News
Tucker Carlson repeats anti-LGBTQ lies, denying link between Club Q shooting and hateful rhetoric
Fox host again links queer people to child sexual exploitation
Shortly after five people were murdered and dozens injured over the weekend when a gunman opened fire in a Colorado Springs LGBTQ nightclub, Fox News host Tucker Carlson defended his and his allies’ escalating use of incendiary anti-LGBTQ rhetoric.
During his show on Monday night, Carlson inveighed against individuals and groups that responded to the tragedy by pointing out the link between acts of violence motivated by hate and the spread of inflammatory lies about LGBTQ people, often by public figures on the right.
“These horrifying murders in Colorado over the weekend quickly became a pretext for yet more censorship of your speech,” Carlson said. “You are responsible for this, they told you, because you said the wrong thing.”
Carlson then accused the groups and individuals that he said were calling for “censorship” — in this case, the LGBTQ community and its allies — of engaging in, perpetuating, or suborning the “genital mutilation” and sexual abuse and exploitation of children.
“This is exactly the kind of false and inflammatory rhetoric that willfully misinforms the public and encourages violence,” responded GLAAD, a nonprofit that fights the spread of defamatory anti-LGBTQ rhetoric in media and entertainment.
Carlson’s statements during the segment were irresponsible, absurd, and cruel, containing lies that are pathetic, dangerous, and a threat to public safety, GLAAD said, in a statement shared with the Washington Blade. “This program, hosts and pandering guests are part of the problem and they just don’t care,” the group added. “Viewers and Fox News should.”
The expectation should be that in the aftermath of a tragedy like the shooting at Colorado Springs’ Club Q, media figures would focus on the actual victims and the local communities that were impacted rather than doubling down on dangerous misinformation and hate as Carlson did, Media Matters LGBTQ Program Director Ari Drennen told the Blade by phone on Tuesday.
Media Matters, which tracks and monitors extremism and hate spread by right-wing news outlets and on social media, has documented Carlson’s extensive history of propagating malicious lies about LGBTQ people while simultaneously casting himself, his viewers, and his supporters as the truly aggrieved or the “real” victims.
After his show aired on Monday night, other critics were quick to point out Carlson’s history of attacking the LGBTQ community and its allies on his program, which is also chronicled in GLAAD’s Accountability Project.
Just stop it, @TuckerCarlson. You know exactly why, and you’ve more than contributed to the problem. Stop spewing the nightly hateful and dishonest rhetoric (that you yourself argued legally can’t be taken as truth), and then pretending you have no idea why these things happen. https://t.co/0MFeZqEzNr
— Spencer Davidson (@SDavidsonWKTV) November 22, 2022
Drennen said another manipulative tactic on display during Monday’s segment was Carlson’s seamless transitioning between and among different unrelated topics. The host began by denouncing the violence encountered by patrons on Saturday at the LGBTQ nightclub before switching to the medical interventions administered to trans youth and then addressing matters concerning child sexual exploitation and abuse.
The intended effect of this sleight of hand was to make these topics seem related, when of course they are not, Drennen said. Thus, Carlson has laid the groundwork to defend his and his ideological allies’ attacks on LGBTQ people, having framed them as active participants in or complicit observers of crimes against children.
While Carlson did take the opportunity to go after President Joe Biden during the 15-minute segment about Saturday’s shooting, he spent significantly less time on his argument that the president had opportunistically exploited the tragedy to call for a renewal of the federal assault weapons ban.
Instead, Carlson sought to deny the link between anti-LGBTQ language and anti-LGBTQ violence before doubling down on some of his most virulent attacks against the community.
On Sunday, GLAAD President Sarah Kate Ellis responded to the Colorado Springs shooting with a statement on the well established relationship between acts of violence and inflammatory rhetoric. On his program the following day, Carlson said that Ellis had “declared that because of Saturday’s shooting, you need to shut up while activist doctors mutilate children.”
Also in Carlson’s crosshairs was Boston Children’s Hospital, which the host accused of “performing double mastectomies on children for no medical reason at all,” adding, “There is no scientific justification for sexually mutilating kids. They are not doing it for a scientifically defensible reason.”
