This Gay Week 3: Media Pressure, Trans Rights & Project 2025

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2025/09/29

Charles Karel Bouley, professionally known as Karel, is a trailblazing LGBTQ broadcaster, entertainer, and activist. As half of the first openly gay duo in U.S. drive-time radio, he made history while shaping California law on LGBTQ wrongful death cases. Karel rose to prominence as the #1 talk show host on KFI AM 640 in Los Angeles and KGO AM 810 in San Francisco, later expanding to Free Speech TV and the Karel Cast podcast. His work spans journalism (HuffPost, The Advocate, Billboard), television (CNN, MSNBC), and music. A voting member of NARAS, GALECA, and SAG-AFTRA, Karel now lives and creates in Las Vegas.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen interviews Bouley, who reflects on reactions to Charlie Kirk’s assassination, alleged pressure on broadcasters, and the spread of anti-trans narratives. He urges a policy focus on gun safety, secure storage, and red-flag laws rather than partisan blame. The discussion tracks Project 2025’s passport and health-coverage aims, rising state bills restricting LGBTQ rights, and the chilling effect of proposed media regulation. Bouley weighs international implications for travel documents, warns about democratic erosion, and defends gender-affirming care as medically necessary alongside routine, covered treatments.

Interview conducted September 19, 2025. 

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: I want to take one step back for this week’s commentary. Since the assassination of Charlie Kirk on September 10, 2025, there has been much reaction.

Karel Bouley: But little of it looks like public mourning. What I see most is anger, outrage, name-calling, and a scramble to pin blame. ABC suspended Jimmy Kimmel after remarks about the right’s response to Kirk’s killing; several affiliates pulled his show, and the FCC’s chair waded in with threats that critics say cross the line into coercion of speech. Kimmel’s peers have publicly condemned the suspension.

Two Republican lawmakers responded to the shooting by calling for transgender people to be “institutionalized,” a proposal widely condemned by civil-rights groups and not grounded in evidence about the suspect. False narratives attempting to tie the shooter to “trans ideology” spread quickly despite officials saying there’s no such link.

On the facts: authorities arrested 22-year-old Tyler James Robinson after a 33-hour search. Prosecutors and reporting indicate he acted alone; investigators have not tied him to left-wing organizations, and his online trail looks more like a memetic, “terminally online” subculture than a coherent ideology.

The weapon matters. Investigators recovered a bolt-action rifle they say Robinson used; charging documents and press briefings indicate it came from his grandfather—a family gift—illustrating how easy access can be fatal even without semiautomatics.

That is why the conversation should have centred on gun policy: secure storage, access, and red-flag mechanisms, not a proxy war over which tribe “owns” the killer. Instead, the response has tilted into right-versus-left theatre, with threats to punish media critics via licensing talk—a move media-law folks compare to past episodes of presidential pressure on broadcasters.

A quick note on the culture-grief examples: Barbra Streisand is alive. I publicly mourned Robert Redford—who died September 16, 2025—alongside the rest of Hollywood. So yes, that sort of genuine grief is a real social barometer, and we’ve seen it for Redford. We’ve seen less of that from partisan actors here and more instrumental outrage.

Finally, Congress passed a bipartisan resolution condemning political violence and honouring Kirk’s life. Even that became a flashpoint, underscoring how polarized this is—and how badly the country needs a norms-based, evidence-based reset.

As a historian who studies various cultures, if Democrats do not retake a majority in November of next year, authoritarianism on the right will be locked in. That’s it. Democracy will end. Not a maybe—it will. America’s democracy will be over in 400 days if the midterms either don’t happen, are rigged, or if Democrats don’t win them. These are terrifying times in America if you’re not a right-wing extremist.

For gays and lesbians—since we often focus on LGBTQ issues here—it is becoming increasingly frightening. I have had ten friends this week, people who never even thought about this before, who have seriously asked me about leaving the country. What steps would they take? Which countries are most pro-gay? They’re rattled. These are people who don’t usually rattle. They don’t even follow politics. Yet now they feel unsafe.

We have an issue today tied to Project 2025, which is trying to change the way the United States issues and acknowledges gender on passports. Many countries now allow for gender fluidity: male, female, non-binary, or no gender listed. The United States has permitted non-binary passports, but now Trump wants them stopped. This comes directly out of Project 2025. I don’t think Trump himself cares, but it’s part of that agenda. It won’t be successfully challenged in court. The federal government has broad authority to set passport rules. Unfortunately, in America, recognition of gender equality is not codified into law.

If the administration, the USDA, the Department of Justice, and the agencies regulating passports decide this is the policy, then it will be the policy.

Jacobsen: Has there been a notable rise in violence against LGBTQ+ people in America?

Bouley: Anecdotally, yes. But I would need to look at the crime statistics, which I no longer trust. Do I trust Kash Patel’s FBI to provide the real data on LGBTQ violence? Not really.

