Sophie B. Hawkins reads from Woolf & Hawkins + LGBTQ news | This Way Out Radio Episode #1972
- This Way Out
- 2 days ago
- 7 min read
In “NewsWrap” [full transcript below]: 106 people are roughly arrested in a late December raid on a gay nightspot in Baku, the capital city of Azerbaijan; ten people in France are convicted of online bullying for “maliciously” claiming that First Lady Brigitte Macron is transgender; a U.S. federal judge rules that teachers or other school officials can out trans students to their parents without their consent; while a different federal judge decides that “devoutly Christian” parents can prevent their children from learning about the mere existence of LGBTQ people in school; under pressure from the Trump administration and a lawsuit filed by “devoutly Christian” foster parent applicants, Massachusetts replaces policies specifically requiring foster parents to support LGBTQ children in their care with the more innocuous “based on their individual identity and needs”; and her wife Becca remembers Renee Nicole Good (written this week by GREG GORDON, edited by TANYA KANE-PARRY, produced by BRIAN DeSHAZOR, and reported by RET and MARCOS NAJERA). (written this week by GREG GORDON and TANYA KANE-PARRY, reported by RET and MARCOS NAJERA, and produced by BRIAN DeSHAZOR).
Feature: SOPHIE B. HAWKINS is a U.S.-born singer-songwriter whose commercial success has been matched by her passionate advocacy for animal rights, and the equality of women and the queer community. In 1925, VIRGINIA WOOLF introduced the world to “MRS. DALLOWAY”, a groundbreaking novel that explores a single day in the life of an upper-class woman in post-World War I England. With its innovative stream-of-consciousness narrative, “Mrs. Dalloway” remains a landmark in modernist literature. In 2020 Sophie joined “This Way Out” in a Global Queer Read-in with an exclusive performance of her own work, “NOT BEATING AROUND THE BUSH” and an excerpt from “Mrs. Dalloway”. The voices of both these women-loving women are blooming in full force this week—each in her own right, shaping the world around them with art, advocacy, and a commitment to speaking truth to power (produced by BRIAN DeSHAZOR, with intro music from “Lose Your Way” by SOPHIE B. HAWKINS).
[To enjoy dozens of other readings of note by people of note, click on Global Queer Read-In via the “Explore” tab at thiswayout.org.]
Complete Program Summary
for the week of January 12, 2026
Sophie B. Hawkins reads from Woolf & Hawkins + LGBTQ news
“NewsWrap” from THIS WAY OUT
for the week ending 10 January 2026
Program #1972 -- distributed on 12 January 2026
Anchored this week by RET and MARCOS NAJERA,
written by GREG GORDON with TANYA KANE-PARRY,
and produced by BRIAN DeSHAZOR
In the socially conservative nation of Azerbaijan, a fun night out turned sour for more than a hundred people during a police raid on Labyrinth, a gay nightspot in the capital city of Baku. Azerbaijan is a former Soviet satellite state at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, where LGBTQ people have few legal protections.
According to local queer media, 106 patrons were detained by police on December 27th for more than 12 hours outside the building in frigid weather. Some without proper clothing for extended periods in the cold, and all without access to water, toilet breaks, or the ability to make phone calls to friends or loved ones. Many suffered extended verbal abuse while in custody. Police officials allegedly tried to bribe some to gain their release, and to coerce others into providing information about queer friends and associates.
Even though private consensual adult same-gender sex has been legal in Azerbaijan since two-thousand, LGBTQ people have no protections from discrimination or abuse in the mostly Muslim nation.
This was not the first anti-queer action in the country. More than a hundred people who were suspected of being LGBTQ were rounded up by police in twenty-seventeen in what Amnesty International called a “deliberate attempt to intimidate.”
Human rights groups in Azerbaijan and around the world quickly condemned the latest horrific police action. The European chapter of the global queer advocacy organization ILGA echoed local groups who are calling for a full investigation by the Ministry of Internal Affairs into the raid and derogatory comments made by some local officials, adding that “Human rights and dignity must be upheld for everyone in Azerbaijan.”
A court in Paris convicted ten people on January 5th of cyberbullying French First Lady Brigitte Macron by falsely claiming that she is transgender. One repeat offender was sentenced to six months in jail. Delphine Jegousse, also known as Amandine Roy, was ordered to compensate Mrs. Macron in twenty-twenty-four the equivalent of 8900 U.S. dollars over a YouTube video claiming that Brigitte was in fact her brother Jean-Michel Trogneux who had transitioned. Another unnamed defendant also reportedly faces 6 months behind bars. He failed to attend the hearing. The other 8 defendants were given suspended sentences of 4 to 8 months. All were ordered to attend cyberbullying awareness training, and to pay the equivalent of about 11,700 U.S. dollars in damages to Macron for their "particularly degrading, insulting, and malicious" claims.
