This Gay Week 4: Rising Anti-LGBTQ Rhetoric

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2025/10/03

Charles Karel Bouley, professionally known as Karel Bouley, 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 the music industry. A voting member of NARAS, GALECA, and SAG-AFTRA, Karel now lives and creates in Las Vegas.

In this interview with Scott Douglas Jacobsen, Bouley warns of escalating anti-LBGTQ rhetoric, misinformation, and political backlash, from blocked DEI grants and education crackdowns to union-busting campaigns and federal shutdown threats. Amid global struggles, he emphasizes that visibility, resilience, and economic pressure remain key tools in defending LGBTQ rights worldwide.

Interview conducted September 26, 2025. 

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: What is new this week to start, Karel?

Karel Bouley: I posted a video on TikTok from my show, a 1-minute, 22-second video. It talked about what we discussed last week about the Pride flag possibly being declared a terrorist symbol. And Antifa—I said, look, Antifa isn’t an organization. They don’t have a central office that you can call.

So that’s a ridiculous designation, calling them a terror group. They literally stand for anti-fascist. So why would you… But then again, they said the pride flag might be a symbol of terror. Under my TikTok video, there are over a hundred comments that say, “Well, the last eight mass shootings have been by trans people.” That’s a lie.

They’re saying, “Oh, well, gays are violent and liberals are violent, and you guys are shooting everybody.” Then this one posted a thing with a swastika on one side and what the Nazis stood for—gun control, social programs, this and that. Then, there was a thing on the other side that said liberals, and it mirrored the Nazi Party. Of course, we know that’s not true. It’s far-right authoritarian movements that mirror the Nazi Party.

So, somehow, the right is perpetuating a message, and that message is sticking. It’s on all social media now and in the news that gay people, trans people, and liberals are violent, that they’re shooting people, indoctrinating children, and all of this other stuff. That message is not only sticking, it’s growing in our country. I know you’re in Canada—bless you—but our country is about to shut down our government because they can’t agree on a budget.

By the way, they haven’t passed a full budget in almost a decade. Congress hasn’t—that’s their only job, and they haven’tdone it in over ten years. All they do is fund these stopgap measures. Every three or four months, they fight over the budget, and they never pass the entire budget. It hasn’t been balanced since the 1990s.

The Democrats wanted to have a meeting with Donald Trump yesterday to try to avert a government shutdown. He has already stated that instead of laying off or furloughing people, which is the typical response, he plans to fire people, which is not typically the case. He cancelled the meeting. One of the reasons he said he cancelled it was that he didn’t want to meet with Democrats who were going to promote trans people and gay people.

He literally blamed trans people and gay people for the shutdown of the federal government because he didn’t want to meet with Democrats, thinking they were going to bring up trans and gay issues. So there is a strong narrative in America now trying to vilify not just the left, but in particular, LGBTQ people.

And it’s permeating its way down from the top into every section of society. And it’s sad, that’s what it is. Anecdotally, I got invited to a premiere with The Rock of this new movie, The Smashing Machine. UFC fighters will be there. It’s here in Vegas. They’re going to do a screening and a reception, and all these famous UFC fighters who are featured in the movie will be there.

And they emailed me again this morning and said, “Will you be attending?”

It’s time that people in the entertainment industry realize that this industry is heavily LGBTQ and yes, heavily “woke,” or left wing, and that it’s time we stop doing business with and tolerating those in the industry who speak out against key members of the industry. And so I am not going to this premiere strictly because I will not support Dwayne Johnson or the UFC.

I know the movie’s already being spoken of for Oscar contention, but I’m sorry. The battle lines are being quickly drawn, and I’m in a community which is being subjugated daily by this administration and its followers.

That’s my morning thought. 

Jacobsen: We have some news items to follow up on that general thought. So, Durham County has ended Pride sponsorship. The LGBTQ Center of Durham is expecting at least 15,000 people to attend the weekend’s Pride event in downtown Durham. What are your thoughts on this?

Bouley: So, in Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina, the Pride organization is only a decade old, perhaps 15 years. North Carolina is, we’re talking about a red area. They have enjoyed a good working relationship with the city and the county: Durham Pride and the Durham Gay and Lesbian Center.

This year, they were informed that the county and the city would not be “participating.” What they mean is that they can still host their event in the city, but the town itself will not be participating in the parade, and there will be no funds or grants from the city or the county to support Pride. They cite the current political climate, and it’s unfortunate.

