News
Tucker Carlson out at Fox, CNN fires Don Lemon
Firings shook cable news on Monday
The political and media worlds were jolted Monday by news that Fox News host and pundit Tucker Carlson and the network had abruptly parted ways followed by news from Atlanta within an hour that CNN had terminated morning anchor Don Lemon.
Both men had stirred controversy within the ranks of their respective networks in recent months with on-air comments and behind the camera drama as described by insiders at both Fox and CNN to the Washington Blade.
Word of Carlson’s departure came in a statement from the network early Monday:
“Fox News Media and Tucker Carlson have agreed to part ways. We thank him for his service to the network as a host and prior to that as a contributor.
Carlson’s last program was Friday. “Fox News Tonight” will air live at 8 p.m. ET starting this evening as an interim show helmed by rotating Fox News personalities until a new host is named
Co-anchor of “CNN This Morning,” Lemon’s termination was announced on Twitter by Lemon himself:
” I was informed this morning by my agent that I have been terminated by CNN. I am stunned. After 17 years at CNN I would have thought that someone in management would have had the decency to tell me directly. At no time was I ever given any indication that I would not be able to continue to do the work I have loved at the network. It is clear that there are some larger issues at play. With that said, I want to thank my colleagues and the many teams I have worked with for an incredible run. They are the most talented journalists in the business, and I wish them all the best.”
CNN CEO Chris Licht said that the network and Lemon have “parted ways,” according to a memo posted on CNN’s official communications Twitter account.
“Don will forever be a part of the CNN family, and we thank him for his contributions over the past 17 years,” the statement said. “We wish him well and will be cheering him on in his future endeavors.”
Carlson joined Fox News as a contributor in 2009 and served as a co-host of “Fox and Friends Weekend” from 2012-2016. His show “Tucker Carlson Tonight” aired in 2016 and a year later moved into the primetime 8 p.m. slot in April 2017.
Carlson has had a lengthy history of inflammatory commentary during his tenure at Fox. He has targeted minority groups as noted by D.C.-based progressive media watchdog group Media Matters for America. The groups’ researchers Madeline Peltz and Nikki McCann Ramírez noted:
Since the early days of his tenure as a Fox prime-time host, Tucker Carlson’s unabashed championing of white grievances earned him the accolades of neo-Nazis, who praised him as a “one man gas chamber” and complimented the way he “lampshad[ed] Jews on national television.” While Carlson claims to have nothing in common with neo-Nazis and white supremacists, he constantly echoes their talking points on his show and was very reluctant to condemn white supremacists following their deadly 2017 demonstration in Charlottesville, Va. In fact, Carlson’s racist roots can be traced back more than a decade.
For the American LGBTQ community, particularly transgender people, Carlson has led a relentless campaign mocking and denigrating trans people. In a late December 2022 episode of “Tucker Carlson Tonight”, he hosted Libs of TikTok owner Chaya Raichik, who labeled LGBTQ people as: “They’re bad people. They’re evil people. And they want to groom kids. They’re recruiting.”
Raichik’s Twitter account has spewed anti-LGBTQ hate speech with special emphasis on singling out American trans youth, attacking healthcare professionals who provide gender affirming care including children’s hospitals in Boston, Nashville and D.C. which has led her over 1 million followers to pummel those medical facilities with hate filled online abuse and escalating to criminal acts including bomb threats and death threats against doctors.
During that interview Carlson nodded sympathetically as he embraced Raichik’s extremism.
During the Aug. 22, 2022, edition of “Tucker Carlson Tonight”, Carlson, while interviewing former Russia Today and current Rebel News reporter Jeremy Loffredo about his story regarding Amish farmer named Amos Miller, who has legal problems with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration over food safety concerns, at one point blurted out: “Maybe if he promises to put more chemicals in the milk to turn kids trans, they’ll lay off.”
