Out former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg recently responded to anti-LGBTQ+ right-wing commentator Tucker Carlson’s comment that he wants to ask Buttigieg “very specific questions about gay sex” because he thinks Buttigieg is a “fake gay.”

While speaking last Wednesday at the University of Michigan to journalist and podcaster Kara Swisher, Buttigieg said, “First of all, I do not think I want to discuss anything with Tucker Carlson. But I cannot think of anything I would want to discuss less with Tucker Carlson than that.”

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He continued, “Though I will admit some level of morbid curiosity in what the hell he thinks his…” But then he held up his hands, grimaced, shook his head, and said, “I actually don’t.”

He then said, “Um, I guess it’s a sign of progress that their idea of a conspiracy is that I’m actually secretly straight…. We are through the looking glass now.”

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Swisher advised Buttigieg, “Do you know what you have to say? You have to say, ‘Tucker, I’m not interested, okay?”

Pete Buttigieg commenting on creepy homophobe Tucker Carlson saying he wants to ask him “very specific questions about gay sex” to prove that he isn’t secretly straight. pic.twitter.com/cjswLGJ9jt

— Pete Receipts (@PeteReceipts) September 23, 2025

In an installment of The Tucker Carlson Show earlier this month, Carlson referred to Buttigieg as a “fake gay guy,” adding, “My gay producer was always like ‘he’s not gay.’ He 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!’”

The insinuation is absurd. Buttigieg began dating his now-husband, author Chasten Buttigieg, in 2015. They married in 2018 and are now raising two children together. There’s absolutely zero proof to suggest that Buttigieg has ever not been gay.

Plus, there has never been a Democratic presidential nominee who wasn’t straight and cisgender, so it’s unlikely anyone would think that being gay would help a presidential candidate win the nomination.

Nevertheless, Carlson continued, saying, “I’ve always wanted to interview him. He’s never agreed to interview, but I’m gonna ask him like some very specific questions about gay sex and see if he can even answer. I doubt he even knows!”

Carlson didn’t explain how he allegedly attained his knowledge about the finer points of gay sex.

Tucker Carlson is anti-gay & weirdly fixated on Buttigieg

This isn’t the first time that Carlson has implied that Buttigieg isn’t really gay.

In a July 2024 episode of Carlson’s show — hosted on X, the social media platform owned by transphobic right-wing billionaire Elon Musk — Carlson called Buttigieg “supposedly gay” and said that one of his show’s gay producers told him that Buttigieg “is not gay.” “Gays all keep close track of that stuff,” Carlson said, offering no real proof of his absurd claim. 

“My producer goes, ‘It’s totally a pose. He was dating women just a few years ago. It’s totally fake. He’s not gay at all,’” Carlson said. He added that he once said this previously on the air, and “people got all offended. I thought it was kind of hilarious.”

Carlson has previously described Buttigieg as effeminate and told viewers that Buttigieg “breastfeeds” his adopted twin babies. Buttigieg responded by saying, “I guess he just doesn’t understand the concept of bottle-feeding.”

Carlson’s 1991 Trinity College yearbook lists him as a member of the “Dan White Society” and the “Jesse Helms Foundation.” White is the person who assassinated Harvey Milk, the groundbreaking out politician who urged gay people to “come out.” Helms, the late Republican senator from North Carolina, was notoriously racist and viciously anti-gay.

In 1990, Carlson wrote in his college newspaper that homosexuality was“unnatural and unhealthy.” In 2007, Carlson went on MSNBC Live to brag about the time he beat up a gay man in a bathroom.

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