Isherwood Reading Isherwood | This Way Out Radio Episode #1973
- This Way Out
- 14 minutes ago
- 7 min read
Christopher Isherwood’s own stories of pre-War Berlin; remembering Renee Nicole Good; U.S. top court hears trans student sports ban cases, a new survey confirms pediatric transgender healthcare can be life-saving, Malaysian authorities shut down an empty “gay friendly” hotel, the latest Human Rights Campaign U.S. queer quality of life poll finds deterioration under Trump, and billionaire philanthropist MacKenzie Scott donates 45 million dollars to the queer youth crisis intervention and suicide prevention group The Trevor Project.
All that and more this week when you discover “This Way Out”.
Hosted this week by Lucia Chappelle and produced with Greg Gordon. “NewsWrap” reported this week by Michael Taylor Gray and Nico Raquel and produced by Brian DeShazor. Christopher Isherwood feature produced by Brian DeShazor with thanks to the Pacifica Radio Archives. Thanks also to Ann Northrup and Andy Humm of GayUSATV.org. Theme music: Kim Wilson. Additional music: Jethro Tull; Joel Grey; Bronski Beat.
In our 38th year satisfying your weekly minimum requirement of LGBTQ news and culture!
Complete Program Summary
for the week of January 19, 2026
Isherwood Reading Isherwood
In “NewsWrap” [full transcript below]: The U.S. Supreme Court hears oral arguments in 2 cases involving state bans on transgender athletes competing in school sports; Malaysian authorities shutter a hotel that promoted itself on social media as “gay friendly”; yet another study, this one published in the “Journal of Pediatrics”, confirms that access by trans young people to gender-affirming healthcare, particularly hormone therapies, can literally be life-saving; the Human Rights Campaign’s Annual LGBTQ+ Community Survey not surprisingly finds queers in the U.S. have been suffering since Donald Trump became president for the second time; and philanthropist MacKenzie Scott, ex-wife of Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos, stuns the leaders and staff of the U.S. queer youth suicide prevention organization The Trevor Project with a 45-million-dollar donation (written by GREG GORDON and LUCIA CHAPPELLE, produced by BRIAN DeSHAZOR, and reported this week by MICHAEL TAYLOR GRAY and NICO RAQUEL).
Feature: Renee Nicole Good was murdered by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent in Minneapolis, Minnesota on January 7th. Good was protesting ICE raids in her community, and her killing has intensified the worldwide movement against the Trump administration’s attacks on immigrants. Except for the Justice Department’s effort to prosecute Becca Good, Renee’s spouse and family have been largely lost in the mainstream media din. “GayUSA’s” ANN NORTHRUP and ANDY HUMM aim to correct that omission.
Feature: While the world looks on with dismay as the U.S, government employs Gestapo tactics within its borders and imperialist threats abroad, “This Way Out’s” Brian DeShazor is reminded of one of the great gay authors of the 20th century who lived through times like these: iconic gay author CHRISTOPHER ISHERWOOD reads from his “THE LAST OF MR. NORRIS” and “GOODBYE TO BERLIN” (produced by BRIAN DeSHAZOR from the Pacifica Radio Archives, with intro music by JOEL GREY from “Cabaret” and internal music by BRONSKI BEAT).
NewsWrap
for the week ending 17 January 2026
Program 1973 distributed 19 January 2026
Reported by MICHAEL TAYLOR GRAY and NICO RAQUEL
written by Greg Gordon and Lucia Chappelle
and produced by Brian DeShazor
Can transgender athletes be banned from competing in U.S government-funded school athletic programs? The United States Supreme Court heard oral arguments in two cases that test the constitutionality of such bans on January 13th. Their decision will touch virtually every public school or university because they all depend on some type of federal funding to cover operating costs.
In the case of Little v. Hecox, 25-year-old Lindsay Hecox filed suit after Boise State University in Idaho rejected her efforts to try out for the women’s track and cross-country teams.
Fifteen-year-old shot putter and discus thrower Becky Pepper-Jackson is the plaintiff in West Virginia v. B.P.J. Both states are challenging lower court rulings that supported the trans athletes.
The cases zero in on the meaning of bias based on sex in the Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause, and the sex-based bias in education banned in Title IX of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Opponents of trans participation insist that trans females have a physical advantage over cisgender females because they were born with male physical dominance. Their claim lacks scientific evidence. Any such advantage is likely erased by gender-affirming care such as puberty blockers and hormone therapies.
The high court ruled that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act bans bias based on sexual orientation or gender identity in the workplace in the landmark Bostock v. Clayton County decision of 2020. Voting with the majority in that case, Chief Justice John Roberts wondered aloud if Bostock extends to school athletics.
