Fox News has been dispatching an anti-LGBTQ editor to cover LGBTQ issues, including the debate over Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill. The editor, Tyler O’Neil, has claimed that being LGBTQ is immoral, stated that “transgender identity is dangerous,” and promoted harmful and discredited conversion therapy as a way for people to supposedly leave “the gay lifestyle.”
Fox News has been waging war against Disney after the company criticized Florida for passing the “Don’t Say Gay” bill in late March. The network has heavily attacked the company both on and off the air, including through its FoxNews.com website.
FoxNews.com has become even more right-wing during President Joe Biden’s administration. Its digital operation is led by former Hannity producer Porter Berry who, the Daily Beast noted, “has quickly remade the network’s digital properties more in the image of its conservative, culture war-heavy opinion programming.”
O’Neil has frequently covered LGBTQ issues for FoxNews.com and FoxBusiness.com. In recent days, he has written anti-Disney stories that carry the headlines, “Teacher running for Congress warns of psychological damage Disney's LGBT agenda may do to kids”; “Disney employee issues dire warning about the economic consequences of new 'leftward lurch'”; and “'Silent majority' of Disney employees support Florida law, Disney employee running for Congress says.” Some of his pieces have received top-story placement on FoxNews.com’s front page.
Fox News has deployed O’Neil to report on other LGBTQ issues, including conversion therapy and a book about transgender youth.
O’Neil previously worked as a senior editor for the right-wing PJ Media until Fox News hired him last summer. At PJ Media, O’Neil frequently wrote about LGBTQ issues, including promoting “ex-gay” conversion therapy -- the harmful and discredited practice that attempts to change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity. He’s also said that he opposes “LGBT orthodoxy” and has written that “transgender identity is dangerous.”
Here is a sampling of O’Neil’s work for PJ Media.
O’Neil wrote that Christians “must uphold the Bible’s morality, which clearly conflicts with the LGBT orthodoxy that Biden and his fellow Democrats want to enforce on us.” In his farewell note to PJ Media readers, O’Neil wrote that he and PJ Media Managing Editor Paula Bolyard “both agree … that Christians must uphold the Bible’s morality, which clearly conflicts with the LGBT orthodoxy that Biden and his fellow Democrats want to enforce on us.”
According to O’Neil, “Christians need to sympathize with those who are suffering with gender dysphoria and we need to celebrate those who nonetheless reject transgender identity to follow God.” O’Neil wrote a July 2021 piece stating that Christians must reject “transgender orthodoxy.” He concluded: “Christians need to sympathize with those who are suffering with gender dysphoria and we need to celebrate those who nonetheless reject transgender identity to follow God. The church needs to be a welcoming place for all people — but Christians must tell the truth of the gospel with clarity.”
O’Neil credited a version of conversion therapy for supposedly helping people leave “the gay lifestyle.” “Reintegrative therapy” is a repackaged form of conversion therapy. O’Neil wrote an August 2018 piece praising the practice, writing: “Four men — Michael, Nathan, Dennis, and John — all rediscovered their masculinity through therapy. As a result, their unwanted same-sex attraction weakened or dissipated.” He tweeted of reintegrative therapy:
