Gender and Love Along the Nile with Egyptologist Dr. Colleen Darnell | This Way Out Radio Episode #1979
- 5 days ago
- 7 min read
Updated: 4 days ago
Award-winning Egyptologist Dr. Colleen Darnell of Lost Treasures of Egypt explores diverse expressions of love, gender, and identity woven into the civilizations of the ancient Nile in conversation with Brian DeShazor.
And in NewWrap: Wendy Faith and Alesi Diana Denise face life in prison in Uganda for kissing “in broad daylight,” increasing the penalty for what it calls “unnatural acts” in Senegal is the goal of a bill introduced by Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko, the gay dating apps Grindr and Blued are now blocked in Malaysia, the drug trials that provided transgender minors in the United Kingdom with the only way to get puberty blockers have been paused, two Kansas trans men are filing suit to stop the state from revoking all government documents that reflect corrected gender identities, and more international LGBTQ news reported this week by Melanie Keller and Tanya Kane-Parry (produced by Brian DeShazor).
All this on the March 2, 2026 edition of This Way Out!
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Complete Program Summary
for the week of March 2, 2026
Dr. Darnell digs Queer Egyptians
In “NewsWrap” [full transcript below]: Two young women in Uganda face up to life in prison under the East African nation’s notorious Anti-Homosexuality Act for kissing in public (with comments by veteran activist Frank Mugisha) … Senegal’s Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko submits legislation to the National Assembly to increase penalties in the West African country for consensual adult same-gender sex and punish anyone who “advocates” for same-gender couple rights … Malaysia’s government blocks highly popular online gay social media/dating apps Blued and Grindr because they “spread lewd or immoral conduct” in the Southeast Asian nation … the U.K. government cites “the safety of children” for pausing a study on the efficacy and safety of pediatric gender-affirming healthcare that effectively bans trans patients under the age of 18 from getting sometimes life-saving puberty blockers … the ACLU promptly sues the U.S. state of Kansas after the Republican-dominated legislature overrides the Democratic governor’s veto this week of a measure that invalidates the driver’s licenses, birth certificates and other government documents of trans people who have legally changed their gender marker, threatens penalties for those who don’t return those documents, and forbids future gender marker changes by trans people (written by GREG GORDON and LUCIA CHAPPELLE, produced by BRIAN DeSHAZOR, and reported this week by MELANIE KELLER and TANYA KANE-PARRY).
Feature: This Way Out’s BRIAN DeSHAZOR — self-proclaimed armchair Egyptologist — has been fanboying over Dr. Colleen Darnell, an award-winning Egyptologist trained at Yale University and vintage fashion enthusiast. Colleen is a world expert on ancient Egyptian culture and daily life, co-author of Tutankhamun’s Armies and Egypt's Golden Couple: When Akhenaten and Nefertiti Were Gods on Earth with her husband Dr. John Darnell. Brian discovered her in National Geographic’s Lost Treasures of Egypt. In this conversation, Brian explores with her the queer lives, love, and identities of the Nile’s ancient civilizations (with music by MASHROU’ LEILA, LOREENA McKENNIT and Ancient Egypt by SEMION KRIVENKO-ADAMOV, the latter licensed under an attribution-noncommercial-noderivitives 4/0 international license.
NewsWrap
for the week ending 28 February 2026
Program #1979 distributed 2 March 2026
Reported by Melanie Keller and Tanya Kane-Parry
written by Greg Gordon and Lucia Chappelle
and produced by Brian DeShazor
Wendy Faith and Alesi Diana Denise are facing life in prison in Uganda for kissing in public. Police raided the Arua City apartment where the two women have lived since last year after their neighbors passed along photos of them engaging in behavior they deemed sexual. To veteran Ugandan activist Frank Mugisha, the February 18th arrests “underscore the grim reality we are facing on the ground under the Anti-Homosexuality Act.”
Critics have called the 2023 measure the “Kill the Gays” law. It prescribes the death penalty for what it defines as “aggravated homosexuality” -- that includes multiple arrests, knowingly spreading HIV/AIDS, or having sex with minors, disabled people or other vulnerable partners. Consensual adult same-gender sex can be punished by up to life in prison. Numerous human rights groups in the East African nation and around the world have condemned it.
Faith and Denise are among the first to be arrested under the law. They were briefly free on bond but were re-arrested when they were lured back to the police station to retrieve their phones. The first prosecution under the law was dismissed February 2nd when the court determined that the defendant’s long pre-trial incarceration had rendered him mentally incompetent. Police spokesperson Josephine Angucia said that the investigation into the two women in their twenties is ongoing. In her words, “Information was received from the community that the suspects have been involved in queer and unusual acts believed to be sexual in nature, besides being allegedly seen kissing each other in broad daylight.” Faith is a local musician and internet celebrity, and neighbors also complained about groups of women dancing and sleeping over.
