Margaret Cho in Conversation | This Way Out Radio Episode #2002
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- 6 min read
Comedian and activist Margaret Cho shows another side of herself in conversation with Michael Taylor Gray. In the news, six local London councils are resisting the trans bathroom ban, while two New York lawmakers are moving to legalize bathhouses. Also, Michigan’s Democratic Senate primary, a Gay-Straight Alliance lawsuit in Virginia, and the heart-wrenching story of three Ghanaian lesbian asylum-seekers deported to Cameroon by the United States.
Featured speakers: Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, Erik Bottcher, Margaret Cho, Michael Taylor Gray
Credits: Associate Producer/Host Lucia Chappelle, Producer Brian DeShazor, News writer Jeb Backe, feature producer Michael Taylor Gray edited by Brian DeShazor, NewsWrap reporters Chris Wilson and Jeb Backe music: Sylvester, Robyn and Kim Wilson
All this on the August 10, 2026 Edition of This Way Out!
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This Way Out - Newswrap
Program 2002 Distributed 08/10/26
Six London councils have pledged to defy the United Kingdom ban on transgender people’s use of single-sex facilities. Guidance from the Equality and Human Rights Commission is now taking full effect in England, Wales and Scotland. The only exception to the code EHRC first published in June is Northern Ireland, where the rights of transgender citizens to use gendered facilities are not impacted. Under the EHRC’s guidance, the use of single-sex spaces is determined by sex-assigned at birth, rather than current gender.
The leaders of Hackney, Haringey, Lambeth, Lewisham, Southwark and Waltham Forest met the implementation of the code on August 5th with a joint statement vowing to keep their services “inclusive.” Their open letter to Women and Equalities Minister Bridget Phillipson read in part, “We won’t put our staff in the impossible position of policing entry to public spaces. We have an unshakeable commitment to ensuring that trans+ residents can access services safely, with dignity and free from discrimination or harassment.”
EHRC chair Mary-Ann Stephenson found what she called, “potentially a degree of performativity” in the six London councils’ letter. She told Times Radio, “Once they talk to the legal department, they will realise that they are obliged to follow the law.” Lambeth borough’s Council has instructed legal officers to examine the legal viability of refusing to implement the code.
The boroughs are not alone in their opposition. The investigative UK nonprofit The Good Law Project has launched a judicial review of the code. Their challenge argues that the code is a violation of transgender peoples’ legal human rights.
The people of Michigan have chosen the contentious progressive candidate, Dr. Abdul El-Sayed to be the Democratic U.S. Senate candidate for the upcoming general election. A son of Egyptian immigrants and a proud Muslim, Dr. El-Sayed weathered smear campaigns, Islamophobia, and millions of dollars in pro-Israel-funded advertising to beat U.S. Representative Haley Stevens. El-Sayed’s human rights forward campaign overcame his financial disadvantage. It also garnered him an endorsement from the Michigan Democratic Party LGBT&A Caucus, where he spoke in April of this year:
[AUDIO- DR. ABDUL EL-SAYED]
“Rights are rights are rights are rights and we will stand with them every single day. So what you get with me is somebody who understands two things. Number one, I will never back down when somebody's rights are at risk. So when they come and tell us that it's okay for us to throw away trans rights or LGBT rights or gay rights or lesbian rights, I'm gonna be the first up there to say no, you will not take away rights in these United States of America.”
Dr. El-Sayed is a Rhodes scholar, epidemiologist, and former head of Wayne County’s Department of Health. His opponent, establishment-backed Representative Stevens was aided by $62 million in advertising, over half of which came from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. AIPAC has been receiving increased public scrutiny for their financial influence in U.S. elections. Stevens spent nine times the amount of her progressive opponent, making this year’s Michigan Democratic Primary the most expensive ever, according to the New York Times.
