Special characters (#) causing problems

Special characters (#) causing problems

I am unable to pass a field variable with a # in it.  I have tried turning it into "%23", but it does not help.  Fields without special characters are working.  Specifically, what I am referring to is
 
 Location=<%=post_location%>& Location_op=18

I can't get this to work if the "post_location" string has a # in it