The rhetoric against trans people has increased since the Charlie Kirk assassination. So has the threat of violence online against gays and lesbians. Yesterday, a friend asked me for material while arguing with his sister, so I sent him a spreadsheet of 630 pieces of legislation in 2025 targeting LGBTQ people. Of those, 254 are still pending, 148 have passed, and about 80 were defeated. That means there are nearly 400 pieces of legislation moving through state governments aimed at harming LGBTQ people, especially trans people.

Much of this legislation deals with what schools can teach, what books are available, and restrictions on gender-affirming care. There is a definite anti-gay movement happening in this country. For many, it’s under the radar because they don’t realize there are over 600 pieces of legislation moving right now. They think, “I haven’t heard of anything.” Well, I can provide a list of which states are doing what, and it is not very comforting.

There are more than 400 bills either already passed or moving forward that discriminate against LGBTQ people. The Kirk assassination has only emboldened the champions of this legislation. Has it caused harm? Yes. Has violence gone up? I haven’t seen the statistics, but anecdotally, in my world, I’ve heard of more harassment, more people being yelled at in public, more hate crimes happening in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and elsewhere. People are being hurt and beaten. It is not a good time to be gay in America.

Jacobsen: That brings us to the weekly news. A city attorney was unable to speculate on whether a draft policy would ban LGBTQ flags. These are unofficial political flags. 

Bouley: Trump was asked about pride flags in Washington, D.C. by Marjorie Taylor Greene’s partner, who works in the media. Trump said he opposed flying them and would see what he could do about stopping that. He then went further and said he would even be open to looking into designating the Pride flag as a symbol of terrorism.

That’s frightening, because if that were true, it would effectively designate gays and lesbians as terrorists. Hearing someone in the Oval Office say “maybe the pride flag should be a symbol of terrorism” is chilling. That’s an issue we need to observe.

On advancing bills: In New Hampshire, civil rights restrictions and weakening civil rights law are moving forward. In Massachusetts, there are bills restricting student and educator rights, trans sports bans, curriculum censorship, and forced outing in schools. Massachusetts was rated the number one state for LGBTQ people by the HRC, and yet legislation like H551 is advancing.

In Iowa, there are healthcare restrictions and religious exemption bills that allow businesses to deny services to LGBTQ people. In Missouri, there are age restrictions for healthcare and religious exemptions. In Oklahoma, similar bills are moving forward. In Wisconsin, SP 146 would create barriers to accurate IDs, preventing people from identifying as non-binary or trans on licenses.

In Montana, SB 299 requires the forced outing of students in schools. Gay youth are already at the highest risk for suicide, and this will only make things worse. In Ohio, HB 172 imposes healthcare age restrictions, effectively preventing minors from transitioning. In North Carolina, H606 adds more healthcare restrictions. Missouri is still trying to ban drag, not just in schools but altogether—an outright ban on drag shows.

Missouri alone has fourteen pieces of anti-LBGTQ legislation moving through its state government. We are under attack, and it is happening nationally.

Jacobsen: Next, Jerry Greenfield, co-founder of Ben & Jerry’s, announced his resignation, saying he has been silenced over LGBTQ+ rights. So, it’s just “Ben’s” ice cream now, I suppose—just Ben. Greenfield wrote:

“It’s with a broken heart that I decided I can no longer, in good conscience and after 47 years, remain an employee of Ben & Jerry’s. I am resigning from the company Ben and I started back in 1978. This is one of the hardest and most painful decisions I’ve ever made.”

Remember, Ben and Jerry ran their company until it was acquired. They now answer to a board of directors. The company wanted to go in a different direction, and Greenfield opposed it. Without the power he once had, he resigned.

Bouley: We’ve seen this before. Look at TikTok and the broader tech industry. Larry Ellison of Oracle, who was briefly the richest man in the world, has been involved in negotiations affecting TikTok’s ownership. He and his brother Dan have been tied to deals involving Paramount, Skydance, and now a bid for Warner Bros. Discovery. Consolidation is happening everywhere, and leadership often steers companies away from their founders’ original values.

That’s what happened with Ben & Jerry’s. The company has always been inclusive, and Jerry wanted it to stay that way. Without enough power inside the company, his only option was to leave—maybe to start another ice cream venture. Founders who are pushed out for ideological reasons often walk away wealthy, but it remains painful. Instagram’s founders, for example, stayed on briefly after Facebook bought them, but eventually left because they disagreed with Zuckerberg’s direction. They went on to start Artifact.

Jacobsen: Human Rights Watch recently published an article by Yasmine Smollins, an officer in the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Rights Program. The piece is titled “Trump Moves to Restrict Gender-Affirming Care to Federal Workers and Families.” Any thoughts?

Bouley: Yes—because remember, if you’re a federal worker with insurance, your family is also covered under that plan. Gender-affirming care would usually be covered, just like any other medical procedure. Trump wants to change that. This goes back to the story we discussed last week about the sheriff’s deputy.

