This Gay Week 6: LGBTQ Rights, Project 2025, and Media Power

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2025/10/19

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.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Bouley for This Gay Week covering October 3–10, 2025. They examine Jerry Greenfield’s resignation at Ben & Jerry’s, Supreme Court skepticism toward Colorado’s conversion therapy ban, and the influence of Project 2025 and evangelical politics. Bouley connects DEI rollbacks to the Pride Center of Vermont’s shutdown and notes rising self-censorship and relocation among LGBTQ people per MAP data. He critiques media rightward shifts, discusses Bari Weiss’s reported CBS role, and defends recognition of gender identity in UK and Italian policy debates. The conversation blends legal analysis, media criticism, and community stakes with urgency today.

Interview conducted October 10, 2025, in the morning Pacific Time.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Okay, once again, for this Gay Week, this is for the period October 3 to October 10. The sources today are The Advocate, Center Square, OutSmart Magazine, Reuters, and The Washington Post in that order.

This follows up from a prior piece we talked about — about Ben & Jerry’s. Ben is basically quitting. Ben Cohen said Jerry Greenfield made a difficult decision to, quote, after a Twitter post, “After 47 years, Jerry’s made the difficult decision to step down from the company we built together. I’m sharing his words as he resigns from Ben & Jerry’s. The legacy deserves to be true to our values, not silenced by @MagnumIceCream.”

Any thoughts on this resignation?

Karel Bouley: As we said before, what happens is your corporation becomes wildly successful, and you lose control of it. You suddenly have a board to deal with, along with the realities of the world. The world has changed. As idealistic as you may be, you have to adapt. He doesn’t want to. He wants to be an inclusive and kind ice cream brand where everyone is welcome. The board is leaning on inclusion because of the era in which we live.

When you’re running a company like that, you have to decide what is more important: are my morals more critical, or is this paycheck more important? He opted for his morals. I’m sure he’s already got a decent paycheck. He opted for his morals and said, “I’m leaving because I can’t be as free here as I want to, to progress the social causes that I want to progress.” That was his choice. I’m sure his partner was upset by that, but there’s not much you can do in that case. You ultimately have to make a decision.

He did not cite one specific reason. I’ve read every article about it, and he didn’t say it’s because of this — X, Y, Z — like, “I wanted the board to do this,” or “I wanted the board to do that, and they wouldn’t do it.” He has not cited one specific reason for his leaving. So one has to wonder. Why But we may never know. 

Jacobsen: The court has been skeptical toward a Colorado LGBT conversion therapy ban. The American Psychiatric Association and the American Psychological Association have issued statements referring to their position that it is an unscientific, baseless, and harmful practice under the banner of therapy. This one comes from a conservative majority in the Court.

Bouley: Yes. So, two things about this story are alarming. First, the fact that conversion therapy is back in front of the Supreme Court. Secondly, Clarence Thomas has made it clear that precedent does not matter. Clarence Thomas has basically said out loud what we were all afraid of — that it doesn’t matter what previous courts have ruled; they’re going to do things on their own.

The case stems from a Colorado woman, a therapist, who is suing not based on the validity of conversion therapy — whether it works or not. That’s not her lawsuit. Her lawsuit is that it violates her First Amendment speech protections because she cannot talk to her clients about conversion therapy. She’s saying, “Because I can’t speak to my clients about this, you’re imposing on my First Amendment rights.”

This case is not about the validity of conversion therapy or whether it works. However, the alarming thing is that the justices have made it clear they don’t want to believe any science that contradicts their social views. They believe in conversion therapy, or at least they believe in the right for people to practice it.

They don’t care that the American Psychiatric Association or medical associations have said this is a bad thing. They are doubting that science. That’s what’s dangerous — when you have the highest court in the land saying, “We don’t really believe all these psychiatrists or doctors.” That’s what’s dangerous.

The lawsuit is dangerous in two ways. First, it would allow torture again, which is what conversion therapy is. Second, it signals that the courts will only take scientific evidence as fact if it aligns with their worldview. Those are two terrifying things and two big reasons to watch what happens with this case.

If you are preaching something harmful in your practice — in your therapy — is that protected by the First Amendment? If a doctor tells you to inject yourself with bleach, even though it will kill you, is that his First Amendment right? That’s what this comes down to. We’ll see how they rule. It looks like they’re going to rule in favour of the therapist, which would effectively overturn all the state bans on conversion therapy.