El-Sayed will now face Republican Mike Rogers. Trump-endorsed candidate Rogers is a former FBI agent who scored a consistent zero out of a hundred on the Human Rights Campaign’s Scorecard while he served in Congress from 1995 to 2001. Polls show the two candidates are neck-and-neck for November’s General Election. If Dr. Abdul El-Sayed wins, he’ll be the first Muslim senator in U.S. history.
Two New York City lawmakers have proposed a bill to legalize bathhouses. It has been four decades since deeply-closeted New York Mayor Ed Koch and the city Health Council effectively banned the establishments during the height of the AIDS epidemic.
Bathhouses have long provided space for intimate encounters and community connection for queer men. However, the spread of HIV ushered in political and media-led condemnation of the sites before substantial scientific evidence was developed. The raids, the policies, and the bans that resulted in the 1980s still impact those spaces today.
The new proposal to overturn the forty-year old laws came from gay State Senator Erik Bottcher of the 47th District and gay Assemblymember Tony Simone of the 75th District. Bottcher spoke to New York Radio Station 1010 WINS last week about the current state of bathhouses in the city.
[AUDIO- BOTTCHER]
“People are going to these kind of facilities, but they’re unlicensed, they’re underground, they’re unregulated [...] This would bring those out of the shadows and also provide opportunity for public health intervention, testing, information about STIs.”
If the bill goes through, it would follow similar recent decriminalization of bathhouses in Minneapolis and San Francisco.
Two Virginia middle school students are filing a federal lawsuit after being denied the right to form a Gay Straight Alliance club at their school. The American Civil Liberties Union representing the youngsters asserts that King George Middle School repeatedly changed the rules for forming a club as a means of blocking the creation of a GSA chapter.
The dispute began in twenty-twenty-five when a seventh grader identified as Z.J.W. sought to establish a Gay Straight Alliance after experiencing discrimination at school. Pressure from a group of parents convinced the school board to place the proposed GSA on hold while it established a stricter policy for the formation of a club. When the ACLU first sent a letter to the school board warning that their denial of the GSA club violates federal law, the board then adopted a new policy banning all “noncurricular organizations.” Under the new policy, the school board authorized a number of groups to operate as so-called “curricular” clubs– just not the GSA.
The ACLU is calling out the school board’s double-standard. They’re
suing for the plaintiff students’ First Amendment and Equal Access protections. The trial titled Z.J.W. v. King George School Board was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. They demand the authorization of the GSA and an end to discriminatory practices.
Finally, three lesbian asylum-seekers are speaking out about being deported from the U.S. They fled anti-LGBTQ persecution in their home country of Ghana in twenty-twenty-four– that was the year Ghana’s Supreme Court upheld a colonial-era law that criminalizes adult consensual same-sex relations. They were legally protected from being returned to Ghana, but in January they were sent to a government compound in Cameroon, despite having zero ties to that country.
The United States has cut deals worth millions of dollars to persuade countries to accept its deportees, as revealed in an Agence France Presse investigation. Threats of visa restrictions were also part of the campaign to pressure countries to hold refugees captive.
Since some people cannot legally be returned to their countries of origin, the Trump administration maintains that nothing prevents it from sending them to a third country. Altogether, thirty-six Africans with no connection to Cameroon have been shipped there.
Deutsche Velle News Africa spoke to the three Ghanaian women, keeping their identities anonymous for their safety. They say their hands and feet were bound during their flight from the U.S. to Cameroon. One of them told her story through a voice actor:
[AUDIO- DW NEWS]
"I felt like a terrorist, because I mean, what on earth did I do to be shackled like that? [...] We are treated like we are slaves. We don't have life anymore and Cameroon is not a safe Country"
They landed in the capital city of Yaoundé earlier this year. They say they were kept in a government compound for approximately two months, and were only permitted to leave during daylight hours after staging a hunger strike. Their asylum applications have yet to receive a ruling. With no identity documents or clear legal status they are barred from working. In addition to the harsh conditions they face in Cameroon, the trio is now at risk for deportation back to Ghana. Human Rights Watch has declared that these expulsions of asylum-seekers violate international law and should be rejected.
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