Carlson has long targeted President Joe Biden, his family, and members of the president’s administration. During the May 10, 2022, edition of “Tucker Carlson Tonight”, he mocked White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, who is an openly Black lesbian:
“Karine Jean-Pierre is our first out LGBTQ+ White House Press Secretary and that’s all you need to know. It’s a good thing, shut up and celebrate. That’s why she got the job. She’s in the right group and so the Biden administration, which thinks exclusively in terms of groups and never in terms of individuals because individuals are messy and inconvenient, the group is all that matters. […] Not only is she a member of the out LGBTQ+ community, she’s also, critically, the product of a private school and an Ivy League college and yet still oppressed somehow. She is furious at America despite her ample privilege and enraged by its racist systems of oppression. And she’s happy to tell you about it.”
On the political front, Carlson’s embrace of the far-right extremist elements had led to disagreements and heated internal debate a Fox News source told the Blade on Monday. Adding to the controversy and in turn exacerbated by the massive $787.5 million settlement with Dominion Voting Systems in the lawsuit filed against Fox in March 2021 over defamatory comments, including a Jan. 26, 2021, episode of Carlson’s show featuring MyPillow founder Mike Lindell, was Carlson’s role.
CBS News notes that Carlson has been a fixture of cable news for decades, hosting shows on CNN, MSNBC and PBS before he joined Fox News. He also co-founded the conservative website the Daily Caller, which launched in 2010. Carlson stepped down from day-to-day oversight of the website after landing his show on Fox News and sold his stake in the outlet in 2020.
Monday’s termination of Lemon by cable news giant CNN comes after NBC News reported that media industry news and entertainment outlet Variety published a story earlier this month on allegations that he mistreated his female colleagues over the course of his career there. And earlier this year, he faced backlash over widely criticized comments he made on-air.
Lemon has been with CNN since 2006, joining the network after anchoring at NBC Chicago and working as a correspondent for NBC News, the “TODAY” show and “NBC Nightly News.”
Lemon had come out as an openly gay African American news anchor 12 years ago in 2011 telling the Blade in a May 2011 interview:
“I have to tell you I can’t even put it in those terms. I mean, it goes way over a scale of one to 10, honestly. And it goes way over incredible. I mean I just feel like a new person.”
Lemon also faced hate and anti-gay extremism, at one point during the Trump era filed a police report with the New York Police Department for “aggravated harassment” after receiving death threats on Twitter.
The anchor, who is partnered to fiancé, Tim Malone, a real estate agent, had heated arguments with network staff after his negative treatment of “CNN This Morning” co-star Kaitlan Collins was discussed within the company.
NBC News noted Lemon also came under fire in February during a segment on “CNN This Morning” in which he remarked that Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley, 51, was no longer in her “prime.” The comment was made while discussing a suggestion by Haley that candidates over the age of 75 should be subjected to mental competency exams.
“Nikki Haley isn’t in her prime, sorry,” Lemon said. “When a woman is considered to be in her prime — in her 20s, 30s and maybe her 40s.”
When pushed by co-anchor Poppy Harlow, Lemon told her not to “shoot the messenger.”
At the time of the Variety article, a spokesperson for Lemon said in a statement to NBC News following the report that it was “amazing and disappointing that Variety would be so reckless.”
“The story, which is riddled with patently false anecdotes and no concrete evidence, is entirely based on unsourced, unsubstantiated, 15-year-old anonymous gossip,” the statement said.
Advocacy groups are demanding the Trump-Vance administration not to deport two gay men to Iran.
MS Now on Jan. 23 reported the two men are among the 40 Iranian nationals who the White House plans to deport.
Iran is among the countries in which consensual same-sex sexual relations remain punishable by death.
The Washington Blade earlier this month reported LGBTQ Iranians have joined anti-government protests that broke out across the country on Dec. 28. Human rights groups say the Iranian government has killed thousands of people since the demonstrations began.
Rebekah Wolf of the American Immigration Council, which represents the two men, told MS Now her clients were scheduled to be on a deportation flight on Jan. 25. A Human Rights Campaign spokesperson on Tuesday told the Blade that one of the men “was able to obtain a temporary stay of removal from the” 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, and the other “is facing delayed deportation as the result of a measles outbreak at the facility where they’re being held.”
