Planet Queer Turns 13 | This Way Out Radio Episode #1951
- This Way Out
- 2 days ago
- 8 min read
Every month at AKBAR, a small neighborhood LGBTQ+ bar on the east side of Los Angeles, queer artists of all kinds find a place to play in a unique cabaret. Executive Director Travis Wood, Creative Director Ian MacKinnon, and performers Lore Randolph (aka Fleur The Tease) and Ari (aka Odious Ari) celebrate 13 years of Planet Queer — with a nod to the late playwright Robert Patrick (produced by Brian DeShazor).
And in NewsWrap: a pair of Indonesian college students caught hugging and kissing in a public restroom is set to receive 80 lashes for same-gender sex, Moroccan feminist and human rights activist Ibtissame Lachgar is under arrest for an anti-Islam post in which she wore a t-shirt that reads “Allah is lesbian,” Kathmandu LGBTQ Pride blends with Nepal’s traditional Gai Jatra festival with hundreds of queer celebrants and allies, Arkansas’ pediatric trans care ban is the second such law to be upheld by a U.S. federal appeals court, a school district in Virginia is standing by its trans-positive bathroom policy in defiance of the Trump administration’s order to abandon it, a Minnesota biracial cisgender lesbian teen fights back after a restaurant employees indecent toilet test, and more international LGBTQ+ news reported this week by Marcos Najera and Lucia Chappelle (produced by Brian DeShazor).
All this on the August 18, 2025 edition of This Way Out!
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Complete Program Summary
for the week of August 18, 2025
Planet Queer Turns 13
NewsWrap (full transcript below): Two young male college students in the Sharia-governed Indonesian province of Aceh each face painful canings for hugging and kissing … veteran Moroccan feminist and human rights activist Ibtissam Lachgar is jailed and faces blasphemy charges for posting a photo on social media wearing a t-shirt that reads “Allah is lesbian” … Nepalese queers and allies celebrate Pride in Kathmandu for the first time since the Trump administration yanked substantial USAID funding for HIV/AIDS and LGBTQ community organizations [intro’d by on-scene sounds from the celebration] … the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upholds Arkansas’ pediatric gender-affirming healthcare ban, citing the Supreme Court’s Skrmetti decision in late June supporting similar legislation in Tennessee, and mirroring last week’s 10th Circuit upholding Oklahoma’s ban … the Loudoun County, Virginia School Board defies the Trump administration and votes to maintain its policies supporting trans students’ access to sex-segregated campus facilities, such as bathrooms and changing rooms, that match their gender identity … after showing her breasts to a female Buffalo Wild Wings restaurant worker who had followed her into the women’s restroom screaming that she’s a man, 18-year-old biracial lesbian Minnesota high school student Gerika Mudra files a bias complaint with the state’s Department of Human Rights [with excerpts from comments by Mudra in a video posted by the Twin Cities advocacy group Gender Justice] (written by GREG GORDON and LUCIA CHAPPELLE, produced by BRIAN DeSHAZOR, reported this week by MARCOS NAJERA and LUCIA CHAPPELLE).
Feature: Fortunately, you don’t need a billionaire oligarch’s ego-driven rocket ship to get to Planet Queer. It’s not in a galaxy far away, it appears monthly (10 X a year) on the east side of Los Angeles in the Silver Lake neighborhood. It’s an out-of-this-world queer artist cabaret at a little watering hole called Akbar. Executive Director Travis Wood, Creative Director Ian McKinnon, and performers Lore Randolph (aka Fleur the Tease) and Ari (aka Odious Ari) celebrate 13 years of LGBTQ performances (with intro/outro music by ETHEL MERMAN and internal music by ROBERT PATRICK.
NewsWrap
A summary of some of the news in or affecting
LGBTQ communities around the world
for the week ending August 16th, 2025
Written by Greg Gordon and Lucia Chappelle,
reported this week by MARCOS NAJERA and LUCIA CHAPPELLE,
produced by BRIAN DeSHAZOR
A pair of Indonesian college students is set to receive 80 lashes for same-gender sex. The unnamed 20- and 21-year-old defendants were arrested in April in a public restroom at Taman Sari City Park in the province of Aceh. Witnesses reported seeing the men enter the bathroom, prompting the police to break in.
It could hardly have happened in a more dangerous place than Aceh. While secular law governs most of the Southeast Asian nation, since 2014 both Muslim and non-Muslim people in the province have lived under strict Islamic law, or Sharia. Same-gender sex violates both religious and secular laws in Indonesia. Even though they were only seen hugging and kissing, the Sharia court decided that those actions would “legally and convincingly” lead to gay sex.
The prosecution had asked for sentences of 85 public lashes with a cane for each man. However, Judge Rokhmadi M. Hum lowered the penalties by five strokes each because the men had been polite and respectful in court and had no previous convictions. Hum’s August 11th reduced sentences also reflected the four months the men have already spent in jail.
Canings under Aceh’s Sharia are extremely painful. Up to 100 lashes can be prescribed for other “morality” offenses such as adultery, gambling and drinking alcohol, or for men who skip Friday prayers or women whose clothing is deemed too tight.
This is the fifth time an instance of men being publicly caned for same-gender sex has been reported in the province since the first such conviction in 2017.
Wearing a t-shirt that reads “Allah is lesbian,” her social media selfie is captioned, “In Morocco, I walk around with t-shirts bearing messages against religions, Islam, etc. You tire us with your sanctimoniousness, your accusations. Yes, Islam, like any religious ideology, is fascist, phallocratic and misogynistic.” That’s why feminist and human rights activist Ibtissame Lachgar is under arrest.
