In 1968, one mother’s public support for her gay son helped inspire the founding of PFLAG — Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays. Today, PFLAG has hundreds of U.S. chapters and an international network connecting families, friends, and allies for support, education, and advocacy. PFLAG Los Angeles Vice President Anthony Eftimeo speaks with This Way Out’s Lucia Chappelle about what meaningful allyship looks like and how allies can help LGBTQ+ people and their families thrive.

In the news this week, Turkish activists take to the streets as the right-wing government’s anti-queer raids and arrests escalate, but the formerly right-wing Hungarian government will scrap its “no promo homo” law. Fiji sees a spike in HIV infections. There’ll be no gender-affirming care for trans youth in North Dakota, but the city of Seattle, Washington expands civil protections with the times.

Featured speakers: editor-in-chief of the LGBTI+ rights group Kaos GL Yildiz Tar, PFLAGLA VP Anthony Eftimeo, Lucia Chappelle

Credits: Associate Producer Lucia Chappelle, Producer/ host Brian DeShazor, News writer Jeb Backe, the feature was produced by Brian DeShazor and Lucia Chappelle, NewsWrap reporters John Dyer the 5th and Melanie Keller. music: Dolly Parton and theme music was written and performed by Kim Wilson.

Queer activists occupy a 40-foot tall tree to block Trumps Border Wall in south Arizona - This Way Out’s Lauren Schmitt reports. In Newswrap Germany’s far-right AfD scores its biggest state-election showing since the Nazis — as rainbow-flagged protesters take to the streets! Ninety percent of LGBTQ+ groups worldwide report losing funding since 2025 — putting many at risk of closing their doors! Sierra Leone’s queer crackdown sends two activists fleeing after police raid a gay party and issue warrants for their arrest! The Trump administration targets “gender ideology” in a controversial new study — critics call the un-peer-reviewed report pseudoscience! And Sacramento’s Lavender Heights fights back — LGBTQ+ residents launch a community patrol after a string of anti-queer attacks!

Featured speakers: A protester named Nikita, creator of Lavender Heights Community Patrol Zachary Basler, Lauren Schmitt, Kate Scott, Santa Cruz county Sheriff David Hathaway, “Hawk”, “Rain”.

Credits: Associate Producer and Host Lucia Chappelle, Producer/ Brian DeShazor, News writer Jeb Backe, the feature was produced by Lauren Schmitt, NewsWrap reporters Sarah Montague, Nathalie Muñoz music: Cast album Redwood, music from the Arizona protest.

This Way Out’s Abigail DeRoberts visits the Lesbian Herstory Archives in Brooklyn, New York and speaks to coordinators Maxine Wolfe and Rachel Corbman about how the archives got started, why it matters, and how to meet the challenge of preserving it for future generations. In Newswrap Poland begins recognizing same-sex marriages performed elsewhere in the European Union, while Bulgaria’s top court opens the door for transgender people to change their legal names and gender markers. In the U.S., a new EEOC settlement gives thousands of Christian employers greater latitude to discriminate against trans workers. A fatal shooting at a Tucson gay bar is being investigated as a possible hate crime, prompting a call for action on gun violence from Arizona Congresswoman Adelita Grijalva. And New Orleans’ Southern Decadence celebrates LGBTQ+ diversity — with a special push to bring more queer women and lesbians into the spotlight.

Featured speakers: U.S. House from Democratic Representative Adelita Grijalva, Lily Tomlin, archives coordinators Maxine Wolfe and Rachel Corbman.

Credits: Associate Producer Lucia Chappelle, Producer/

Host Brian DeShazor, News writer Jeb Backe, the feature was produced by Abigail DeRoberts NewsWrap reporters Michael LeBeau and Tanya Kane-Parry music: Isis

An historic tape was found. This week features a remarkable 1970 recording of Sylvia Rivera, Marsha P. Johnson, and other members of the Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR), made by 20-year-old WBAI reporter Liza Cowan. Rediscovered nearly 50 years later by Making Gay History in the Lesbian Herstory Archives, the tape captures Rivera and Johnson speaking candidly about their lives, gender expression, discrimination, sexuality, and activism, as well as their efforts to create community and support for street youth through STAR House. This is what is believed to be the earliest known recording of Rivera and Johnson and offering an extraordinary first-person glimpse of two pioneering trans activists at the beginning of their political lives. In the news this week, a new report finds LGBTQ+ people make up more than 12 percent of the U.S. population, while a federal judge again strikes down Texas’s drag ban. LGBTQ+ asylum seekers face heightened danger amid a migration crisis in Spain’s Ceuta, and South African activists mobilize against an anti-LGBTQ+ “family values” conference. And in Ireland, Cork opens the country’s first permanent LGBTQ+ museum exhibition, featuring a historic Rainbow Flag from San Francisco.

Featured speakers: Brigitte Bandit, LGBT choir Choral Con Fusion, Sylvia Rivera, Marsha P. Johnson, Victor.

Credits: Associate Producer/Host Lucia Chappelle, Producer Brian DeShazor, News writer Jeb Backe, the feature was produced by Brian DeShazor with assistance from Making Gay History and the Lesbian Herstory Archives.