“My (organization, the American Immigration Council) represents those two gay men,” said American Immigration Council Senior Fellow Aaron Reichlin-Melnick in a Jan. 23 post on his Bluesky account. “They had been arrested on charges of sodomy by Iranian moral police, and fled the country seeking asylum. They face the death penalty if returned, yet the Trump (administration) denied their asylum claims in a kangaroo court process.”
“They are terrified,” added Reichlin-Melnick.
My org @immcouncil.org represents those two gay men. They had been arrested on charges of sodomy by Iranian moral police, and fled the country seeking asylum. They face the death penalty if returned, yet the Trump admin denied their asylum claims in a kangaroo court process.
They are terrified.
— Aaron Reichlin-Melnick (@reichlinmelnick.bsky.social) January 23, 2026 at 8:26 AM
Reichlin-Melnick in a second Bluesky post said “deporting people to Iran right now, as body bags line the street, is an immoral, inhumane, and unjust act.”
“That ICE is still considering carrying out the flight this weekend is a sign of an agency and an administration totally divorced from basic human rights,” he added.
Deporting people to Iran right now, as body bags line the street, is an immoral, inhumane, and unjust act. That ICE is still considering carrying out the flight this weekend is a sign of an agency and an administration totally divorced from basic human rights. www.ms.now/news/trump-d…
— Aaron Reichlin-Melnick (@reichlinmelnick.bsky.social) January 23, 2026 at 8:27 AM
HRC Vice President of Government Affairs David Stacy in a statement to the Blade noted Iran “is one of 12 nations that still execute queer people, and we continue to fear for their safety.” Stacy also referenced Renee Good, a 37-year-old lesbian woman who a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent shot and killed in Minneapolis on Jan. 7, and Andry Hernández Romero, a gay Venezuelan asylum seeker who the Trump-Vance administration “forcibly disappeared” to El Salvador last year.
“This out-of-control administration continues to target immigrants and terrorize our communities,” said Stacy. “That same cruelty murdered Renee Nicole Good and imprisoned Andry Hernández Romero. We stand with the American Immigration Council and demand that these men receive the due process they deserve. Congress must refuse to fund this outrage and stand against the administration’s shameless dismissal of our constitutional rights.”
Maryland
Expanded PrEP access among FreeState Justice’s 2026 legislative priorities
Maryland General Assembly opened on Jan. 14
FreeState Justice this week spoke with the Washington Blade about their priorities during this year’s legislative session in Annapolis that began on Jan. 14.
Ronnie L. Taylor, the group’s community director, on Wednesday said the organization continues to fight against discrimination against people with HIV/AIDS. FreeState Justice is specifically championing a bill in the General Assembly that would expand access to PrEP in Maryland.
Taylor said FreeState Justice is working with state Del. Ashanti Martinez (D-Prince George’s County) and state Sen. Clarence Lam (D-Arundel and Howard Counties) on a bill that would expand the “scope of practice for pharmacists in Maryland to distribute PrEP.” The measure does not have a title or a number, but FreeState Justice expects it will have both in the coming weeks.
FreeState Justice has long been involved in the fight to end the criminalization of HIV in the state.
Governor Wes Moore last year signed House Bill 39, which decriminalized HIV in Maryland.
The bill — the Carlton R. Smith Jr. HIV Modernization Act — is named after Carlton Smith, a long-time LGBTQ activist known as the “mayor” of Baltimore’s Mount Vernon neighborhood who died in 2024. FreeState Justice said Marylanders prosecuted under Maryland Health-General Code § 18-601.1 have already seen their convictions expunged.
Taylor said FreeState Justice will continue to “oppose anti anti-LGBTQ legislation” in the General Assembly. Their website later this week will publish a bill tracker.
The General Assembly’s legislative session is expected to end on April 13.