Jacobsen: That’s from the proper article, Emil?

Bouley: Yes. This is from WCAX by Laura Ullman. The Pride Center of Vermont has paused operations and laid off some/most of its staff. This is reported as a “significant blow to Vermont’s LGBTQ community.” This is what Donald Trump’s war on DEI looks like. This is it.

This is the aftermath of that war. Vermont, like most gay pride centers or gay and lesbian centers, operates on tiny, shoestring budgets. Some of their staffers aren’t even paid. Their executive director is often also their board, and unpaid at that. When that money dries up, they operate on such slim margins that they literally can’t pay the bills — the light bill, the gas bill, the water bill — and meet salaries.

This is what that looks like. In a small state like Vermont, the impact is significant. Let’s say it’s California — in California, there are, I don’t know how many, but at least 30 gay centers: Los Angeles, Long Beach, San Francisco, San Jose, and smaller cities. You’ve got a lot of gay centers. In Vermont, you don’t have that many. And when the big one closes, that leaves an enormous gap in the community, in terms of trans outreach, LGBTQ outreach across all areas.

This is what those DEI funding cuts look like. Places close, communities go unserved. This is a direct result of Donald Trump’s actions.

Jacobsen: From The Advocate: 57% of LGBTQ+ people have made significant life changes since Donald Trump’s election. I’m unsure if the total number includes both that and minor changes, but that number jumps to 84% for transgender and nonbinary people. This is based on a new report from the Movement Advancement Project — MAP. 

Bouley: What they mean by this is:

1. A) People have become more closeted in their workplaces, not as open with the rainbow flag as they used to be.
2. B) They’ve limited their social circles or even their family interactions.
3. C) Many have thought about moving to a new state or a new country.

Trans people, in particular, show a higher proportion wanting to move to a different country than LGBTQ people overall. Gay men and lesbian women often think first about moving to a different state — getting out of red states and into blue ones where there are protections.

Anecdotally, I can say that number is probably higher, because there’s not one gay person in my life who hasn’t made significant life changes — including myself. I’ve been looking at other countries and blue states. I’ve talked to you about Canada; I’ve been looking there as well.

Basically, this is a very hostile time for LGBTQ people in America. Gay people are having to return to lives like we led in the 1980s — less open, less free, more self-reliant, not so reliant on government or gay centers or these types of groups. Fewer politicians are advocating for us, and we know we are in danger, so people are making life changes accordingly — moving out of state, to a different city, to a different country, or at least changing how openly we live.

That includes how we interact with people, how many people know we’re gay or lesbian, and even how we relate to family members. It’s an alarming number. It’s shocking. I think it’s only going to increase as Trump remains in office.

Jacobsen: Now, case in point, the Advocate under the title “Was Trump Always Against LGBTQ+ Rights?”

Bouley: Everything in his past says no. 

Jacobsen: So I won’t lead into motives necessarily, in terms of the switch and so on. Why the doubling down?

Bouley: Donald Trump only cares about one thing, and that is winning and being accepted. He is the ultimate kid at school who will side with anybody he thinks is on the winning side, whether he believes it or not.

Now, I know of Donald Trump as an LGBTQ advocate prior to his entering politics. He had no issues with gay people or trans people. He never spoke against them. He did not support causes against them. And in many ways, he took actions that could actually be seen as favourable to the community.

Only when he entered politics on the Republican ticket — remember, Donald Trump was a registered Democrat — did he switch parties when he ran for president, by his own admission saying that Republicans were “stupid enough to vote for him.” That’s what he said, not me.

When he ran on the Republican ticket and saw that, to succeed, he had to be anti-gay, he suddenly morphed into being anti-gay. I still believe, at this moment, if it suddenly became fashionable and popular — if Republicans suddenly determined that they liked the gays and the trans community — he would change his opinion immediately. Because historically, he has not been against the community. He only sided against it when it became politically advantageous, proving that he is a man of no moral convictions.

Jacobsen: That leads to a follow-up question within that news item. Who are the individuals within his immediate circle in the Republican Party informing this more stringent switch between anti-LBGTQ and the prior stance?