Based on the Justices’ questions and comments during the oral arguments, Court-watchers generally speculate that the conservative majority will support the trans bans. The Supreme Court’s ruling is expected sometime in June.
Twenty-seven of the 50 U.S. states specifically ban trans girls and women from competing in school sports. Trans boys and men are not affected.
As they deliberate on the pending trans student athlete cases, the U.S. Supreme Court might do well to consider a recent Journal of Pediatrics study. It confirms that trans young people who have access to gender-affirming hormone replacement therapies are demonstrably less suicidal.
Researchers surveyed 432 patients aged 12 to 20 over 679 days. They found that "suicidality significantly declined from pretreatment to post-treatment" regardless of the respondent’s gender, age and duration of treatment. The authors say their findings “provide clinical evidence supporting the mental health benefits of timely access to hormone therapies in this population.”
This latest research supports the positions of major medical groups in the United States. The American Medical Association, the American Psychiatric Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry all say that gender-affirming healthcare is evidence-based and medically necessary for both trans adults and minors. The World Health Organization and the World Medical Association concur.
Another mental health study was reported in December by the Trevor Project, a queer youth suicide-prevention organization. It discovered that trans and non-binary young people aged 13 to 24 were 31 percent less likely to contemplate or try to kill themselves in the past year if their chosen pronouns are respected.
A Malaysian hotel advertised as “gay friendly” on social media is now closed by order of the unfriendly authorities. The state of Meleka’s Religious Affairs Department and officers from the local Bachang Municipal Council raided the 37-room hotel on January 13th. No guests were found, and an unmade bed with two used condoms nearby in one room were the only signs of activity. No one who had booked the room could be found, according to local reports.
The Municipal Council nevertheless revoked the hotel’s operating license and demanded that its owner explain the “gay friendly” characterization on its website.
In predominantly Muslim Malaysia, same-gender sex is punishable by up to three years in prison. That’s in secular court. A religious court can sentence offenders with hefty fines and public whippings.
Malaysia’s anti-LGBTQ crackdown has been escalating over the past few years. Two-hundred-and-three men were detained in a raid on an alleged “gay sauna” in the capital of Kuala Lumpur just last month.
The second term of President Donald Trump is driving some U.S. LGBTQ people back into the closet. Almost one in two respondents to the Human Rights Campaign Foundation’s Annual LGBTQ+ Community Survey say that they are now “being less out somewhere in their lives.”
The organization polled more than 14,000 people across the country, two-thirds of whom identify as LGBTQ+. Nearly one in three of the LGBTQ+ people surveyed think social acceptance of queer people has diminished since the new administration took power.
Bias and stigma in the workplace have also been reported in the last year by 57 percent of LGBTQ+ adults. Many of them blame the dismantling of their employers’ diversity, equity and inclusion programs due to the Trump administration’s war on “woke.”
Two-thirds of trans and nonbinary adults said the administration’s policies have made it more difficult for them to access health care. Queer people were also almost twice as likely as their heterosexual counterparts to say that their economic situation has worsened since Trump’s January 2025 inauguration.
Human Rights Campaign President Kelley Robinson discussed the report on MSNOW’s Morning Joe and issued a written statement that reads in part, “for all the pain Trump has caused, the LGBTQ+ community’s resilience drives our power. Together, we continue to fight for a future in which everyone has the freedom to be who they are.”
Finally, Trevor Project C.E.O. Jaymes Black told the Associated Press, “I actually gasped.” Their organization is getting a whopping 45-million-dollar donation from MacKenzie Scott, the billionaire philanthropist former wife of Amazon’s Jeff Bezos. It’s the largest single donation the 28-year-old life-saving queer youth organization has ever received. It comes at a time when the Trump administration’s slashing of federal funding has all but shut down other queer youth crisis-intervention groups.
Scott donated $6 million to the group in 2020. C.E.O. Black celebrated the new contribution saying, “This historic donation from MacKenzie Scott comes at a time when The Trevor Project has never needed it more. LGBTQ+ youth in the U.S. are facing a growing mental health crisis, and the resources they have for support continue to be politicized and jeopardized. This gift provides a safety net for our life-saving suicide prevention and crisis intervention work, offering stability during a period of immense economic and political uncertainty."
The $45 million is to be strategically invested to insure the group’s long-term financial stability. Black declares, “Thanks to MacKenzie Scott’s extraordinary generosity, we are well-positioned to continue working toward a world where every LGBTQ+ young person feels safe, seen, and supported exactly as they are.”