Criticizing Islam is considered blasphemy in predominantly Muslim Morocco, punishable by up to two years in prison. The Public Prosecutor’s Office at the Rabat Court of First Instance announced on August 10th that Lachgar had been placed in police custody, charged with blasphemy for “wearing a shirt with phrases offensive to the divine, along with a caption insulting Islam.”
By trade Lachgar is a clinical psychotherapist and criminologist. She co-founded MALI – the Alternative Movement for Individual Liberties. She’s been arrested several times since 2009 for challenging Islamic law and defending women’s and queer rights. During her years of activism, Lachgar has been a target of “cyber bullying, [getting] thousands of threats of rape [and] death, [and] calls for lynching and stoning.”
The Moroccan penal code prescribes six months to two years in prison and/or a fine equivalent to $2-20 U.S. for any attack on the Islamic religion. Prison time can be up to five years for an “outrage” committed through public means, including electronic platforms.
Moroccan and global human rights groups are calling for Lachgar’s immediate release.
Hundreds of people celebrated LGBTQ Pride in Nepal’s capital city of Kathmandu on August 10th. Pride has become an annual part of the Hindu majority’s traditional Gai Jatra festival, when relatives who have died during the past year are honored. Queer celebrants and allies waved rainbow and trans pride flags and hoisted banners reading “Pride for all intersectional queer identities,” “Transgender men are men,” and “Transgender women are women.”
It was the first Pride since the Trump administration canceled substantial foreign aid to the country, principally through the now dismantled U.S. Agency for International Development. Significant funding for LGBTQ community and HIV/AIDS groups were cut. Most queer community centers in Nepal have been shuttered for lack of financial support. Thousands have been deprived of various forms of humanitarian care.
Nepalese queer rights activist Simran Sherchan remains optimistic. At the Pride rally she said, “Because of the cut in funding many of the services we have been providing to the community have been hit badly, but we are not discouraged but are hopeful we will get alternative sources and fundings to help us restart those services.”
A second U.S. federal appeals court has upheld a state’s ban on gender-affirming healthcare for trans patients under the age of 18. The full 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a lower court decision that had struck down Arkansas’ pediatric trans care ban as unconstitutional. The 8-to-2 vote was announced on August 12th. It follows the 10th U.S. Circuit appeals court decision to uphold Oklahoma’s ban last week. Both rulings cited the U.S. Supreme Court’s late June Skrmetti decision in favor of a pediatric gender-affirming healthcare ban in Tennessee.
Arkansas was the first U.S. state to outlaw gender-affirming healthcare for trans minors in 2021. Its constitutionality has been argued in U.S. district court and the 8th Circuit ever since. A three-judge panel of the appeals court upheld lower court injunctions preventing enforcement of the ban in 2022. However, the justices approved a request by Republican Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin last year for the full 10-judge panel to reconsider the case. It now goes back to the lower court for review.
The courts are at odds with every major professional U.S. medical and mental health association, including the American Academy of Pediatrics. They all consider the availability of reversable puberty blockers and hormone therapies vital for the physical and mental wellbeing of transgender young people.
A school district in Virginia is standing at the bathroom door to block the Trump administration’s order to abandon its toilet access rights for transgender students and staff. The U.S. Department of Education charged the Loudoun County School District with violating federal Title IX statutes banning sex-based bias in education. Neighboring districts in four other Democratic leaning suburbs of Washington, D.C. also face Department scrutiny. Noncompliant districts could lose federal funding and face action from the Department of Justice.
Close to a hundred students and parents rallied in support of trans bathroom access ahead of the Board’s August 12th meeting. The debate lasted for hours. The near-midnight vote was 6-to-3. The unwavering statement read in part, “The Loudoun County School Board remains steadfast in its commitment to ensuring [that] every student in Loudoun County Public Schools is safe, supported, and able to thrive. We also remain committed to complying with applicable law and to protecting the rights of all students. Accordingly, current School Board policy permits students to access bathrooms and locker rooms that align with their consistently asserted gender identity and provides alternative facilities for any student who requests them.”
Finally, an 18 year-old biracial cisgender lesbian high school student is not putting up with bathroom harassment in an Owatonna, Minnesota restaurant. Gerika Mudra was followed into the bathroom by a female Buffalo Wild Wings employee who called her a man and demanded that she get out. Mudra was goaded into showing the employee her breasts.
The Twin Cities advocacy group Gender Justice filed the action with the state’s Department of Human Rights on Mudra’s behalf on August 12th. The restaurant is charged with violating the Minnesota Human Rights Act, which bans bias based on actual or perceived sexual orientation and gender identity.
Senior staff attorney Sara Jane Baldwin said in a statement, “While she is not transgender, the scrutiny and harassment [Mudra] faced is unfortunately all too familiar to trans and gender expansive people, including masculine-presenting queer women. … No one should be harassed, humiliated, or forced to prove themselves just to use the bathroom.”
Thus far there has been no comment from Inspired Brands, manager of the Buffalo Wild Wings chain.
Gender Justice let Mudra express herself in a YouTube video.
[SOUND: Mudra]
This wasn't the first time something like this happened, but this is like the worst time. This one like she kept going she was like mad screaming like… she made me feel like very uncomfortable. Right now, like after that like I just don't like going in public bathrooms like I just hold it in … and I would like like I just think like, ‘Oh I'm gonna get har … I'm gonna keep getting harassed.’ I just want like people to know like they're not alone like they're not the only people like this happens too. It's OK to stick up for themselves and be OK with who they are.”
Planet Queer cover photo credit: SKY Palkowitz
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