As GLAAD noted in its statement Tuesday to the Blade, in reality, health interventions for trans minors as performed in U.S. hospitals follow the guidance of every mainstream American and overseas biomedical organization with relevant clinical knowledge and experience, including the Endocrine Society, the American Medical Association, the American Psychological Association, and the American Academy of Pediatrics.
Recommendations governing care for trans youth that are provided by these groups are backed by rigorous research. For example, the Endocrine Society’s Clinical Practice Guidelines for Gender Dysphoria/Gender Incongruence contain more than 260 scientific studies.
None of the healthcare practitioners engaged in this evidence based care share “the grotesque fixation on children’s body parts this [Carlson’s] program continues to obsess over,” GLAAD told the Blade.
“But it’s not just the sexual mutilation of children in hospitals,” Carlson said during the segment. “This is part of a larger trend and the trend is this: adults crossing the line, and it has always been a bright line into deep involvement with the sexuality of children.”
The lone example Carlson cited as evidence was a controversial ad from Balenciaga that ran on Instagram and was subsequently removed. Drennen told the Blade that the media personality’s aim was to perpetuate the idea that “the sexualization of children” is “part of a broader cultural force” despite the absence of any connection between LGBTQ people and the sexual abuse and exploitation of children.
“It can be true that the ad is in poor taste,” Drennen said, but the onus isn’t on queer people to police the luxury French fashion house’s “weird ad buy.” Nevertheless, she added, Carlson “wanted the take-away from viewers to be that something sinister is going on,” ergo his inclusion of the topic in a segment about a facially unrelated matter: the massacre of LGBTQ people in a nightclub.
GLAAD’s email to the Blade also noted that “experts in child abuse say smearing people with ‘groomer’ rhetoric undermines the understanding of how predators abuse children.” When the lie that LGBTQ people are likelier to abuse minors is circulated online, apart from the impact of that rhetoric on the LGBTQ community, it makes helping survivors more difficult, advocates say.
“It feels like child sex abuse prevention is being hijacked by people to fit an agenda that has absolutely nothing to do with preventing child sexual abuse,” Jenny Coleman, director of Stop It Now!, a nonprofit working to stop the sexual abuse of children, told USA Today.
Evidence of link between hateful rhetoric and acts of violence
Following the tragedy over the weekend, the Human Rights Campaign pointed out that “Nearly 1 in 5 of any type of hate crime is now motivated by anti-LGBTQ+ bias and reports of violence and intimidation against LGBTQ+ people have been making news across the country.”
HRC cited, as examples, incidents in which, “White nationalists targeted a Pride event in Idaho; Proud Boys crashed Drag Queen story hour at a local library in California to shout homophobic and transphobic slurs; and Boston Children’s Hospital’s patients and providers have found themselves the targets of multiple violent threats following a campaign of disinformation on Twitter.”
According to the FBI, there have been dozens of bomb threats against Boston Children’s, which has been targeted with “a sustained harassment campaign based on dissemination of information online” about health treatments for trans minors, Rachael Rollins, the U.S. attorney for Massachusetts, said.
All-ages LGBTQ events like family-friendly drag shows and drag queen story hours have also increasingly suffered campaigns of violent intimidation and harassment by far-right extremists, who are driven by online misinformation and disinformation accusing those involved in such events of sexualizing and “grooming” children.
Far-right YouTuber and former video journalist for Vice and Fusion TV, Tim Pool, implied the massacre at Club Q was justified or at least that it can be explained because the nightclub had an all-ages drag show planned for the following day.
“We shouldn’t tolerate pedophiles grooming kids,” he wrote on Twitter, where he is followed by more than a million users. “Club Q had a grooming event. How do [sic] prevent the violence and stop the grooming?”
The evidence is not just anecdotal. According to the Brookings Institution, a social science research think tank, “A range of research suggests the incendiary rhetoric of political leaders can make political violence more likely, gives violence direction, complicates the law enforcement response, and increases fear in vulnerable communities.”
In the same statement addressing the Club Q attack, HRC explained the rise of hate and hate-motivated violence against LGBTQ people. “The highest known single-year total of fatal deaths of transgender and gender non-conforming people was in 2021, when at least 57 trans & gender non-conforming people were violently killed,” the group wrote.