Central America
Dignidad para vidas LGBTQ en Centroamérica
Embajada canadiense en El Salvador se presentó ‘Historias de vida desde los cuerpos y territorios de la disidencia LGBTIQ+’
SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador — “A los 16 años, mi papá me echó”. Esa frase directa, sin adornos ni concesiones, es parte de una de las historias más impactantes del libro “Historias de vida desde los cuerpos y territorios de la disidencia LGBTIQ+”, presentado el 23 de enero. El testimonio pertenece a Estrella Cerón, mujer trans salvadoreña, cuya vida quedó marcada por la expulsión familiar y la violencia cotidiana ejercida contra su identidad.
Estrella relata que fue descubierta abrazando a un muchacho en la panadería que pertenecía a su familia, lugar donde también trabajaba. La respuesta fue inmediata: no le permitieron cambiarse de ropa ni llevar sus pertenencias. Salió “sucia, con olor a grasa, sin zapatos”. Su padre lloró al verla irse, pero no la detuvo. “Así ándate”, le dijo. Ese episodio no solo marcó su historia personal, sino que hoy se convierte en un reflejo de una realidad compartida por muchas personas trans en El Salvador y la región.
Durante la presentación del libro, Cerón tomó la palabra y compartió lo que significó volver a su historia frente a otras personas. Reconoció que no fue un proceso sencillo, pues implicó enfrentarse a recuerdos profundamente dolorosos.
“Fue doloroso hablarlo, sentí como un muro que fui rompiendo a poco a poco, saliendo adelante y pues hasta el día de hoy me siento más empoderada y más fuerte”, expresó. Sus palabras resonaron entre las y los asistentes, evidenciando que narrar la propia vida puede convertirse en un acto de sanación y afirmación personal.
Este momento público subrayó uno de los ejes centrales del proyecto: el derecho de las personas LGBTQ a contar sus historias en sus propios términos, sin miedo y con dignidad.
Rostros de la Equidad: un proyecto regional de memoria y justicia
La presentación de las publicaciones se realizó en el marco del proyecto Rostros de la Equidad, impulsado por COMCAVIS TRANS, con el apoyo de OIKOS y la Embajada de Canadá en El Salvador. El evento reunió a activistas, representantes de organizaciones sociales, cooperación internacional y público en general.
Como parte de este proyecto se presentaron dos materiales: el libro “Historias de vida desde los cuerpos y territorios de la disidencia LGBTIQ+” y el glosario vivencial y de conceptos sobre la diversidad sexual y de género. Ambos productos buscan aportar a la visibilización, sensibilización y defensa de los derechos humanos de las personas LGBTQ en Centroamérica.
El proyecto se concibió como un proceso colectivo, regional y participativo, en el que las voces protagonistas fueran las de quienes históricamente han sido marginadas.
El libro de historias de vida se distancia de la lógica del simple recopilatorio de testimonios. Tal como lo expresa su prólogo, se trata de “un acto de memoria, reparación, justicia personal y colectiva”. Su objetivo es mostrar voces que han resistido al silencio y al miedo, y que hoy deciden narrar sus verdades.
Las historias incluidas atraviesan experiencias de expulsión familiar, discriminación, violencia institucional, migración forzada y exclusión social. Sin embargo, también dan cuenta de procesos de resistencia, organización comunitaria, reconstrucción personal y esperanza.
En ese equilibrio entre dolor y dignidad, el libro se convierte en una herramienta política y pedagógica que interpela a la sociedad y a las instituciones.
Junto al libro se presentó el glosario vivencial y de conceptos sobre la diversidad sexual y de género, una propuesta que busca ir más allá de las definiciones tradicionales. El glosario no se limita a explicar términos, sino que los conecta con experiencias reales de personas LGBTQ.
Cada concepto está atravesado por el derecho a la identidad, el reconocimiento y la dignidad. De esta forma, las palabras dejan de ser etiquetas para convertirse en relatos vivos que reflejan cuerpos, territorios e historias concretas.
Las organizaciones impulsoras señalaron que el glosario pretende ser una herramienta accesible para procesos formativos, educativos y comunitarios, aportando a una comprensión más humana de la diversidad sexual y de género.
