Analysis by WorldTribune Staff, July 24, 2025 Real World News
It was seen as only fitting, in many ways, that former President Barack Obama would appear on Michelle Obama’s podcast to proclaim that all men need queer people in their lives.
The July 16 episode of IMO, the show that Michelle co-hosts with her brother, centered around a listener-submitted question about how to raise “emotionally intelligent, competent men” in a world where the male loneliness epidemic exists.
The ex-president chimed in that men need a range of different role models, and gave the example of a gay professor he had in college.
“[He] became one of my favorite professors and was a great guy, and would call me out when I started saying stuff that was ignorant. You need that! To show empathy and kindness,” Obama said of the professor who was out at a time when many gay professors weren’t.
“By the way, you need that person in your friend group so that if you then have a boy who is gay or nonbinary, or what have you, they have somebody that they can go, ‘Okay, I’m not alone in this,’ ” Obama added. “That, I think, is creating community. I know it’s corny, but it’s what they need.”
Obama added: “I do think as a society, we have to create more structures for boys and men to … be able to meet a wide range of role models so that whatever their inclinations, they can see a path to success that isn’t just sports or money, making a lot of money.”
Obama also discussed the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold Obergefell v. Hodges, which established the fundamental right to marry for same-sex couples under the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses:
“I wasn’t surprised by the Supreme Court’s decision, but, like millions of Americans, I was proud and happy that it came down the way it did, and I was honored to stand in the Rose Garden and reiterate for every American that we are strongest, that we are most free, when all of us are treated equally. I was proud to say that love is love.”
Later in the interview (which can be seen in full here), Obama recalled how, when he and Michelle first began dating, he was exposed to different models of masculinity:
“That’s one of the things that I think a lot of times boys need, is not just exposure to one guy, one dad. No matter how good the dad is, he can’t be everything. And then that boy may need somebody to give the boy some perspective on the dad.”
‘Fatherly’ Barack Obama counsels diversity for young men’s role models: ‘I had a gay professor’ added by Editor Two on
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