NewsWrap reporters Ava Davis and John Dyer 5th music: the Brotherhood of Man

A flash rainbow rewind remembers lesbian purges in the military leading to the conclusion of Pat Bond’s classic tale of lesbians in the U.S. military during World War II, Murder in the WAC. In the news this week, Russia’s crackdown forces the Russian LGBT Network to shut down while England offers new hope to people with drug-resistant HIV. A U.S. federal judge blocks the Trump administration from excluding gender-affirming care from the Affordable Care Act and Ohio makes it harder for trans people to change gender markers on state IDs. Canada unveils a powerful new monument honoring victims and survivors of the historic LGBT Purge.

Featured speakers: Dara Adkison is Executive Director of trans equity organization, Visual artists Shawna Dempsey and Lorri Millan, Pat Bond.

Credits: Associate Producer/Host Lucia Chappelle, Producer Brian DeShazor, News writer Jeb Backe, Murder in the WAC was recorded and produced by Katherine Davenport and Frieda Werden of WINGS, the Women’s International News Gathering Service.

NewsWrap reporters Tanya Kane-Parry and RET. a music: 14th Army WAC Band, Gail Belmont of the WAC Band and theme music by Kim Wilson.

Part one of Pat Bond’s classic tale of lesbians in the U.S. military during World War II, Murder in the WAC. In the news this week, the first married lesbian couple in Bolivia and the first census to count queers in Australia, Trump policies are stopping federally funded gender-affirming care and blocking the Trevor Project’s crisis lifeline work, and Kansas trans men make good trouble in the toilet.

Featured speakers: Pat Bond, Gia Drew Exec. Dir. Equality Maine, Katie Keith of Georgetown Law.

Credits: Associate Producer/Host Lucia Chappelle, Producer Brian DeShazor, News writer Jeb Backe, Murder in the WAC was recorded and produced by Katherine Davenport and Frieda Werden of WINGS, the Women’s International News Gathering Service.

NewsWrap reporters Nathalie Muñoz and Marcos Najera music: Brittany Luberda (Yankee Doodle Girl (Song Of The Women's Army Corps)

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 U.S..

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

Brian DeShazor talks with author Josh Trujillo about The Legends and Loves of Baron von Steuben- Washington’s Gay General. The rainbow rewinds to James Baldwin and Randy Shilts and in the news, a deadly vehicle attack targets Berlin’s Christopher Street Day celebration, Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal blocks recognition of same-sex marriages performed elsewhere in the European Union, Pennsylvania repeals HIV-specific criminal penalties, and a British court allows a controversial puberty-blocker study to proceed. Finally, the U.S. State Department apologizes for displaying an AI-generated map that scrambled Africa’s geography, while the consequences of Trump administration cuts to global HIV programs continue to mount.

Featured speakers: Alfonso Pantisano, Winnie Byanyima, Dr. Atul Gawande, James Baldwin, Randy Shilts, Josh Trujillo

Credits: Associate Producer/Host Lucia Chappelle, Producer Brian DeShazor, News writer Jeb Backe, rainbow rewind written by Sheri Lunn and Brian DeShazor, feature producer Brian DeShazor, NewsWrap reporters Joe Boehnlein, Michael LeBeau music: Kronos ft. Nathalie Merchant and Kim Wilson

We mark our 2000th episode. Pete Hegseth gets trolled by U.S. Rep. Becca Balint, The Rainbow Rewinds to Judy Grahn, Vito Russo and Reverend Troy Perry and Lucia Chappelle gives advice from a 2000 episode old lesbian. In newswrap France's new rights watchdog is no friend to queer people or women, while the trans position of the U.K.'s new government is questionable and a gay German politician falls to surrogacy hypocrisy. In the U.S., the House declines to make Trump's transgender military ban permanent, but advances other anti-trans measures, and a Seattle judge keeps a historic LGBTQ+ beach nude, but curbs the bad behavior.

Featured speakers: Major Erica Vandal, Jesse Miranda, Pete Hegseth, U.S. Rep. Becca Balint, Judy Grahn, Vito Russo, Rev. Troy Perry, Lucia Chappelle

Credits: Associate Producer/Host Lucia Chappelle, Producer Brian DeShazor, News writer Jeb Backe, feature producers, Lucia Chappellle, NewsWrap reporters Ret and Melanie Keller music: Stan Freberg, Ludwig Goransson and Kim Wilson

Lambda Legal’s non-binary and transgender rights project director Sasha Buchert helped fashion Becky Pepper-Jackson’s Title IX and Equal Protection arguments for the U.S. Supreme Court. She explains how the case evolved from the legislative process to litigation, the broader political environment that led to the recent trans sports bans, and how this ruling will impact the future (interviewed by Jeb Backe).

And in NewsWrap: LGBTQ+ foster children in the U.S. won’t be protected from unsupportive families anymore, trans-positive soccer star Megan Rapinoe cries foul after being ejected from a World Cup ad, there’s a flag on a play by Reform UK, a lesbian couple in Botswana is fighting for marriage equality and Madison Square Garden is WIRED for “risky” guests (reported this week by Chris Wilson and Joe Boehnlein).

Featured Speakers: Botswana marriage equality plaintiff Bonolo Selelo, Lambda Legal’s Sasha Buchert.

Credits: Associate Producer/Host Lucia Chappelle, News writer/Feature producer Jeb Backe, NewsWrap reporters Chris Wilson and Joe Boehnlein. Music: Against Me! and Kim Wilson

All this on the July 20, 2026 Edition of This Way Out!