El respaldo internacional y el valor de la resistencia
Durante la presentación, la embajadora de Canadá en El Salvador, Mylène Paradis, reconoció el trabajo de COMCAVIS TRANS, OIKOS y de todas las personas que hicieron posible Rostros de la Equidad.
“Las historias de vida reunidas en este libro nos recuerdan que resistir no es solo sobrevivir, sino también afirmar la propia existencia, reclamar derechos y construir esperanza incluso en contextos adversos”, afirmó Paradis, destacando la importancia de apoyar iniciativas que promueven la justicia social y los derechos humanos.
Su intervención subrayó el valor político de la memoria y el papel de la cooperación internacional en el acompañamiento de procesos liderados por organizaciones locales.
Un proceso regional de escucha y construcción colectiva
El libro y el glosario son el resultado de una consulta a 10 personas LGBTQ: cuatro de Guatemala, dos de El Salvador y cuatro de Honduras. Además, se realizaron grupos focales en cada uno de estos países para profundizar en las experiencias compartidas.
El proceso inició en agosto de 2024 y concluyó con la presentación pública de los resultados en enero de 2026. Para las organizaciones participantes, este trabajo evidenció la necesidad de generar espacios seguros de escucha y diálogo en la región.
La dimensión regional del proyecto permite identificar patrones comunes de violencia, pero también estrategias compartidas de resistencia y organización.
Georgina Olmedo, encargada del área de formación y nuevos liderazgos de COMCAVIS TRANS El Salvador, destacó que el libro busca reconocer las historias que atraviesan las personas LGBTQ.
“Son historias marcadas por la resistencia, la dignidad, el aprendizaje y toda la esperanza”, señaló, subrayando que muchas de estas vivencias continúan siendo invisibilizadas en el discurso público.
Para Olmedo, visibilizar estas narrativas es un paso necesario para transformar las realidades de exclusión y violencia que enfrenta esta población.
Escuchar sin juzgar: el valor del acompañamiento
Desde OIKOS, Jason García resaltó que el libro incluye voces de Guatemala y Honduras, lo que le otorga un carácter regional. Señaló que fue un honor conocer historias de personas que se atrevieron a contar lo que nunca antes habían contado.
García explicó que muchas de las personas participantes expresaron estar cansadas de ocultar quiénes son y que, durante el proceso, encontraron por primera vez espacios donde fueron escuchadas sin ser juzgadas.
“Cada historia que se comparte es un recordatorio de que ninguna violencia puede apagar la dignidad de una persona”, afirmó, destacando los procesos de sanación y reconstrucción que emergen incluso en contextos adversos.
Marielos Handal, integrante del equipo de OIKOS que acompañó la investigación, compartió una reflexión sobre los retos que implicó construir estas publicaciones. Las entrevistas, explicó, dejaron nudos en la garganta, silencios densos y muchas preguntas abiertas.
Entre ellas, cómo continuar escribiendo después de escuchar relatos de abandono, rechazo y violencia sistemática; cómo narrar sin revictimizar, sin simplificar ni maquillar la verdad, pero tampoco explotarla.
Estas preguntas atravesaron todo el proceso editorial, marcando el cuidado con el que se construyeron tanto el libro como el glosario, priorizando siempre la dignidad de las personas participantes.
Palabras que se convierten en dignidad colectiva
La presentación cerró con un llamado a leer estas publicaciones no desde la lástima, sino desde la responsabilidad colectiva de reconocer las deudas históricas con las personas LGBTQ en Centroamérica.
Historias de vida desde los cuerpos y territorios de la disidencia LGBTQ y su glosario vivencial se consolidan como documentos necesarios en un contexto marcado por la exclusión, pero también por la lucha, la memoria y la esperanza.
En cada relato, como el de Cerón, queda claro que narrar la propia historia es un acto profundamente político: contar lo vivido no borra el dolor, pero lo transforma en palabra, memoria y dignidad compartida.
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