Unfortunately, they’re not standing up to Trump the way ABC is with Jimmy Kimmel. ABC decided to bring Kimmel back because, quite frankly, Kimmel had them over a barrel. They were impinging on his First Amendment rights. He could have sued them for wrongful termination, and they would have had to pay him a ton of money. And so they decided to put him back on the air, even though the MAGA-aligned and hateful Sinclair and Nexstar Media, which are both basically run by MAGA, have opted not to air him.

So it’s the same thing, except Durham is not standing up to Trump and to the Trump administration’s anti-DEI policies. They, like so many other counties, are caving in. To their credit, Durham and the county haven’t forced them to cancel Pride, unlike some cities.

However, while they haven’t made them cancel it, they won’t be participating in it officially. Which is sad, and that money will be missed. And of course, that sponsorship will be missed. Unfortunately, the city and county are treating those 15,000 to 20,000 people expected to attend as though they are not citizens of the area. They are.

And why the city wouldn’t want to be involved in something so significant with so many of their citizens speaks volumes to the pressure they must be getting from the Trump administration and the White House.

Jacobsen: Next item, academic-oriented. So Texas A&M has had a controversy where the state is now at the center of a fight over LGBTQ teachings. Some have posed this as academics losing their freedom of speech rights. Basically, at least one college in the state is trying to preemptively avoid political fire by banning LGBTQ discussions in classrooms.

Brian Evans, president of the Texas Conference of the American Association of University Professors, stated, “It’sdifficult to see because it creates a chilling effect for other faculty. You want to ensure that students have the freedom to discuss topics that interest them. So to have to play censorship—that certain topics can’t be taught in class, especially those that are related to the class—seems a little bit strange, because students want to ask questions, want to explore ideas.” 

Bouley: Here we have a time where they want to erect Charlie Kirk monuments on university campuses. And yet, gay and lesbian topics are being banned. Isn’t it something that Charlie was all about free speech? So what happened was, a teacher was giving a lecture about, I believe, LGBTQ teachings and children—that was sort of the topic of the lecture.

And they were discussing something about a “gender unicorn.” It was unclear in the article what the actual lesson plan entailed, but I believe it focused on gender identity, based on what I could gather. And as they were discussing this gender identity book—a children’s book where a non-binary character saves the universe kind of thing—as they were discussing that, a student in class said, “I don’t think we should be having this discussion. It’s illegal.”

The teacher, the professor, had words with the student, basically. And the student still objected. The teacher said, Well, if you don’t like it, you’re free to leave. Of course, that escalated. Now, I believe the president of that university has resigned, or someone involved with the university has resigned.

And now you see that another university has decided not to teach it, presumably to avoid this kind of trouble. We often discuss, and I’ve mentioned to you frequently, what these stories look like in the real world. This is what it looks like in the real world. You now have college professors who, historically—I don’t know about you, but I had some unconventional college professors with unconventional ideas.

And I thought that they were hitting the pipe or something. How did you get your PhD? But college is the place for that. It’s the place for all these bizarre ideas to come together and for students to form their own opinions about what they believe. That’s what college is—one of the primary purposes it serves. And now you have college professors worrying about whether they can talk about a subject that is human and as old as time, which is LGBTQ issues.

And so this is what anti-DEI policies mean. When I gave you the list of legislation last week regarding all the pending bills related to schools and what teachers can and cannot say, this is how it plays out. And it’s not pretty.

There is collateral damage. People lose careers. People lose jobs. Ultimately, the students are no better off for it. The students at this particular university will not be better off because their education is no longer well-rounded. It is censored. Censorship does not lead to a well-rounded education. It leads to indoctrination.

So while the right says that teaching LGBTQ issues such as this in school is indoctrination, what they actually want to do is indoctrinate others into their belief that discussing these issues is wrong. So we have an ideological war going on, and this is one of the battle lines—this university. As you see, it has cost someone their job, and it has cost another university the opportunity to censor completely.

Will this end up in court? I don’t know. Will the teacher or the student sue? I don’t know. There’s been no litigation as of yet. However, it is indeed chilling because this is how it ultimately plays out. And if other universities cave in because they don’t want the hassle, then suddenly things like LGBTQ studies are taken out of college. Well, if a college kid can’thandle learning about gay people, they shouldn’t be in college.

