Turning Point USA’s Student Action Summit kicked off on Friday, and while the roster of buzzy speakers included conservative media heavyweights like Tucker Carlson and Fox News’ Laura Ingraham, it was Daily Wire’s Michael Knowles who walked away with one of the more bizarre viral moments from the Tampa, Florida conference.
In an elongated riff on the merits of traditional family values — merits that include the dissembling of LGBTQ+ rights, particularly for the transgender community — the “Michael Knowles Show” host and Fox News regular argued that LGBTQ+ people are, in fact, “fading.” Look no further than 22-year-old singer, dancer and actress JoJo Siwa, her said.
“Speaking of the LGBT, it is not just the T that is fading from the public square,” Knowles said in the clip circulating online Friday. “After decades of nonstop lavender propaganda, Pride parades are getting canceled for lack of attendance. Lack of interest!”
That first point was met with cheers of support from the audience, but the crowd really went wild for his next bit:
“JoJo Siwa is no longer a lesbian!” he exclaimed, visibly heartened by the enthusiastic applause. “Nature is healing, that’s great.”
Knowles then pivoted to the sanctity of marriage and the importance of uplifting the so-called “trad wife” mentality.
“Divorce rates are about the lowest they’ve been in 40 years. Young women are increasingly rejecting the corporate rat race, the widget factory — and to the horror of the feminists, they are aspiring to be wives,” Knowles continued. “It’s kind of funny … This radical change in ideology has actually caused us to come up with a new term: Do you know the term I’m talking about? ‘Trad wife.’ Do we have — look at all the aspiring trad wives, this is great!”
Watch the moment from Day 1 of Turning Point USA’s Student Action Summit below:
Knowles: JoJo Siwa is no longer a lesbian
Crowd: *cheers* pic.twitter.com/Be2efyyqlj
– Acyn (@acyn) July 11, 2025
Elsewhere in his speech, Knowles said that trying to “redefine marriage” as anything other than being between a man and woman has left the country “miserable.”
“We tried to redefine marriage, the fundamental political institution, the most basic human relationship. We tried to blow it up and turn it into something else. We even had the temerity to try and erase God,” he said. “None of it has worked out very well. The reason it hasn’t worked is not for lack of trying. The reason it hasn’t worked is that we followed all of those ideas to their logical conclusions, and the conclusions made us miserable.”
As far as his argument that Siwa is no longer a “lesbian,” that’s somewhat true — she no longer identifies as such. The former “Dance Moms” star and pop singer previously came out as gay four years ago. But Siwa backtracked a bit in April and explained that she no longer identifies as a lesbian and prefers the label “queer,” saying that she felt pressure to define her sexuality at a young age. In June, she went public with her current partner, former “Love Island” contestant Chris Hughes, a man she met while appearing on “Celebrity Big Brother.”
Siwa’s sexuality was previously a hot topic on her season of “Celebrity Big Brother” earlier this year after her co-star Mickey Rourke was booted from the reality series in April for using derogatory, homophobic language toward the young entertainer.
In the incendiary moment, Rourke asked Siwa if she dates men or women — after she answered that she’s gay, Rourke said, “If I stay longer than four days, you won’t be gay anymore.”
“I can guarantee I will still be gay and I will still be in a very happy relationship,” Siwa answered. Rourke continued and told Siwa, “I’ll tie you up” and eventually used a homophobic slur. Rourke also said he was “going to vote the lesbian out real quick” before yelling, “I need a f–k” and pointing at Siwa.
Rourke later apologized in the show’s confessional room. “I apologize. I don’t have dishonorable intentions – I’m just talking smack,” he said. “I wasn’t taking it all so serious. I didn’t mean it in any bad intentions and if I did, sorry.”
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