Clip from Nov. 21 episode of Tucker Carlson Tonight
Ecuador
Caso Karlina: Una sentencia histórica contra las terapias de «conversión»
Karlina Quiroz, una mujer trans de Chone, fue internada contra su voluntad
La última vez que Karlina Quiroz, una mujer trans de 57 años, salió sola a la calle en Chone, terminó encerrada contra su voluntad en un centro de rehabilitación donde intentaron “corregir” su identidad de género mediante humillaciones, amenazas y agresiones.
Han pasado cinco años desde ese episodio, ocurrido en 2021; y el 11 de septiembre de 2026 Karlina por fin obtuvo justicia.
La Fiscalía informó, el 14 de septiembre, que el Tribunal de Garantías Penales de Chone sentenció a seis personas por actos de odio contra Karlina, al ser víctima de violencia basada en su identidad de género.
Entre los seis sentenciados están sus dos hermanos, que —según la denuncia de Karlina— ordenaron su encierro a este centro.
El caso de Karlina refleja el odio y la violencia hacia personas trans en Ecuador y vuelve a poner bajo la lupa la existencia de centros conocidos como clínicas de “deshomosexualización” o espacios de “terapias de conversión”.
De acuerdo con la denuncia presentada por Karlina, en julio de 2021 fue interceptada por varios hombres y trasladada contra su voluntad a un centro para el tratamiento de adicciones ubicado en Chone, Manabí, en la vía a Pedernales. Allí permaneció retenida y sometida a tratos degradantes, violencia psicológica y agresiones físicas.
Según su testimonio, durante el encierro recibió insultos relacionados con su identidad de género y amenazas orientadas a “modificarla”.
Karlina denunció, además, que esta no habría sido la primera vez. Según su relato, en 2019 permaneció aproximadamente tres meses internada de manera forzada en otro centro de rehabilitación, también ubicado en la vía a Pedernales, en Chone. Durante ese período habría sido sometida a dinámicas similares de aislamiento, control y presiones dirigidas a modificar su identidad y expresión de género.
Según información de la Fiscalía, en septiembre de 2021, como parte de las diligencias investigativas, se allanó el centro clandestino en Chone. Allí se recabaron indicios relacionados con el internamiento forzoso de Karlina durante tres meses.
Con esos y otros elementos de convicción obtenidos durante la investigación, la Fiscalía inició un proceso penal contra las seis personas, quienes fueron luego llamadas a juicio.
El proceso, explicó Karlina, incluyó los dos casos: el de 2019 y 2021. “El crimen se investigó desde que comenzó la primera gota de sangre”, señaló Karlina, en alusión a la violencia física que sufrió en su primer encierro.
De los seis sentenciados, tres fueron condenados como autores directos a cuatro años de pena privativa de libertad. Se trata de los dos hermanos de Karlina y un sobrino, por ordenar su encierro al centro de adicciones.
Los otros tres recibieron una pena de dos años, como cómplices.
De acuerdo con Karlina, uno de ellos es el director del primer centro al que fue ingresada contra su voluntad en 2019 por tres meses, y los otros dos son quienes la interceptaron la segunda ocasión, en julio de 2021, para llevarla al centro. Ella los señala como “capturadores” de las personas que son recluidas en los centros.
“Cuando recibí la noticia (el viernes 11 de septiembre durante la audiencia de juzgamiento) no podía creerlo. Las piernas me temblaron y las lágrimas se me salieron. Estoy tranquila y satisfecha”, señaló Karlina en una llamada telefónica.
Para Pedro Gutiérrez, abogado especialista en derechos humanos, la sentencia es importante no solo por reconocer un delito de odio, sino también por las características de los hechos: el ingreso (por orden de sus hermanos) a un centro de “deshomosexualización” en el que se cometen actos de tortura y violencia física.
Durante la audiencia, constó el testimonio de Karlina. La Fiscalía también presentó el informe de reconocimiento del lugar de los hechos, la inspección ocular técnica, el levantamiento de evidencias y los testimonios de personas que confirmaron que los actos de violencia por perjuicio hacia su identidad de género fueron ejecutados de manera reiterada por los ahora sentenciados.