They should be in a monastery where they can have sex with young boys.  But so it’s chilling.  It is Texas. This isn’thappening at a university in California, Washington, or Utah, but that being said, it may still occur.  And I’m sure many collegiate leaders are watching what happens with this in Texas. To see how they should proceed.

Jacobsen: Also in the news, the LGBTQ youth population has doubled. The number of bills targeting them has tripled. So new research is out: LGBTQ young people live in 27 states where a swell of new laws restrict their in-school rights. So what’s happening in school? Is this reflected in out-of-school life as well?

Bouley: Yes, it is. It’s rough to be a gay kid in those 27 states. It always has been. Although there are more of them now, it’s still challenging. I lived in one and told my parents to get me the fuck out. We lived in Texas, and I said, Please take me to California. I was in sixth grade, and I thought, I’m a little different, and I’ve got to go. So yes, first of all, the good news.

More young people are feeling free enough and able enough to identify as something other than straight. That’s incredible. It’s not that we suddenly created or doubled the number of gay people. That’s not what happened here. What happened is that children—these young kids, which to me is anyone under 30 nowadays—felt comfortable enough to come out as something other than straight.

“Straight plus,” I hear, is a thing these days. I’m not sure what that means, but they seem comfortable with us. So that’s the good news. The headline is misleading. I want to speak to the author, because the number of LGBTQ youth has not doubled. It’s the number of youth who identify as LGBTQ that has doubled. And that’s because they feel more comfortable. They see more representation.

Online, on social media—where most of them are—they see more open LGBTQ people. So they feel more comfortable identifying. The bad news for them is that they’re in the 27 states that hate them. And that hatred is being reflected in the more than 300 pieces of legislation pending in those states to harm them in school.

What I mean by ‘harm’ is not allowing them to be represented, not enabling them to see themselves in the curriculum, andnot including them in the discussion. So now you’ll have schools that have twice as many children identifying as LGBTQIA+, and yet you won’t have any classes that address or represent them. That’s sad because they’re not going away. They are students. They deserve a curriculum that is inclusive of them.

And MAGA is trying to push them back into their closets by not letting them be represented in the curriculum. That leads to homophobia. That leads to other kids at school picking on them. That leads to bullying. We have a state representative—or maybe he’s a member of Congress, I’d have to look this story up—but he’s fighting for the “right” for schools to have anti-gay groups.

He said, since schools are allowed to have pro-gay groups, they should also be allowed to have anti-gay groups. That’slike saying if you have a pro-person-of-colour group, you should let the Klan have a rally on campus. It’s ludicrous thinking, but this is where their mind is at. Again, I go back to this: the doubled number of gay kids now—they are their parents’ children, and they are tax-paying, economic supporters of whatever community they’re in.

They pay taxes for those schools to exist, and they deserve for their children to have an inclusive curriculum. So when you hear this—that the number of people who identify has doubled and yet the legislation against them has tripled—youhave to sort of say to MAGA, your bigotry isn’t working. You’ve been on this anti-gay trip forever, my whole life.

And yet more people now are feeling free to identify as gay than ever before. So your pact isn’t working, maybe youshould reevaluate. But that’s not what they do. They have an agenda. This is their agenda. They don’t care if they hurt kids. They don’t care if they deprive kids of a well-rounded education. They don’t care if they cause kids social issues or social problems. They have their agenda. And that’s sad.

Jacobsen: There’s been $1.25 million blocked in LGBTQ DEI grants. This may violate federal law. So it’s being raised as a separate issue. 

Bouley: Of course it does. Yeah, of course it does. What happened was—and what Trump is known for doing is—so we know here in Washington who controls the purse strings: Congress.

I don’t know who in Canada has the purse strings. It’s your Parliament, or the body that approves all the national spending for the country. I’m not sure how that works there—if your municipalities do it or if you’re sovereign, how you handle it. I’m not sure if there’s a single body that oversees funding for Quebec, Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver, or if that responsibility is divided among different entities. I’m not sure if your Prime Minister and his Parliament do that. But here in our country, Congress, if the agencies fully approve funds they’re coming from, and all of a sudden that money isn’tthere, that’s a problem. We’re talking about a piss-poor amount of money. It’s $1.25 million. That’s less than 0.00001% of the U.S. budget. He stopped it for no other reason than he’s a homophobe. You know, Project 2025.

