Kyle Rittenhouse ridiculed as he claims fluoride in water is ‘making people gay’

In comments reminiscent of InfoWars presenter Alex Jones’ furious rant about people “putting chemicals in the water that turn the friggin’ frogs gay” – which got the meme treatment in the form of a dance remix – Kyle Rittenhouse has claimed “the fluoride in our water is making people gay”.

Rittenhouse, 23, made headlines in 2021 after he shot and killed two activists and wounded another in Wisconsin in August 2020. They were protesting police brutality in solidarity with local Black man Jacob Blake, who was shot and left paralysed by a white police officer after his SUV was stopped.

Rittenhouse pleaded not guilty to all charges subsequently filed against him, and in November 2021 a jury found him not guilty on all five charges.

As for the comments about water, they came on Friday, when he tweeted: “Prove me wrong. The fluoride in our water is making people gay. Drink clean water.”

When someone replied claiming it was “the atrazine”, Rittenhouse added: “Bingo.”

We can’t quite believe we have to say this, but no, neither fluoride nor atrazine – a herbicide - makes people gay.

Dr Andrea Gore, of the University of Texas, told CNN in 2023: “I don’t think people should be making statements about the relationship between environmental chemicals and changes in sexuality when there’s zero evidence.”

While a 2010 study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America journal (or PNAS, for short) talks of “feminization and chemical castration” in male frogs due to atrazine, Dr Linda Kahn of New York University said to CNN that comparing frogs to humans is “not appropriate” and that atrazine is metabolized and excreted from the body within 12 hours.

And the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says on its webpage on water fluoridation that studies “continue to show” that it “prevents cavities and saves money, both for families and the health care system”.

In the days following Rittenhouse’s tweet, fellow X/Twitter users have ridiculed him and branded the individual an “idiot”:

“Amazing that he’s not yet employed by this administration,” quipped another:

A third tweeted: “Welcome back Alex Jones”:

Indeed, before posting his tweet about fluoride, Rittenhouse retweeted a video of him on InfoWars with Alex Jones, and shared a photo of him with the presenter.

• People discover Kyle Rittenhouse and Greta Thunberg share the same DOB
• Kyle Rittenhouse has released his own shooting video game

Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter

How to join the indy100's free WhatsApp channel

Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.