El caso volvió a poner la atención sobre las llamadas terapias de conversión en Ecuador, prácticas ampliamente cuestionadas por organismos internacionales de derechos humanos y señaladas como formas de tortura o violencia psicológica. Aunque el Estado ecuatoriano ha realizado operativos y clausuras de algunos centros en los últimos años, organizaciones sociales sostienen que estos espacios continúan funcionando de manera clandestina o bajo otras denominaciones.
La legislación ecuatoriana penaliza los actos de tortura con la intención de modificar la orientación sexual o identidad de género, pero no existe una sanción contra los centros que ofrecen las denominadas terapias de conversión.
En 2020, la Asamblea aprobó el Código Orgánico de Salud y una de sus disposiciones fue prohibir expresamente este tipo de terapias, pero fue vetado totalmente por el expresidente Lenín Moreno en medio de una campaña de sectores antiderechos.
La sentencia también dispuso, como reparación integral a favor de Karlina, tratamiento psicológico e indemnizaciones por daños materiales e inmateriales.
Gutiérrez considera que la reparación para Karlina es limitada, pues -por ejemplo- no hay llamados de atención al Ministerio de Salud o disculpas públicas a la víctima.
“Mi nombre es Ariel Karlina Zambrano, soy una mujer trans de Chone, Manabí. Desde niña supe que quería ser mujer, quería ser bonita, libre. Pero mi familia nunca lo aceptó. Mis hermanos y mi padre, profundamente machistas, me maltrataban constantemente”, contó Karlina en un testimonio en 2025 que recogió el Comité Permanente por la Defensa de los Derechos Humanos (CDH).
Para activistas y defensores de derechos humanos, el caso de Karlina evidencia además un patrón de violencia que suele permanecer oculto dentro de círculos familiares, religiosos y comunitarios. En muchos casos, explican, los internamientos forzados son promovidos bajo la idea de “corregir” orientaciones sexuales o identidades de género consideradas inaceptables.
Karlina intentó vivir en Chone, creyendo que con la denuncia y las medidas cautelares estaba a salvo, pero su hermano le pagaba a personas para que la acosaran, según su relato. Por ello, tuvo que esconderse por meses.
Las personas trans en Ecuador enfrentan altos niveles de discriminación, violencia y exclusión social, especialmente fuera de las grandes ciudades. Según la Encuesta Nacional sobre las Condiciones de Vida de la Población LGBTI+ del INEC, el 53,5 por ciento de las personas LGBTQ mayores de 18 años en el país ha sufrido algún tipo de discriminación o violencia a lo largo de su vida, siendo el entorno familiar uno de los principales espacios de agresión.
En materia de violencia letal, organizaciones como Asociación Silueta X y el Observatorio Runa Sipiy documentaron 30 asesinatos de personas LGBTQ y transfemicidios en Ecuador durante 2025. De esos casos, alrededor del 70 por ciento corresponden a mujeres trans, lo que las posiciona como el grupo más expuesto a crímenes de odio y violencia extrema.
Diversas organizaciones de derechos humanos han advertido además sobre la persistencia de centros de “deshomosexualización” o internamientos forzosos, prácticas denunciadas desde hace más de una década en Ecuador pese a prohibiciones estatales y operativos de control insuficientes.
El caso de Karlina pone a prueba algo más grande que una sentencia individual: si Ecuador está dispuesto o no a reconocer que estas prácticas siguen existiendo y que la violencia contra personas LGBTQ continúa ocurriendo, muchas veces con la complicidad o el silencio de sus propios entornos familiares.
“Con mi caso, debe quedar un precedente. Debemos luchar contra el odio que podemos encontrarlo dentro de nuestras propias familias. Por nuestra libertad y derechos, debemos luchar”, indicó Karlina.
Netherlands
Dutch prime minister visits Stonewall Inn
Rob Jetten is the Netherlands’ first openly gay prime minister
Dutch Prime Minister Rob Jetten on Monday visited the Stonewall Inn in New York.