So, yes, it does violate federal law because if Congress has allocated the funds, the House and Senate have already approved them, and the procedure has been followed, the president has no right to step in and stop the funding. But he did. Therefore, the recipients of the grants will now have to file a federal lawsuit, or someone—the ACLU or another entity—will have to file a lawsuit to try to get that money released. What those agencies are supposed to do in the meantime, who knows?

Jacobsen: Now this one is exciting. It’s from The Advocate about former member Ryan Walters. This has apparently been a long fight, but he publicly resigned and then declared himself the CEO of Teacher Freedom Alliance, a conservative nonprofit. He said, “We’re going to destroy the teachers’ unions… We have seen teachers’ unions use their financial resources and influence to corrupt our schools and undermine them. We will build an army of teachers to defeat the teachers’ unions once and for all.” Any thoughts?

Bouley: Well, first of all, fuck him. Second, unions are not the enemy. Almost every significant achievement for American workers has been accomplished through unions. I am a proud member of SAG-AFTRA, which is a union. It’spart of the AFL-CIO. As a member of SAG-AFTRA for over 30 years, I can attest that it has greatly benefited my career, ensuring that I’m not taken advantage of as an entertainer. Teachers’ unions play a vital role in protecting our teachers and their rights.

It’s vital. And he’s mad because the teachers’ union took him to task, showed him to be ridiculous, and won. So he’s angry. Trump is prosecuting James Comey out of nothing but the desire for retribution—it’s revenge. All he wants to do is take revenge on the people who overrode his bigoted agenda. It has nothing to do with providing students with a better education.

I challenge him, and I challenge every person who might agree with him, to list the corruption of the teachers’ union. These are teachers who take crap salaries—most of them very underpaid—who often have to buy books and supplies for their students because the federal government doesn’t, and the parents don’t have the money. They put in long hours, are subject to in-class attacks from students—which are on the rise across the board—and now have to navigate politically sensitive waters when it comes to what they teach their students.

And yet they still get up every morning and go to work. And they have assholes like him trying to fight against them, while they’re doing this job for $40K, $50K, $60K a year. Not one teacher in America makes what one congressman makes. A congressman works 173 days out of the year and makes $165,000 a year. Teachers’ average annual salary is $69,000.

This guy’s going to come after the unions that protect what little rights and benefits teachers have because he thinks they’re corrupt and promoting some agenda that he disagrees with? I’m glad he resigned. I’m so happy there was pressure for him to resign. Good luck with his mission to break up the teachers’ union. It won’t be effective.

Jacobsen: Also from The Advocate: Donald Trump has blamed transgender rights for a looming government shutdown.

Bouley: He had a meeting with the Democrats—the high-ranking Democrats, Schumer and others—who were going to go in and try to reach a compromise on the budget, so we don’t shut down the government because shutting down the government happens in tiers.

So there’s the first level—what happens and who is furloughed, which Trump now says he’ll fire. Then the second level, when that money runs out. Then the third level. Ultimately, I’ve lived through shutdowns that have lasted over a hundred days. Our national parks and national monuments close because they are federally funded, and the government doesn’tpay the workers. So ultimately, it is not suitable for America because the work of America isn’t being done.

So the Democrats wanted to go in and try to avoid this. One of the issues the Democrats are focusing on is healthcare. If the Democrats lose this fight, the Obamacare healthcare insurance that people get is going to triple, and it’s already expensive. If you’re paying $700 a month, you’ll be paying $2,100 a month, and I don’t know who can do that.

They’re also trying to protect Medicaid in some states, where if it goes away, rural hospitals and clinics will close. So they wanted to go in and meet with the president to say, ‘Can we come up with an agreement that will keep healthcare funded, but also give you a compromise?’ He cancelled the meeting because he didn’t want to hear about “trans issues” and giving everybody surgeries. He said all the Democrats want to do is fund gender surgery for everybody.

Those were his words. We’re all standing in line waiting to have it whacked off. I’m not. I enjoy being a man. I get big breasts sometimes when I get overweight, but I don’t need them. And I’m happy with my penis. So we’re not all waiting to have gender reassignment surgery, unlike what the president thinks. But the notion that a seated president—

Would cancel a meeting with high-ranking Democrats to try to avert a government shutdown—which affects all people—based on his dislike of trans people, gender-affirming care, and the LGBTQ community. That should be impeachable, in my opinion. But it shows how petty he is that he’s willing to shut down the government and harm all of the country so he can make a point about how anti-gay and anti-trans he is.

