It’s been a busy week for incompetence, greed and ignorance, with the Trump administration backfiring on all cylinders.
We’ve got Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth celebrating the change of his department’s name to the Department of War. We’ve got Secretary of State Marco Rubio saying that it’s not only totally fine for the U.S. to blow up people in boats suspected of ferrying drugs, but that they’ll happily do it again.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has declared that safety is for losers in our race to beat China to the moon. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has revamped the department he leads into an anti-vaxxer club house with a “no brains allowed” sign tacked to the door.
And we have Trump declaring war on Chicago.
It’s very obvious that we, the American people — and, indeed, the world — are not in good hands.
But at least we have right-wing commentator and former Fox News star Tucker Carlson as the arbiter of who’s gay and who isn’t. And he has determined that Pete Buttigieg is “fake gay.”
On a recent episode of his podcast, creatively titled The Tucker Carlson Show, he and Michael Knowles, a right-wing political commentator, debated whether or not Mayor Pete is actually gay or just faking it for political clout.
“My gay producer was always like, ‘He’s not gay,” says Carlson. “[Buttigieg] was with a girl, like 20, minutes ago, and, like, he wants to be the Democratic nominee. It’s like ‘Time for a gay guy!’”
OK, a lot to unpack there. First, Pete and Chasten Buttigieg started dating in 2015 — which is gay. They married in 2018 — which is even gayer. In 2021, they became parents. Now, adoption itself is not gay, but when two men who are married to each other adopt, I think it’s safe to say: Gay.
I don’t know who the “girl” Buttigieg was supposedly with “20 minutes ago” is supposed to be, and I am not a math major, but 2015 was longer than 20 minutes ago.
Also, I just did an internet search for “Pete Buttigieg girlfriend” and the response was, “Not many results contain ‘girlfriend.’”
Probably because he’s gay.
But even if he did have a girlfriend in the past, who cares?
Carlson then imagines an interview with Buttigieg. “I’m gonna ask him very specific questions about gay sex and see if he can even answer. I doubt he even knows,” he says.
“You’re not gay, dude. Stop.”
Wut?!
Just so I’m understanding: Carlson, a man who has been married to his high school sweetheart since the 1990s and has four children with her, is claiming to know more about gay sex than a man who identifies as gay?
Now, look, everyone is entitled to their hobbies, but it seems awfully strange that Carlson, who is not exactly known for being an LGBTQ+ rights champion, thinks he would win against Buttigieg at Gay Sex Trivia Night.
Not that gay sex is inherently unmanly. It isn’t, of course.
But Carlson’s claimed expertise is especially rich coming from a guy who believes that masculinity is under threat and that dropping testosterone levels spells the end of mankind. He had a whole special about it on Fox News a few years ago called The End of Men.”
So, yeah, guys who claim that men just aren’t manly enough any more don’t seem like the type to embrace gay sex as a refutation of that claim.
This is not the first time Carlson has put his supposed gaydar to use. In 2024, he also said Buttigieg ISN’T gay. That same year he hinted on Megyn Kelly’s podcast (called, if you can believe it, The Megyn Kelly Show), that former vice presidential contender Tim Walz IS gay.
It’s super weird that Carlson is trying to make Buttigieg’s sexual orientation into some kind of conspiracy theory. But it’s even weirder that he thinks Buttigieg is faking gayness is for some kind of political advantage. That is, quite simply, not the world we live in.
Nationwide, books about LGBTQ+ people are being taken off of library shelves; rainbow flags are being banned; teachers are being told to not even mention sexual orientation or gender identity at all.
At this very moment there is a high likelihood that marriage equality will be overturned. Never mind the fact that the majority of Americans support marriage equality. The majority of
Americans support abortion, too, but that didn’t stop the Supreme Court from gutting Roe v. Wade. The Supreme Court is unmoored, drifting ever right-ward at an unstoppable pace.
So, yeah, being gay doesn’t exactly seem like a calculated move to become the next president, especially in a country that for some completely dumbfounding reason thinks that Donald Trump is the epitome of masculinity.
D’Anne Witkowski is a writer living in Michigan with her wife and son. She has been writing about LGBTQ+ politics for nearly two decades. Follow her on Twitter @MamaDWitkowski.