This Way Out

The Rise and Fall of MECLA (Pt. 1) | This Way Out – February 13, 2025

The first major confrontation between queer and conservative powerhouses in the U.S. launched the country’s first official LGBTQ political action committee, the Municipal Elections Committee of Los Angeles. This Way Out’s David Hunt looks for strategy lessons from the early days of “checkbook activism” (Part 1 of 2).

And in NewsWrap: U.S. President Donald Trump bans trans girls and women from competing in female sports at federally funded schools and universities, the National Collegiate Athletic Association announces that it will comply with the executive ordered trans sports ban, all references to transgender people are disappearing from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website, the Trump regime has ordered all federal employees to remove the pronouns from their email signatures, seven families with transgender or nonbinary children are the plaintiffs in a lawsuit challenging the executive order ban on gender affirming healthcare for patients younger than 19, quite a few openly LGBTQ performers and several outspoken allies took home trophies at the 67th annual Grammy Awards, and more international LGBTQ+ news reported this week by Ava Davis and John Dyer V (produced by Brian DeShazor).