And so we’ll see what happens. As it looks now, the shutdown deadline is looming. It always happens in October. Always, always, always. And we’ve had shutdowns through to Christmas before. So we’ll see. Personally—I say personally—I say shut the fucking thing down. Shut all the government down, defund it all, and send everybody home. It isn’t working. So send them all home. But the notion that he would blame gay and trans people for cancelling a meeting with key Democrats about the budget shows how insane he is.

Jacobsen: Two other pieces of news. This is more international, at the current local level with UNGA 80. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, delivered a speech on the UN LGBTI Core Group at the high-level event “We the Peoples” at UNGA 80: “LGBTI Youth and the Future.”

Basically, giving a standard speech of “everyone should be included.” There is diversity of people, sexualities, and gender identities, and youth are targeted, so we need to make sure that we protect them. He also emphasized that more than 60 countries still criminalize consensual same-sex relations, and many criminalize transgender people. Hate speech and discrimination are running rampant around the world.

In Europe, 70% of 15- to 17-year-olds identifying as LGBTIQ+ report harassment at school. Across Africa, Asia, Europe, and North America, LGBTIQ+ youth are disproportionately affected by homelessness, rejection, and bullying. So for those who enter events at UNGA 80—this high-level event or side events—interactive in their communities, they’re going to experience higher levels of rejection and bullying and so on.

What are your thoughts on this critical reiteration by Türk?

Bouley: Well, afterwards, we all joined hands and sang We Are Family. First of all—good. I am glad there are sane voices. I read his speech. I am so happy there are sane voices out there. The problem is that America is exporting its hatred. Republicans for a decade now have been financing and sending representatives to these countries—particularly African nations and Latin American nations—to get their leaders to make anti-gay bills.

So our American MAGA is going to other countries and funding anti-gay organizations. It is an international effort to criminalize or delegitimize LGBTQIA people. It is a shame that in 2025, as I sit here at 62 years old, we are still having these conversations—that 60 countries still outlaw this, that trans people are still being murdered across the board, that there is an open concentration camp in Chechnya for gay people.

Sad. It’s nice that he said it. He was preaching to the choir. It would be more important and influential for people like him to travel to these 60 countries and deliver these speeches. Because he’s right—bullying against gay youth is up all over the world, including the United States. And about his speech—how do I say this? He illustrated the problem perfectly, but he didn’t give solutions, real-world solutions. How do we turn the tide the other way?

I was intrigued and happy that someone was making such a speech, particularly a high-ranking person from the world community, but I wanted to hear more about the steps being taken to protect these youth. What steps are being taken to reverse these anti-gay policies in the 60 countries? The United Nations, which is in the spotlight this week, needs to do a much better job of prioritizing.

And one of the things we discussed yesterday at our Grammy meeting for Music Advocacy Day with our state representative was how one way to influence countries to do things is to attach it to other initiatives. You say to that country, okay, if you want to do trade with us, which is a significant source of your income, you’re going to have to lighten up on X, Y, Z. We need the world nations that are tolerant and inclusive to start economically pressuring these other countries that are not. Because the only way they’re going to change is through financial threat. They’re not going to do it out of the goodness of their heart.

But if you say to an African nation, “You can make an extra $4 billion a year in sales of XYZ to our country, but we’re not going to do business with a country that punishes gay people,” that will change the policy. So I didn’t hear him discuss ways such as economic pressure from inclusive nations against those that aren’t. That’s what we need. We need someone to come forward with a framework and say, Here’s the framework for how we get them to change their policies.

And so far, no country has done that. I’d love for the UN to do that—to come forward and say, “You can’t even be a member nation of the UN if you don’t include LGBTQ rights in your platform.” But again, given the mood, and that America sets the tone and we’re exporting our hatred, I don’t see those 60 countries changing. I don’t see those gay youth being less bullied. I see it increasing. Trans people are becoming less safe every day.

So, it’s nice to hear the speech again. Great that positivity is out there. Great that people are looking at the problem. Butinstead of looking—we’ve been examining this problem for a long time—let’s solve it. Let’s find fundamental ways, even tough-love ways, to solve this problem because kids are being hurt.

Jacobsen: So, given that, thank you for the opportunity and your time, Karel.

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