In a left-field turn of events this week, People Magazine awarded their highly coveted Sexiest Man Alive honour to actor John Krasinski. You know, Jim from The Office? The one with the beard in A Quiet Place? The American guy Canadians were mad about starring in that Rogers commercial during the actors’ strike? Anyway, a lot of people thought Glen Powell was a shoo-in and were suspicious.
Fox News host Greg Gutfeld, however, is suspicious of Krasinski in another way that’s much less lighthearted: the actor has become the centre of a transvestigation on the right-wing network. As Them reports, a recent segment on weekday talk show The Five saw Gutfeld and co. discuss Krasinski being named Sexiest Man Alive.
“I think it’s great that People has dominated [sic] — or announced — that a trans male can be the sexiest one alive,” Gutfeld said. “Krasinski never talks about it, but he’s trans. You know that?”
“No, I didn’t know that,” confused co-host Jesse Watters answered.
“Yes, he’s trans, he’s trans!” Gutfeld affirmed, reportedly going on to make a joke about necrophilia, which is obviously the most natural segue. He then admitted that he didn’t really understand what denotes “sexy” to People, asking for a shirtless photo of the actor to further investigate. “Is it the beard?” Gutfeld wondered aloud.
It’s hard to tell if this is just a sad attempt at humour, but after proliferating in the transphobic corners of the internet, the “transvestigation” phenomenon has become more mainstream over the last year, with cis people launching investigations into people’s genders. Olympic boxer Imane Khelif was a prominent recent target, having several famous TERFs — including J.K. Rowling, J.D. Vance, Elon Musk and presidential re-elect Donald Trump — making false claims that she was a trans woman.