Former Teen Vogue Editor Gives Speech Complaining About Being Fired, Accidentally Proves Why She Should Be Fired

Sometime in the mid 2010s, Teen Vogue transformed from a magazine for teenage girls to a propaganda rag for wannabe revolutionaries. 

The higher-ups appear to have seen the error of their ways, with parent company Condé Nast announcing in early November that Vogue would absorb Teen Vogue. Multiple staffers were fired from Teen Vogue, including news and politics editor, Lex McMenamin.

“My name is Lex McMenamin. You may know me otherwise as Comrade Teen Vogue. And until last Monday, I was the politics section at Teen Vogue,” said McMenamin in a speech posted to social media Nov. 13. 

I was laid off from Teen Vogue today along with multiple other staffers on other sections, and today is my last day.

certainly more to come from me when the dust has settled more, but to my knowledge, after today, there will be no politics staffers at Teen Vogue.

— Lex McMenamin (they/them) (@leximcmenamin) November 3, 2025

“I was the only one left … Of the eight of us who were laid off last week, five were women of color. Two were the only remaining black staffers on the editorial staff at Teen Vogue. I was the only trans staffer, and I was laid off.” (RELATED: America’s ‘Non Binary’ And ‘Trans’ Community Falling Apart At Seams)

McMenamin’s X profile lists “they/them” pronouns. 

“And one of my proudest memories, one of the things I was proudest of, about working at Teen Vogue, was having leadership that was women of color consecutively for several years, a rarity in this building.”

Consider how truly bizarre this statement is. The highlight of your career is working with non-white people? 

Racial sycophancy aside, McMenamin appears to be a white woman. Or a white they/them, at least. McMenamin should’ve sacrificed her job to a more deserving black woman years ago, for the sake of consistency.

“Teen Vogue recently had its 20th birthday,” McMenamin continued, “But many of you probably learned about us in 2016, under the first Trump administration, where people became aware of our willingness to speak truth to power, to fact check our speech, and to resolutely clarify what is happening in the world, from Palestine to trans rights, campus organizing, you name it, we were willing to talk about it.”

Translation: When people became aware of what a cesspool Teen Vogue had become in recent years.

Teen Vogue, a magazine ostensibly geared towards teenage girls, published an anal sex guide in November 2019. That year, the magazine also published a guide to “queer sex.” 

Abortion is normal. Abortion is common. https://t.co/ZVKr3grjq1

— Teen Vogue (@TeenVogue) June 25, 2022

Teen Vogue advised teenagers on how to get hormonal birth control in December 2020. They further advised teens on how to get an abortion after Roe v. Wade was struck down. (RELATED: Blue State University Rolls Out Birth Control Vending Machines)

Other notable Teen Vogue articles include: “Menstrual Blood Magic: 3 Spells For Your Period,” a protest against “Digital Blackface,” and “The Polyamory Workbook.”

“And media companies are en masse laying off queer and trans workers, black workers, people of color from their teams, and eradicating the identity verticals that make it possible for us to even know what is happening in our communities,” McMenamin’s speech continued. 

It sounds like those queer, trans, black, and otherwise non-white workers had little to offer besides their identities as queer, trans, black, and otherwise non-white. 

McMenamin went on to blame the Trump administration for encouraging layoffs of supposedly marginalized people, and called for the “reinstatement of the fired four,” four union leaders reportedly terminated by Condé Nast. 

America’s teenage girls will somehow have to survive without McMenamin’s political insights.

Follow Natalie Sandoval on X: @NatSandovalDC