Bouley: Well, it’s Project 2025. That’s the initiative he claimed to know nothing about — and yet he continually meets with the people who drafted it. It’s the leaders of Project 2025, and behind the scenes, people like Stephen Miller — or Voldemort, as I call him, because he looks like him. People like Stephen Miller and the extreme right of his party are who he’s now listening to.

That includes the authors of Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation, and figures like Charlie Kirk, who is very anti-gay. He believes he needs evangelicals to win, so he adopted the evangelical standpoint of zero tolerance for the LGBTQ community.

So it’s two-pronged: the authors of Project 2025 and what he perceives to be the evangelical community’s point of view.

Jacobsen: Now, another one — a smaller story that grew into something larger — was about Terri Lesley, director of the Campbell County Public Library.

Bouley: This is a good story. She is a winner. 

Jacobsen: She won a $700,000 USD settlement after being fired for refusing to remove books containing content about sexual health and LGBTQ+ identity. That’s about protecting long-term health and knowledge — understanding yourself and others who are part of society.

Bouley: So under the settlement laws, this is a good story. From a legal standpoint, it’s essential. And by the way, while another portion of her lawsuit has been dismissed, she is still suing the people who ordered the books removed — that lawsuit is still pending.

But this isn’t really a win for gay people broadly. She won under employment law — meaning it was discriminatory to fire her for refusing to remove those books. So she’s won that part. The next phase of her lawsuit will determine if she can win against the individuals who actually implemented the bans.

That will be the more interesting case, because if she wins, it could set a precedent where those who enact bans might be held accountable — and that could lead to some bans being lifted. But ultimately, this is about her individual case. It’s not a victory for everyone fighting censorship across the country. It’s a win for her personally, because she fought her dismissal, and the court agreed — she was improperly terminated, and she won punitive damages.

If she wins the broader case against those who initially banned the books, that will be a bigger win for the LGBTQ community. Right now, it’s her victory. Hopefully, she can turn that into a win for everyone. We’ll see.

Jacobsen: This next one’s a little more complicated — and it’s more in your area, radio and media. You have some expertise there. So, journalist Bari Weiss is now the CBS News Editor-in-Chief. I don’t know the full timeline for her transition and takeover, but that’s the situation. 

Bouley: She comes from The Free Press — her own outlet — and previously worked for The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal.

It’s odd because she’s out, she’s queer, and yet she’s staunchly anti- “woke.” She’s a troubling choice to be running CBS News. It’s a bad omen for the network because she’s positioned herself against progressive viewpoints and mainstream liberal perspectives.

As the leader of a news division, you’re supposed to take all sides into account and present them factually. But she doesn’t seem interested in balance — she’s aligned with the far right. Anything she doesn’t see as far right, she labels “woke.”

Personally, I don’t know her, but she seems a bit self-loathing, if you ask me. I should be celebrating that a queer person has been appointed to such a position of power, but unfortunately, not everyone in our community is the community’s friend. That’s a mistake many gay and lesbian people make — assuming that someone who’s queer automatically advocates for LGBTQ rights. That’s not true, and she’s proof of it.

When she says she’s “anti-woke,” that really means she’s anti-progressive, anti-liberal — which, in effect, means she’s not on the side of gay or trans people.

How will that play out at CBS? Well, look: Paramount has already capitulated to Donald Trump by firing Stephen Colbert to secure the merger deal with Skydance. Paramount and CBS are under Larry Ellison and his son, David Ellison — both strong Trump allies. So how does this bode for CBS News? Expect it to start slanting heavily to the right.

It is no longer the place of Edward R. Murrow or Walter Cronkite or anything like that. Look for CBS News to slant to the right, and do not expect favourable coverage of gay or lesbian content just because she’s out and open.

Jacobsen: UK court ruling — I’ve never heard of this before. So, in April, a UK court affirmed that under the Equality Act, the term “sex” in British English and law refers to biological sex. That means a transgender woman is legally considered male, and a transgender man is considered female.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) released interim guidance on the ruling’s implications, stating that transgender people could be barred from facilities and services — such as toilets, hospital wards, and refuges — that match the gender they live as.

Ray (33) told Reuters: “It’s almost like it’s being made legal to harass trans people.” 

Bouley: But it is — that is not “almost.” That’s sugarcoating it. It is now effectively legal to harass trans people in both the United States and the United Kingdom.

