Listen Up Girl — Tuesday, August 18, 2026

Segment 1 — Kennedy Center pays out $252,480: A DC judge ruled there was no valid contract, ending Richard Grenell's retaliatory lawsuit against jazz musician Chuck Redd over a canceled New Year's Eve performance.

Segment 2 — Jadon MacCormack's landslide loss: The Connecticut candidate who called for executing LGBTQ+ people and declared June "Straight Month" lost his primary with under 20% of the vote. He declared himself "the true winner" anyway.

Segment 3 — Darren Bailey's predator ties: The Illinois GOP gubernatorial candidate shared a stage with a registered child sex offender turned "ex-gay" minister, and separately accepted campaign donations from — and attended church with — another convicted sex offender.

Segment 4 — Shevrin Jones primary-day smear: A homophobic text blast falsely claimed the Florida state senator — who could become the state's first openly gay member of Congress — is HIV positive, falsely attributing the message to Equality Florida. The attack landed on primary day itself.

Segment 5 — DeSantis administration hypocrisy: A Florida newspaper called out officials for letting religious schools discriminate against LGBTQ+ students while denying religious-freedom protections to schools requiring vaccines.

Segment 6 — Fresno church rebuild: After vandals crushed a church's rainbow "God's doors are open to all" Pride display, neighbors rebuilt it before Sunday service had even ended.

Hosted by Zach Randles-Friedman

https://www.listenupgirl.com/

Follow me at https://www.instagram.com/therealzachre/

Podcast music: https://dillonderosa.com/ Thank you Dillion!!!

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Today on Listen Up Girl: JD Vance and HHS accuse hospitals of fraud for providing gender-affirming care, a trans activist confronts the Massachusetts AG live on the radio, Lauren Boebert's son heads to jail while she lectures on parenting, two directors reject Harry Potter money over JK Rowling's transphobia, Neil Patrick Harris reflects on his 2006 coming out, and a gay beach party refuses to be scared off by death threats. Six stories, eleven minutes, every day.

🎙️ Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts | listenupgirl.com | @TheRealZachRE

Hosted by Zach Randles-Friedman

https://www.listenupgirl.com/

Follow me at https://www.instagram.com/therealzachre/

Podcast music: https://dillonderosa.com/ Thank you Dillion!!!

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Today's Listen Up Girl covers six stories from Sunday, August 16, 2026. A federal judge dismissed Minnesota's lawsuit challenging the federal government's stance on trans kids in school sports, ruling the state hadn't yet shown concrete legal harm — though a separate federal lawsuit against Minnesota over the same issue continues elsewhere. In Europe, Slovakia is defying a European Court of Justice ruling by refusing to register the marriage of Ivan Novotný and Metod Špaček, a Slovak gay couple married in Austria, prompting a rebuke from the European Commission. Matrix director Lilly Wachowski revealed that her new $10 million film, The Hunted, has stalled in Hollywood funding despite being fully scripted and ready to shoot, because its cast is entirely trans — part of a broader industry pullback that saw zero trans characters across 225 major studio films this year. A Republican candidate faced backlash after telling a female opponent she seemed "more masculine" than a man. Rudy Giuliani falsely claimed New York City's new universal childcare plan would teach babies to change gender — a claim entirely disconnected from the actual policy, which simply expands free childcare access starting with two-year-olds this fall. And the episode closes with Rosie O'Donnell's candid, funny, and moving account of learning to consistently use her nonbinary child's pronouns — including the "they" tattoo she got on her wrist to help her remember.

Hosted by Zach Randles-Friedman

https://www.listenupgirl.com/

Follow me at https://www.instagram.com/therealzachre/

Podcast music: https://dillonderosa.com/ Thank you Dillion!!!

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.