Many of the defendants’ social media accounts were also suspended for up to 6 months.
Far-right U.S. commentator Candace Owens parroted the online French transphobia in her own social media posts. The Macrons filed suit against her in July.
A U.S. federal judge based in San Diego, California ruled on December 22nd that teachers can disclose the status of transgender students to their parents. District Judge Roger Benitez decided ruled that federal law allows school officials to notify parents of “gender incongruity.” The judge’s order also prohibits employees from “directly lying to the parent, preventing the parent from accessing educational records of the child, or using a different set of preferred pronouns/names when speaking with the parents than is being used at school.”
Two self-identified Christian teachers at Rincon Middle School challenged the policy of the Escondido Union School District that requires them to respect the chosen names and pronouns of their trans students, and to maintain their privacy unless the student consents to the outing or if their physical or mental health is in peril. Judge Benitez granted the plaintiffs a temporary injunction in twenty-twenty-three blocking enforcement of those policies while the case was being argued.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta immediately appealed the ruling and requested a temporary injunction to block its enforcement.
A different U.S. federal judge has sided with a “devout Christian” father who demanded that he be allowed to prevent his child from learning about LGBTQ people in his kindergarten classroom. “Alan L.” sued Joseph Estabrook Elementary School in Lexington, Massachusetts in October last year after learning that its curriculum included educational materials that “[contradict] his family’s faith by normalizing and celebrating LGBTQ+ relationships and identities.”
Boston-based federal judge F. Dennis Saylor IV ordered the school district on December 30th to make “reasonable efforts” to ensure parents can opt their children out of that information. He admitted that such material could include “books that many parents might find appropriate or innocuous (such as those simply depicting gay and lesbian couples with children).”
Attorneys representing Lexington Public Schools announced that they’ll appeal the ruling and ask for a temporary injunction blocking its enforcement, arguing that the “mere existence” of LGBTQ people was not enough to justify blocking young students from learning about them. In their words, “Schools are burdened enough without having to scour the pages of a storybook for potentially gay-appearing characters. … At what point, for instance, is a character’s hair cut too short to presume they are a woman? Are two men sitting together at a restaurant presumed to be gay, or might they just be friends? There are innumerable scenarios like these, and schools are now being forced to make near-impossible judgments.”
The supposedly liberal state of Massachusetts has revoked a policy requiring potential foster parents to support LGBTQ people in their care. State officials bowed to pressure from two lawsuits filed by devoutly Christian foster care applicants who had refused to sign an agreement to support LGBTQ kids in their care, and threats by the Trump administration.
President Donald Trump issued an Executive Order in November twenty-twenty-five that told Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. to “take appropriate action to address State and local policies and practices that inappropriately prohibit participation in federally funded child-welfare programs by qualified individuals or organizations based upon their sincerely held religious beliefs or moral convictions.”
The state Department of Children and Families replaced the policy in late December with a more innocuous statement that foster parents must support the child’s "individual identity and needs."
Finally, the Trump administration calls her a highly paid agitator and a domestic terrorist. In fact, Renee Nicole Good was a peace-loving 37-year-old lesbian mother and wife living in Minneapolis, Minnesota who was shot and killed on January 7th by an agent from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement as she attempted to move her vehicle, as ordered by other agents. Whistles, commonly used to alert neighborhoods that they were being invaded by ICE agents, drew her and her wife Becca to the scene.
Several videos documenting the shooting refute claims by Vice President J.D. Vance, Homeland Secretary Kristi Noem, and President Trump that the agent, identified as Jonathan Ross, feared for his life and acted in self-defense when he fired 3 bullets point blank through the open driver’s side window of Good’s car. In video taken by Ross himself, it appears to be his voice after he fired the shots calling Good an “effing bitch.” According to press reports, Ross is a conservative Christian and Trump supporter.
Good had been living in Minneapolis with her wife Becca whom she married in twenty-twelve, her six-year-old son, and their dog, who was in the back seat of the vehicle.
The killing of Good by an ICE agent has prompted peaceful protests in Minneapolis and across the United States. Her wife Becca issued a statement through Minnesota Public Radio on January 9th that said, in part, “Renee lived by an overarching belief: there is kindness in the world, and we need to do everything we can to find it where it resides and nurture it where it needs to grow. Renee was a Christian who knew that all religions teach the same essential truth: we are here to love each other, care for each other, and keep each other safe and whole. … We were raising our son to believe that no matter where you come from or what you look like, all of us deserve compassion and kindness. Renee lived this belief every day. She is pure love. She is pure joy. She is pure sunshine.
On Wednesday, January 7th, we stopped to support our neighbors. We had whistles. They had guns.”
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