And rulings like this continue to embolden the anti-trans movement. We’re talking about less than 1% of the population, yet there’s this obsessive fixation on them. Where will this end? Obviously, it will end up back in court, because what do we do with people in the middle — those who have already identified as nonbinary or listed their gender as “X” instead of male or female?

What happens to them now? Do they have to be reclassified as the gender they were born with? That creates enormous bureaucratic messes, administrative confusion, and legal ambiguity — and laws cannot be ambiguous.

They’ve made their decision, but it will be rechallenged. And when administrations change — whether in Britain or elsewhere — the laws could change again. They need to get their act together. We need a universal, global consensus on passports, ID, travel documents, bathrooms — all of it.

And of course, that consensus should recognize people as who they identify as. It’s that simple. Going back to purity tests about “what were you born as” doesn’t work. These anti-trans laws are trying to shove a square peg into a round hole, and it’s not working — that’s why it keeps ending up in court.

So where does this end? It doesn’t — not yet. There will be fights like this until Trump is out of power and until the anti-trans movement is finally defeated. Until then, trans people remain unsafe.

These laws and rulings make them unsafe — and worse, they create legal ambiguity. In that ambiguity, discrimination thrives. What’s needed are definitive answers — and the right ones, not these wrong, regressive rulings.

If you go through transitioning, the word itself means you are moving from one state to another. Once you arrive at that destination, that’s who you are. When you fly from New York to Ireland, you’re transatlantic — but once you land, you’re in Ireland.

But when you get to Ireland, you’re no longer trans — you’re in Ireland. It’s the same thing: when you transition from male to female, you’re no longer transitioning — you’re a female. You’ve reached your destination. We need laws that reflect this reality, rather than what current laws attempt to enforce.

Jacobsen: Last story today — Italy. Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni is looking to restrict the discussion of LGBTQ topics and sexuality in schools. A big theme — and a common one — is that these cultural battles are rarely creative. They tend to fall into familiar patterns about controlling what children learn in schools.

Bouley: Right. And speaking of that, I once mistakenly accepted a booking on GB News — I didn’t know what it was at the time. Now I know: it’s the ultra–right-wing network in Great Britain, widely discredited for its partisan slant.

I was on their evening show debating the firing of someone who had a rainbow flag on their desk about two years ago. The host kept saying, “I don’t have a problem with gay people, I just don’t want them coming up to my kids and teaching them this or that.”

Jacobsen: Was it an opinion or a news segment?

Bouley: It was a news segment — though, of course, he was rendering opinion, because that’s all they do. I told him, “You say you don’t want anyone telling you what your child can be taught — but you have no problem telling other parents what their children can learn.”

He and people like him are fine telling trans parents what they can or can’t do for their kids. They’re fine telling parents who want a well-rounded education that includes LGBTQ content that their children can’t have that.

How about extending the same grace you demand for your own family to other families? You don’t want anyone to tell you how to raise your kids — then don’t tell others how to raise theirs.

His response? “We need to go to a commercial break.” That was because I got him. I nailed him to the wall.

And that’s exactly what’s happening in Italy. The government wants to dictate what all schools can teach based on the preferences of a small group of conservative parents. But what about the other parents — those raising gay kids, trans kids, or simply teaching acceptance? Their voices matter too. Their children matter.

Instead of allowing one ideological faction to decide what’s “acceptable” for all, how about taking every family into account?

Italy has swung to the right before — Mussolini, much? — and it’s swinging right again. The pendulum will eventually even out, and these laws will be struck down in time. But right now, the far right is winning, and they’ll get books and curricula banned.

Look at Texas — they’re already pulling educational materials. It’s the same pattern that’s repeated throughout history: Nazi Germany, Mussolini’s Italy, Pinochet’s Chile, every authoritarian swing. It always “unswings,” but in the meantime, it’s tragic.

We’re silencing parents of gay kids, trans kids, and allies — making one narrow worldview the only one allowed in schools. That’s sad, whether it’s in Italy, the United States, or anywhere else.

Jacobsen: And that’s This Gay Week.

Bouley: That’s This Gay Week. Thank you so much, darling. I’ll see you next week.

Jacobsen: Excellent. Thank you so much. Take care.

Bouley: Bye-bye.

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