PEN: Mightier Than the Book Bans | This Way Out Radio Episode #1947
- This Way Out
- Jul 22
- 8 min read
Updated: Aug 12
Just how far is it from book bans to bonfires? PEN America’s Los Angeles Director Allison Lee tracks the alarming censorship trend across the U.S. and how to stand up against it (interviewed by Jason Jenn).
And in NewsWrap: a gay male Ukrainian couple wins recognition as a legal family in a Kyiv district court, the Church of England votes to stop teaching prospective clergy that so-called “homosexual practice” is “especially dishonourable,” Puerto Rico now bans hormone therapy and other gender-affirming care for trans patients under the age of 21 and criminalizes medical providers, New Hampshire’s Republican Governor Kelly Ayotte vetoes two specifically anti-queer measures and three more culture war bills, a federal judge forces the Trump administration to restore 6.2 million dollars in federal funding to nine queer and HIV organizations, lesbian comedian and former talk show host Rosie O’Donnell refuses to be cowed by Trump’s empty threat to revoke her citizenship, and more international LGBTQ+ news reported this week by Joe Boehnlien and David Hunt (produced by Brian DeShazor).
All this on the July 21, 2025 edition of This Way Out!
Join our family of listener-donors today at thiswayout.org/donate/
LISTEN TO THE PODCAST EXTENDED INTERVIEW
Complete Program Summary
for the week of July 21, 2025
PEN: Mightier Than the Book Bans
NewsWrap (full transcript below): A district court in Ukraine breaks new ground by declaring a gay male couple to be a legal family … the Church of England drops “dishonourable” from a document for potential clergy describing homosexuality that still calls for them to be celibate … Puerto Rico’s territorial Republican Governor Jenniffer González-Colón signs one of the harshest bills in the U.S. banning gender-affirming healthcare for patients under the age of 21 that also imprisons medical providers for violating the law … New Hampshire’s Republican Governor Kelly Ayotte vetoes book banning and anti-trans bathroom bills, along with three bills targeting DEI programs … nine queer and HIV U.S. organizations have an aggregate 6.2 million dollars in federal funds restored after a district court judge rules that the Trump administration had probably acted unconstitutionally to withdraw them earlier this year … Donald Trump reignites his decades-old feud with outspokenly lesbian talk show host, comedian and actress Rosie O’Donnell, and Rosie snipes back, after he suggests that he will terminate her U.S. citizenship — something he can’t legally do— because she moved her family to Ireland soon after his second presidential inauguration [with audio excerpts from Rosie’s social media posts] (written by GREG GORDON and LUCIA CHAPPELLE, produced by BRIAN DeSHAZOR, reported this week by JOE BOEHNLEIN and DAVID HUNT) + “This just in:” gay U.S. asylum-seeking Venezuelan gay makeup artist Andry Hernández Romero is freed from El Salvador’s notorious CECOT prison but forced to return to his hostile homeland.
Feature: Books may not be burning yet, but the political heat in the U.S. is rapidly rising. Just how far is it from book bans to bonfires? In its mad dash to undo diversity, equity and inclusion programs, the current administration is working overtime to pull LGBTQ+ and other marginalized voices off the shelves. Allison Lee of the venerable literary organization PEN illuminates the dangers and suggests ways to fight back in conversation with This Way Out’s JASON JENN in this first of a two-part feature (with music by JOANIE LEEDS and GEORGE MICHAEL).
NewsWrap
A summary of some of the news in or affecting
LGBTQ communities around the world
for the week ending July 19th, 2025
Written by Greg Gordon and Lucia Chappelle,
reported this week by JOE BOEHNLEIN and DAVID HUNT,
produced by Brian DeShazor
PEN: Mightier Than the Book Bans | This Way Out Radio Episode #1947LISTEN NOW on our website, podcasts everywhere, and community radio stations around the world. A gay Ukrainian couple has won recognition as a legal family in a Kyiv district court. The country’s first-of-its-kind precedent was originally reported on June 10th in the Kyiv Independent.
Zoryan Kis is a diplomatic employee stationed in Tel Aviv at Ukraine’s Israeli embassy. His longtime male partner Tymur Levchuk was not allowed to join Kis in Tel Aviv because Ukrainian law does not recognize the relationship of a same-gender couple. The couple held a commitment ceremony in their homeland in 2017, then legally married in the United States in 2021. They sued the Foreign Ministry in 2024 charging that the couple’s spousal rights were being violated. They documented their 12-year relationship with joint travel records, photographs, correspondence, and witness testimony to back up their claim. The court concluded that the couple is, in fact, in a de facto civil marriage.
Kis’ celebratory Facebook post called the district court decision, “A very big and important step toward marriage equality in Ukraine and a small victory in our struggle for ‘simple family happiness’ for Ukrainian diplomats.”
So-called “homosexual practice” is no longer described as “especially dishonourable” in a teaching document aimed at prospective Church of England clergy. A meeting of the General Synod voted to amend the 1991 document on sexuality that required clergy to affirm that description. It also urged queer Christians to be celibate.
An overwhelming majority of the bishops, clergy and lay delegates decided on July 15th that “the tone, language, and some of the assumptions in [the Issues in Human Sexuality document] are now contextually inappropriate, and appear prejudicial and offensive to many people.”
Out gay London Anglican priest Charles Bączyk-Bell told Reuters that eliminating the word “dishonourable” “opens the way for liberalization of the church’s policy on same sex relationships and means we can stop using it as a kind of reference text.”