“The Stonewall Inn is not just a gay bar in New York, but the place where in 1969 riots took place as a reaction to years of discrimination and police violence,” wrote Jetten on X. “This is seen as the starting point of the global LGBTIQ+ emancipation and activism. Nowadays, the bar is a national monument, dedicated to the LGBTIQ+ rights movement.”
“For me, it is impressive and moving to be here tonight. And also fitting, because the defense of human rights is an important part of our foreign policy,” he added. “The Netherlands stands alongside the Stonewall Inn community when it comes to everyone’s right to live openly, safely, and with pride, no matter who you are or who you love.”
De Stonewall Inn is niet zomaar een gay bar in New York, maar de plaats waar in 1969 rellen plaatsvonden als reactie op jarenlange discriminatie en geweld van de politie. Dit wordt gezien als startpunt van de wereldwijde lhbtiq+-emancipatie en activisme. Tegenwoordig is de bar… pic.twitter.com/hJmFYjF91Z
— Rob Jetten (@MinPres) September 23, 2026
Jetten in February became the Netherlands’s first openly gay prime minister.
He opened last month’s World Pride Human Rights Conference in Amsterdam. Jetten also participated in a panel with former Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar, former San Marino Captain Regent Paolo Rondelli, and other current and former heads of government who are gay or lesbian.
Jetten is scheduled to speak to the U.N. General Assembly on Thursday.
District of Columbia
Capital Pride chair resigns from board after just 10 months
Anna Jinkerson ‘taking step back to move forward’
Anna Jinkerson, who has served as chair of D.C.’s Capital Pride Alliance Board of Directors for the past 10 months and has served on the board for the past four years, confirmed she is resigning from the board effective Sept. 30.
Capital Pride Alliance serves as the lead organizer of D.C.’s annual LGBTQ Pride events.
“I am taking a step back to move forward and plan to stay engaged in the community,” Jinkerson told the Washington Blade in a statement. “Serving as a volunteer leader during a period of transition following World Pride was both an honor and a challenge,” she said.
“Throughout my tenure, I focused on strengthening accountability, improving communications, supporting staff and volunteers, and helping position the organization for long-term success,” she told the Blade in her statement. “Meaningful organizational progress requires collaboration, dedication, and a shared commitment to serving the community, and I am proud of the work accomplished during this period.”
In February of this year, during Jinkerson’s tenure on the board, Capital Pride announced it had expanded the size of its board from 12 to 25 members.
Around that same time one of the existing board members, transgender activist Taylor Lianne Chandler, announced in a letter to fellow board members that the Blade obtained from an anonymous sender that she was resigning from the board. Among her reasons for resigning, she said in the letter, was the board’s failure to address “sexual misconduct” within the Capital Pride organization.
In the letter, which she confirmed for the Blade was authentic, Chandler said she and other board members raised “credible concerns” of alleged sexual misconduct within the Capital Pride organization and the board chose not to adequately respond to those concerns.
Chandler told the Blade a Capital Pride investigation identified an individual implicated in a “pattern” of sexual harassment related behavior, but said she was bound by a Non-Disclosure Agreement that applied to all board members and she could not provide further details.
When the Blade contacted Capital Pride for comment on Chandler’s allegations, Jinkerson responded with a statement saying Capital Pride was addressing her concerns.
“When concerns are brought to CPA, we act quickly and appropriately to address them,” Jinkerson said. “As we continue to grow our organization, we’re proactively strengthening the policies and procedures that shape our systems, our infrastructure, and the support we provide to our team and partners,” she said.
In her statement to the Blade this week commenting on her planned resignation from the Capital Pride board, Jinkerson appeared to refer to the concern raised by Chandler.
“I am proud to have advocated for sexual harassment training, supported staff and volunteers when concerns were raised, engaged community leaders in important conversations, and helped advance practices that strengthen safety, transparency, and accountability,” she said.
“As I step away from board service, I do so with gratitude for the opportunity to serve and with confidence in the organization’s future,” she added. “I am taking a step back to move forward, and I look forward to remaining actively engaged in our community and continuing to support efforts that advance equality, belonging, and pride for all.”
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