Jessica Stern’s Queer Diplomacy | This Way Out Radio Episode #1955
- This Way Out
- Sep 16
- 8 min read
For more than two decades, activist, educator, diplomat Jessica Stern has worn a variety of hats in her efforts to advance LGBTQ human rights around the world, always at the forefront — unafraid, unapologetic, speaking truth to power. Currently serving as Senior Human Rights and U.S. Foreign Policy Fellow at the Carr-Ryan Center for Human Rights at the Harvard Kennedy School, Stern talks about her pioneering work at the United Nations, her tenure as the top queer diplomat in the U.S. State Department and her advice for standing up for human rights in a hostile world (interviewed by David Hunt).
And in NewsWrap: the lower house of the Dutch parliament votes to criminalize so-called “conversion therapy,” Hong Kong legislators overwhelmingly vote down a bill to grant same-gender couples limited legal rights, an hour-long LGBTQ+ Pride motorcade cruises through the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv in the very midst of the Russian invasion, the U.S. Supreme Court temporarily allows transgender students in South Carolina can use campus bathrooms that align with their gender identity, Oregon state lawmaker Cyrus Javadi has had enough of the Republican Party, and more international LGBTQ+ news reported this week by Joe Boehnlein and Melanie Keller (produced by Brian DeShazor).
All this on the September 15, 2025 edition of This Way Out!
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Complete Program Summary
for the week of September 15, 2025
Jessica Stern’s Queer Diplomacy
NewsWrap (full transcript below): Lawmakers in the lower house of the Dutch parliament approve a measure to criminalize so-called “conversion therapy” — the highly discredited claim that queer sexual orientation and gender identity can be “cured” through counseling and prayer … Hong Kong lawmakers overwhelmingly reject a bill that would have offered legal recognition with very limited rights to same-gender couples … 30 miles from the Russian border, queers and their allies in Ukraine’s second-largest city, Kharkiv, hold an “automotive” Pride procession “to live in a free and safe country and to have the same rights that heterosexual people already enjoy” … the U.S. Supreme Court rejects South Carolina’s emergency request to override a lower court injunction preventing the state from enforcing its transgender bathroom ban while the constitutionality of the law is being challenged … Oregon’s north coastal state Representative Cyrus Javadi, who happens to have a gay son, flees the Republican Party for the Democrats because of GOP "leaders who’d rather go viral than go fix the roads" [with an audio excerpt from an interview with Javadi on Portland’s KGW-TV News] (written by GREG GORDON and LUCIA CHAPPELLE, produced by BRIAN DeSHAZOR, and reported this week by JOE BOEHNLEIN and MELANIE KELLER).
Feature: So far in 2025, same-gender sex has been outlawed in Trinidad and Tobago and Burkina Faso, and in Indonesia a pair of gay college students endured 80 lashes; Pride event organizers fought the governments of Turkey and Hungary; queer events were raided in Malaysia and Russia, and trans rights are under attack almost everywhere. It sure would be a great time for the U.S. to have a top LGBTQI+ diplomat, but not in the second Trump administration. This Way Out’s David Hunt finds that the former person in that job, Jessica Stein, continues to unapologetically speak truth to power, and she has some advice for champions of queer human rights in a hostile world.(intro’d by THE RASCALS singing People Got To Be Free, and with internal music by IAN POST and outro music by JUDY SMALL).
Jessica Stern Appointed Senior Fellow:
NewsWrap
A summary of some of the news in or affecting
LGBTQ communities around the world
for the week ending September 13th, 2025
Written by Greg Gordon and Lucia Chappelle,
reported this week by JOE BOEHNLEIN and MELANIE KELLER,
and produced by BRIAN DeSHAZOR
The lower house of the Dutch parliament voted on September 9th to criminalize so-called “conversion therapy.” Initial opposition from conservative members of parliament’s Tweede Kamer was allayed.
“Conversion therapy” refers to the debunked practice of “curing” queer sexual orientation or gender identity through a combination of counseling and prayer. The bill’s proponents stressed to those concerned about protecting “pastoral conversations” that it will only be a criminal offense to use “systematic” or “intrusive” methods utilizing severe psychological pressure. It took quite a while to arrange that compromise as the bill’s supporters worked to gather a majority, according to Christian News in Europe.
Social-liberal M.P. Wieke Paulusma said after the vote, “Love does not need to be cured. … With this law, we protect vulnerable people from harmful practices that endanger their health and safety. This is a choice for freedom, equality, and human dignity.”
Passage of the bill is a “victory” to Myrtille Danse, chair of the venerable Dutch queer advocacy group C.O.C. Nederland. She said, “You are perfect just the way you are. Never let anyone tell you otherwise.”
A victory in the upper house of parliament is still needed to make the ban on “conversion therapy” the law of the land.
A bill to grant Hong Kong’s same-gender couples limited legal rights was overwhelmingly voted down on September 10th. For gay and lesbian couples who either legally married or obtained civil unions overseas, it would have allowed registration of same-gender relationships for the first time in Hong Kong. Mutual medical decision-making and after-death arrangements were among the limited rights offered. Seventy-one of the Legislative Council’s 86 members rejected the government-backed measure, and one abstained.
