What Does Tucker Carlson Say About LGBT People?

If you know someone who doesn’t know, show them this.

Everyone knows that Fox News talk show host Tucker Carlson is an opponent of LGBT people. Not only does he oppose policy initiatives in the United States that uphold the rights of LGBT people, but he is also interpersonally disrespectful toward lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender individuals.

But what if you meet someone who isn’t “everyone” and who needs to be persuaded of this obvious fact? Where is the inventory of Tucker Carlson’s offensive remarks that demonstrates his attitudes toward LGBT people?

Surprisingly, I could not find such a list.

But never fear: I have created it.

‘Homophobic’?

In Carlson’s 1991 college yearbook, he described himself as a member of the “Dan White Society” and the “Jesse Helms Foundation.” Dan White was the assassin of the gay rights activist Harvey Milk. Jesse Helms, who was at that time beginning his fourth Senate term, generally opposed LGBT rights as well as funding for HIV treatment and research.

Alex Shephard, a staff writer at The New Republic, says that, from the mid-2000s, “Carlson’s meanness began to warp into cruelty. His racism and homophobia, long parts of his journalistic oeuvre, became even more pronounced.” These were exemplified by his 2006–2011 appearances on “a radio show hosted by Bubba the Love Sponge, a Florida-based shock jock” on which “Carlson repeatedly used racist and homophobic language…He joked with Bubba about loving him” and used a slur for gay men.

On air at MSNBC on May 6, 2006, Carlson used the same slur for gay men. When the clip surfaced in 2019, he described himself as having said something “naughty” and did not apologize for it.

Furthermore, on August 28, 2007 on MSNBC, while discussing whether a certain senator was gay, Carlson bragged that, on one occasion when he was “bothered” in a men’s room, he left the restroom, then “I went back with someone I knew and grabbed the guy by the — you know, and grabbed him, and — and — hit him against the stall with his head, actually!” This drew laughs from the other men on the show. Following criticism, Carlson attempted to clarify…