The question becomes: can the government surgically remove one specific medical procedure from insurance coverage? They already removed abortion, so the answer appears to be yes. The danger, if we extrapolate, is that if they can do this for abortion and gender-affirming care, what other procedures might fall out of favour and then be excluded? When does it become the government’s role to decide what you and your doctor deem necessary?

The federal government has no issue covering Viagra—about $30 a pill. So the idea that they don’t cover sexual or reproductive procedures is false. They cover some and not others, picking and choosing based on ideology.

This is part of Project 2025. One of its stated goals is to remove all government funding for transgender health care. The irony is that the federal government isn’t the insurer—plans are administered through companies like Cigna and Blue Cross. What the government is doing is instructing those plans not to cover these procedures.

We’re referring to a small number of people. Less than 1% of the U.S. population is transgender. Of those, only a fraction are federal employees or dependents. We’re likely talking about fewer than 10,000 procedures a year, possibly as few as 5,000. This is nitpicking. It has nothing to do with cost or insurance logistics. It’s policy-based bigotry, not finance.

Jacobsen: And the last item for the week comes from Reuters, by Andrew Chung and John Kruzel, published September 19. “Trump asks US Supreme Court to enforce passport policy targeting transgender people.” Trump directly petitioned the Supreme Court on Friday to block the issuance of passports that recognize the gender identities of transgender and non-binary Americans.

The Justice Department filed an emergency request to lift a federal judge’s order that barred the State Department from enforcing a Trump-directed policy. That policy stems from an executive order he signed after returning to office on January 20, declaring that the U.S. government will only recognize two biologically distinct sexes: male and female.

Justice Department lawyers wrote: “Private citizens cannot force the government to use inaccurate sex designations on identification documents that fail to reflect the person’s biological sex—especially not on identification documents that are government property and an exercise of the president’s constitutional and statutory power to communicate with foreign governments.”

Any thoughts?

Bouley: We have to wonder how this looks in practice. Imagine a trans person from Canada whose passport lists them as non-binary, or someone who transitioned from male to female and whose passport now says female. What happens at U.S. customs? Are they denied entry because their gender marker doesn’t align with U.S. rules? Are they humiliated with invasive checks?

The Trump administration is essentially trying to force other governments that already recognize trans and non-binary identities to conform to U.S. standards. He wants all travel documents standardized globally to fit this binary agenda. If France issues a passport with a non-binary designation and that traveller arrives in America, will they be turned back at the border?

That’s what the courts will have to sort out. The U.S. is attempting to project its will internationally, and it’s unclear whether such a policy can function without creating chaos at customs and immigration.

I’d have to double-check the passport rules, but I don’t believe you need to complete surgery to change your gender marker. If you’re transitioning or undergoing gender-affirming care, you can still identify on a passport as your affirmed gender.

So imagine someone identifies as female, may even have breasts, but still has a penis. What is Customs going to do with that—physically inspect them? The whole thing reveals how absurd and hateful this lawmaking is. It’s not about policy coherence; it’s about imposing the U.S. government’s will on how other countries issue IDs.

Legal challenges are underway, but given the growing anti-trans movement in this country—especially amplified after the Charlie Kirk incident—I’m not confident trans people will win these battles. The courts will have to sort this out, but the deeper issue is international consistency. With immigration and document policy, there needs to be standardized acceptance for things like gender, birth dates, and other identifying data.

It will be interesting to see not only how U.S. courts rule, but whether those rulings ripple outward to affect other countries, which is precisely what the administration hopes for.

Now, on gender-affirming care: I want a neck lift. That’s a form of gender-affirming care, too. Think about it. Hair plugs, breast implants, and penis enlargement are all accepted forms of altering the body to align with identity or desired gender expression.

Rep. Nancy Mace, who spends her time railing against trans people, was reminded recently by a journalist that breast cancer treatment is gender-affirming care. So is prostate treatment. Cosmetic surgery broadly is gender-affirming care, and she herself has had work done.

Labelling only trans procedures as “gender-affirming care” is disingenuous. It proves this isn’t about gender affirmation at all—it’s about targeting trans people. Viagra, for example, is gender-affirming care. If impotence is “God’s will,” why do we cover Viagra? Women don’t take it. Shouldn’t wives have a say before their husbands use it? Maybe some are relieved when it doesn’t work. But still—Viagra is gender-affirming care, and we treat it as routine.

Every story we’ve talked about today is rooted in bigotry and hatred. None of this legislation is designed to improve the life of a single American. No child’s life will be better. No parent’s life will be better. No citizen will be better off. This is strictly hateful, divisive, bigoted policymaking. And we’re going to see much more of it. Trump still has three more years.

Jacobsen: All right, I’ll see you next week. Thanks so much for your time.

Bouley: Thank you, take care—Au revoir.

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