Legislator Maggie Chan was convinced the bill “rocks the foundation of the monogamous and heterosexual marriage system in Hong Kong,” as she told The Hong Kong Free Press. Famously anti-LGBTQ lawmaker Junius Ho fretted about how Father’s Day and Mother’s Day would be celebrated. Some opponents called it an opportunity to show that the Legislative Council is not a rubber stamp for the Hong Kong government. A knowledgeable source told The Washington Blade that Beijing was “unlikely to interfere.”
Pressure is building on the Legislative Council. In September 2023, the Hong Kong Court of Appeal gave lawmakers until October 27th of this year to find some way to legally recognize same-gender couples. Sixty percent of Hong Kongers supported marriage equality in a 2023 survey cited by the Free Press.
Queers and their allies in the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv held LGBTQ+ Pride on September 6th in the very midst of the Russian invasion. Pride co-organizer and president of the Sphere Women’s Association Anna Sharyhina told The Washington Blade, “Kharkiv needs Kharkiv Pride — a powerful and vivid distinction from Russia.” Organizers described an hour-long procession of about 50 LGBTQ activists, volunteers, and servicemembers in 17 cars escorted by police vehicles. They said they “drove through the city to draw attention to the importance of ensuring human rights for all through legislation.”
There have been successful and peaceful Pride Parades in Kyiv the past two years, but that kind of event in Kharkiv would have raised major security concerns. Ukraine’s second-largest city is less than 30 miles from the Russian border in the eastern part of the country.
An undaunted Sharyhina said, “We strive to live in a free and safe country and to have the same rights that heterosexual people already enjoy. Every day, LGBTQ+ people contribute to the victory, so the state must finally provide us with protection.”
Transgender students in South Carolina can use campus bathrooms that align with their gender identity – for now. The U.S. Supreme Court has rejected the state’s request for emergency relief to enforce its trans bathroom ban, a denial “based on the standards applicable for obtaining emergency relief from this Court.” The nonprofit legal group Public Justice cheered, “Contrary to South Carolina’s insistence, trans students are not emergencies.”
The ruling maintains a lower court’s injunction against the state law on sex-segregated facilities while its constitutionality is being challenged. Far-right Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch wanted to grant the state’s request to lift the injunction. The high court’s brusque unsigned order only noted that it was “not a ruling on the merits of the legal issues presented in the litigation.”
South Carolina’s 2024 law threatens any public school with the loss of a quarter of its state funding if it allows transgender students to use appropriate restrooms. A now-15-year-old transgender boy in Berkeley County was suspended for using the boys’ bathroom. His family filed suit, represented by the advocacy group Alliance for Full Acceptance.
A panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in Richmond, Virginia blocked the law in August. The appeals court relied on its own twenty-twenty ruling in Grimm v. Gloucester County School Board. It had found that bathroom bans targeting transgender students violate both Title IX and the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution.
South Carolina is pointing to the Supreme Court’s United States v. Skrmetti decision in June. Skrmetti did not deal with bathroom bans, but it did uphold Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming healthcare for minors. Several cases on transgender rights are already on the Supreme Court docket beginning in October. They include a challenge to Colorado’s ban on so-called “conversion therapy” and a trans sports ban in West Virginia.
In representing the South Carolina teen, Public Justice’s press statement said of trans students, “They are not threats. They are young people looking to learn and grow at school, despite the state-mandated hostility they too often face.”
Finally, Oregon state lawmaker Cyrus Javadi says he’s had enough. The frustrated Republican represents Tillamook, Astoria, and other North Coast communities. He recounted his disappointments with his party in an extended Substack post. In his words, “Protecting Medicaid benefits for the nearly 60% of children in Tillamook and Clatsop counties? Opposed. Keeping rural hospitals afloat? Opposed. Preserving students’ access to books that reflect who they are? Opposed. Protecting the First Amendment rights of people different from ourselves? Opposed. … Not because the policies were flawed. But because helping me deliver for my district didn’t fit the Republican Party’s agenda.”
And so Javadi told Portland’s KGW-TV News that he’s bidding the Republicans a not-so-fond adieu.
[SOUND: Javadi]
Since Donald Trump got into office, I've been somewhat concerned and just the way that he went about trying to solve problems or… or burn things down and watching the Republican party. I determined that the party was moving on, and I wasn't gonna move on with it, and I was gonna work with a party like the Democratic Party that was there for me over and over and over again to solve those problems that were important to Oregon and to the North Coast.
In June Javadi was the only Republican to vote for a bill to prevent anti-queer book bans in schools because he said that reading helped his own gay son understand his identity. He told his colleagues, “Let’s not teach our kids that their stories are too controversial to belong on the shelf.”
As unsubstantiated threats to mount a recall campaign against him circulate, Javadi insists that his values have not changed, and that Republicans have proven to be “leaders who’d rather go viral than go fix roads.” He plans to run for re-election as a Democrat. He would have faced almost certain defeat in a Republican primary, but it’s not likely that a Democratic challenger will emerge. Either way, for Javadi changing parties is not changing principles, or as he says, “I still believe in limited government, free speech, fiscal responsibility, individual liberty, and the rule of law. I still believe your rights don’t come from the state but from something higher. But I also believe government has to work, not just posture.”
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