Church doctrine prohibiting same-gender sex has not changed. However, the Church of England is the parent of the worldwide Anglican Communion, and the move will certainly exacerbate the rift between it and the traditionalist Anglican congregations primarily in Africa and Asia. That chasm widened in 2023 when Church of England officials decided to allow priests to bless same-gender couples.
Puerto Rico now bans hormone therapy and other gender-affirming care for trans patients under the age of 21 and criminalizes medical providers for breaking the law. Violators face up to 15 years in prison, a $50,000 fine, and revocation of professional licenses and permits. Republican Governor Jennifer González-Colón signed the bill on July 16th that also prohibits the use of public funds for such care. Puerto Rico’s LGBTQ+ Federation President Pedro Julio Serrano wrote, “What a shame! With her actions, [González-Colón] declares herself the most anti-equity governor in history.”
In the legislation’s words, it’s justified because, "Minors, having not yet reached the necessary emotional, cognitive, and physical maturity, are particularly vulnerable to making decisions that can have irreversible consequences. Therefore, it is the State's duty to ensure their comprehensive well-being."
Although several U.S. states ban pediatric gender-affirming care, the U.S. Island territory’s law is seen as much harsher because of its threatened prosecution of medical providers. Puerto Rico's professional associations representing physicians, surgeons, psychologists, social workers, and lawyers had all lobbied González-Colón to veto the bill.
LGBTQ+ Federation co-director Justin Jesús Santiago wrote in a July 17th press statement, "Let there be no doubt: We will go to court to challenge the constitutionality of the governor's cruel and inhumane signing of a law that criminalizes health professionals for caring for trans minors.”
New Hampshire’s Republican Governor Kelly Ayotte vetoed two specifically anti-queer measures and three more culture war bills passed by the Republican-dominated state legislature.
House Bill 324 would have barred schools from distributing books and other materials deemed “harmful to minors.” That catch phrase has been used to censor books with LGBTQ+ characters and themes. It also would have required school districts to enhance procedures for parents to challenge materials. Ayotte said that current state law already covers those concerns.
The governor called House Bill 148 “overly broad and impractical to enforce, potentially creating an exclusionary environment for some of our citizens.” It would have allowed businesses and correctional institutions to segregate people by sex assigned at birth rather than gender identity, including for facilities like restrooms and locker rooms. Former Republican Governor Chris Sununu had also vetoed a similar bill.
Ayotte also vetoed bills to make it easier to get religious exemptions from child vaccine requirements and to require parental permission for non-academic student surveys, according to the New Hampshire Bulletin. An anti-choice measure that would have mandated that sex education courses include ‘images that showed the development of the heart, brain, and other vital organs in early fetal development” was also on Ayotte’s chopping block.
A two-thirds vote in both chambers of the state legislature is required to override gubernatorial vetoes. House Republicans don’t have the votes to override any of them.
The Trump administration is being forced to restore 6.2 million dollars in federal funding to nine queer and HIV organizations. Judge Jon S. Tigar of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California decided on June 9th that the plaintiffs were likely to prove that several Trump executive orders against diversity, equity and inclusion were unconstitutional. So is a specific anti-trans edict. Lawyers for the queer advocacy group Lambda Legal representing the plaintiffs reported on July 15th that all nine had seen their funding restored.
The plaintiffs were the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, the Los Angeles LGBT Center, The GLBT Historical Society, San Francisco Community Health Center, Prisma Community Care in Arizona, the New York City LGBT Community Center, Pennsylvania’s Bradbury-Sullivan Community Center, Baltimore’s Safe Haven and the trans-supportive FORGE in Wisconsin.
In its announcement Lambda Legal proclaimed, “When we fight, we win.”
Finally, U.S. President Donald Trump should have learned by now not to mess with Rosie O’Donnell.
The outspoken lesbian comedian and former talk show host announced in a March TikTok video that she was moving to Ireland and “in the process” of securing citizenship through family descent, but that she would maintain dual U.S. citizenship.
Trump waited until he needed a distraction from his current challenges involving his friendship with the late convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein to troll O’Donnell. In a July 12th post to Truth Social, Trump declared, “Because of the fact that Rosie O'Donnell is not in the best interests of our Great Country, I am giving serious consideration to taking away her Citizenship."
Of course, the president does not have the legal authority to revoke the citizenship of a person born in the U.S.
The O’Donnell-Trump feud has gone on for almost two decades. It began when as a co-host on The View in 2006 she ridiculed the future president’s hypocritical alleged “moral authority.”
O’Donnell responded to Trump’s empty threat on social media this week. Of her decision to migrate she said in part,
[SOUND: O’Donnell]
It got sad and scary for me with the election of the current president, so I knew I had to take care of my kid — my non-binary, autistic kid. And the way that people marginalize and attack the trans community, especially politically, is unfathomable to me, and so unbearably cruel.
She went on to say:
[SOUND: O’Donnell]
Don't worry about me I'm good. I'm safe here in Ireland. I'm out of the reach of the tangerine Mussolini. I have to say that I was expecting him to do something as absurd as he did for a few reasons. Number one, I read “Project 2025.” Number two, I've had 20 years of abuse from him, so I knew it wasn't gonna stop. Number three, I know myself well enough to know that I wasn't gonna stop.
It is admirable that PEN remains steadfast in defending freedom Retro Bowl of speech and meaningful books in the midst of widespread censorship!