Mugisha says Faith and Denise’s friends are concerned about their safety under the Anti-Homosexuality Act, and so is he, as he told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation:
[SOUND: Mugisha]
My worry is if I don't feel safe being a very known, pronounced activist who has been able to maneuver and live in this country for a long time, how are the other people feeling? And if I'm not able to go out and help other people then that's very, very ... becomes very risky for everyone. I don't feel safe ... I have to watch my back all the time at this point because of the worry I have because of what I'm seeing happening.
Increasing the penalty for what it calls “unnatural acts” in Senegal is the goal of a bill introduced by Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko. On February 24th he brought Parliament legislation that would raise the penalty for consensual adult same-gender sex to a term of five to ten years in prison. Promoting homosexuality would carry a three to seven-year sentence. Queer sex with a person under 21 gets the maximum sentence of 10 years. The law would also punish anyone who accuses another of same-gender sexual offences “without proof.” The bill broadens the definition of “unnatural acts” to specify that “any sexual act or act of a sexual nature between two people of the same sex constitutes an act against nature.” Proposed penalties include fines for convicted offenders equivalent of almost 18,000 U.S. dollars.
Consensual adult same-gender sex has been a crime in the socially conservative West African Muslim-majority country since its independence from France in 1960. Sonko is resisting pressure to increase the status of so-called “unnatural” acts from a misdemeanor to a felony. He told reporters, “We can achieve the intended objectives without going so far as to elevate the acts.”
Human Rights Watch and similar global rights groups see an alarming increase in negative reporting on same-gender sex in the national media, and a police crackdown in recent months targeting the LGBTQ community. Senegal’s elite police force arrested 12 men in February for engaging in “unnatural acts” and for the deliberate transmission of HIV.
No date has been set for Sonko’s measure to be debated in the National Assembly.
The gay dating apps Grindr and Blued are now blocked in Malaysia. The Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission is cracking down on apps that it says “spread lewd or immoral content, exploitation, abuse, scams, exploiting children or threats towards public safety.”
Both Malaysia’s secular federal and state Islamic laws criminalize same-gender sex in the mostly Muslim Southeast Asian country. Anal sex can be punished by up to 20 years in prison regardless of the partners’ genders, along with canings and fines, and deportation for foreigners. Communications Minister Fahmi Fadzil’s February 25th announcement about blocking the queer apps came in response to a question from a member of the powerful but minority Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party. They asked what the Communications Commission was going to do about the two apps that were promoting “deviant” relationships.
The conservative federal government has tried to divert the national media’s attention away from more pressing issues by sensationalizing its mounting attacks on LGBTQ people.
Grindr and Blued have been rebranded to HeeSay according to the South China Morning Post – that’s H-E-E-S-A-Y. Its management has yet to issue any public comment about the online blockade.
There are no more puberty blockers for transgender minors in the United Kingdom. Participants in government drug trials at King’s College were the last to officially receive the medications.
The trials were prompted by the highly controversial 2024 Cass Report. Cass had challenged the efficacy of what experts consider life-saving treatment for trans patients under the age of 18.
That current study has now been disrupted by social pressure from anti-trans influencers such as JK Rowland. The Harry Potter author described puberty blockers as “an unethical experiment on children who can’t give meaningful consent.” The Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency caved to their criticisms, so the Department of Health and Social Care declared a pause to the study claiming “new concerns directly related to the wellbeing of children.”
Gender Plus director Dr. Aidan Kelly was “disappointed but not surprised” by the pediatric gender-affirming healthcare ban. The leading gender-care doctor and clinical psychologist told Pink News, “They keep talking about young people’s safety and well-being as the primary importance.” However, in his opinion, “the premise for the trial was flawed in the first place, and now it’s running into problems because the [National Health Service] has conceded so much ground to the anti-trans lobby.”
Finally, the U.S. state of Kansas is revoking all government documents that reflect the gender identity of trans citizens, and two trans men are filing suit. The new law passed by the Republican dominated legislature over the veto of Democratic Governor Laura Kelly. It requires trans citizens to surrender their driver’s licenses and birth certificates or face misdemeanor charges and substantial penalties. They are also banned from using bathrooms and other single-gender facilities in government buildings that don’t match their birth gender, even highway rest stops.
About 17 hundred trans Kansans started receiving letters from the state’s Division of Motor Vehicles this week informing them their driver’s licenses and other government documents would be invalidated immediately when the law went into effect February 26th. Ironically the letter ends with an apology for any “inconvenience.”
Plaintiffs Daniel Doe and Michael Moe are represented by the American Civil Liberties Union in a lawsuit focusing on driver’s licenses. They charge that the measure violates major civil rights guaranteed by the Kansas Constitution, such as privacy, personal autonomy, equality under the law, freedom of expression, and due process. The law forbids trans Kansans from changing the gender marker on driver’s licenses and birth certificates in the future, and Doe and Moe are challenging those provisions, too.
Senior Staff Attorney Harper Seldin warns that the new law “threatens to out transgender people against their will every time they apply for a job, rent an apartment, or interact with police.” He calls the measure “a cruel and craven threat to public safety all in the name of fostering fear, division and paranoia.”
Democratic state Representative Abi Boatman is the state’s lone trans lawmaker. She told the Kansas City Star, “The persecution is the point.”
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