccines, and the pre-exposure prophylaxis medication known as PrEP, which greatly reduces the risk of transmitting HIV/AIDS. The plaintiffs cited their religious beliefs, claiming that coverage for PrEP “encourages and facilitates homosexual behavior.”

Trump-appointed Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote the opinion for the 6-to-3 majority. Kavanaugh was joined by the court’s three progressive Justices Sotomayor, Kagan, and Brown-Jackson, Chief Justice John Roberts and conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett.

Gay Congressional Equality Caucus chair Mark Takano praised the ruling, saying, “After several terrible, anti-LGBTQI+ rulings, the Supreme Court today got at least one thing right—and both LGBTQI+ peoples’ and the wider public’s health will be safer because of it.”

The Supreme Court further rocked the nation with a ruling that could assist Trump’s effort to suspend birthright citizenship.

Finally …

[SOUND: excerpt The Room Where It Happens from Hamilton]

Lemar Odom, Jr.:

I … I wanna be in the room where it happens

the room where it happens

I wanna be in the room where it happens

the room where it happens

… a group of queer-supportive U.S. Senators organized a defiant “guerrilla theatre” Pride Month concert at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. The event trolled President Donald Trump’s efforts to ban drag and suppress queerness at the venerable Washington, D.C. showplace. Many artists have declined to perform at the Center since the Trump take-over, and subscriptions sales for the coming season are down by more than 35 percent.

However, on June 23rd a 144-seat lecture hall in the building featured out Broadway performers and fierce ally and creator of the highly acclaimed musical Hamilton Lin-Manuel Miranda. The D.C. Gay Men’s Chorus Pride concert at the Center had been canceled, but on this evening, they shared the stage with famed playwrights Tony Kushner and Harvey Fierstein.

Colorado Senator John Hickenlooper spearheaded the evening’s entertainment, joined by out Wisconsin Senator Tammy Baldwin and a few other Senate colleagues. In the words of co-conspirator and Hamilton producer Jeffrey Seller, “This is our way of reoccupying the Kennedy Center. This is a form of saying, ‘We are here, we exist, and you can’t ignore us.’ This is a protest, and a political act.”

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