Fox News host Tucker Carlson once again made a wild claim about COVID-19 on Wednesday, this time claiming that getting the disease appears to “feminize people.”
Interviewing far-right British politician Nigel Farage on his Fox Nation series Tucker Carlson Today, Carlson brought up United Kingdom Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s bout with the virus last year, suggesting that it left the British leader permanently weakened.
Grumbling about Johnson’s handling of the pandemic—especially regarding lockdowns and vaccine mandates—Farage said that the prime minister “doesn’t have” the ability to lead anymore, adding that Johnson’s made “more U-turns in policy” than he can recall in his lifetime.
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“In a very embarrassing way,” Carlson added.
The Fox News host then asserted that somebody “who knows” Johnson told him that getting COVID “emasculated” the prime minister.
“It changed him, it feminized him, it weakened him as a man,” Carlson declared, prompting Farage to note that Johnson was “very seriously ill.” (After initially playing down the severity of his illness, Johnson was admitted to intensive care in April 2020.)
“One of the things we have learned from COVID is people who are 50, 60, 70, 80 pounds overweight tend to have fared very badly,” Farage continued. “Now we don’t talk about it much.”
Carlson, however, wanted to stick with his belief that the virus somehow makes those stricken more effeminate after they’ve recovered.
“But the virus itself, this is true, does tend to take away the life force in some people I notice,” the Fox News star proclaimed. “I mean it does feminize people. No one ever says that but it’s true.”
Farage, for his part, didn’t disagree that Johnson had become feminized and emasculated, as Carlson put it. According to the Brexit architect, though, it had more to do with the “new wife” than COVID-19.
“Carrie Johnson—or as she’s now called, Carrie Antoinette—this is a very powerful, very strong woman,” Farage gleefully exclaimed.
In defense of Carlson’s remarks, Fox News sent over a study conducted in August by the NIH that has found reduced testosterone levels in men with severe infections, “with lower levels being associated with more severe clinical outcomes.” The study, though, does show that testosterone levels do increase over time after COVID-19.
While Carlson is now claiming that contracting COVID-19 makes men effeminate, it was just a few months ago that the Fox host was insisting that getting vaccinated against the disease was an effort to hurt men with too much testosterone.
“The point of mandatory vaccination is to identify the sincere Christians in the ranks, the free thinkers, the men with high testosterone levels, and anyone else who doesn't love Joe Biden and make them leave immediately,” Carlson fumed in September, arguing against military vaccine mandates.
