Missing the point

Yeah again, I'm late to the argument but so are others who are reacting to the responses to RuPaul's use of the terms "tranny", "Shemale", and so on, common in the gay community, which I've noted it's time the transgender community jettison him back into the gay community which he has never left.

As has been stated elsewhere often enough, RuPaul is a gay man who earns his living as a female impersonator, like many who exaggerate the presentation of women found on his show on the Logo channel which sponors the show because gay men love it.

While some in the transgender community like the show, it's fair and reasonable to say many, even most, don't watch it and consider it for what it is, a gay and straight man's show, and while a few (reported at 4) of the contestants on the show have transitioned, they were either kicked off or left because of bias against transgender women.

My point here is one made by Critian Williams who argues both sides are wrong, making the case it's free speech and both RuPaul and only the Logo TV channel has the right to censor him for whatever reasons they feel necessary, which they won't more than a verbal slap on the wrist.

The Logo TV channel will keep sponsoring his show because it sells in the gay community. They love the hyper representation of women and they love calling transgender and even post-transition women trannies or whatever other term they have and still use.

I won't argue that point, everyone has the right to an opinion and the right to express it. But they don't have the right to use it to promote misrepresentations and discrimination against a class of people. No one uses derogatory words against racial groups in the public forum without being called out and pressured to issue a , usually half-hearted, apology.

 No one uses derogatory words against gay and lesbian people without being called out and pressured to issue a half-hearted apology. And no one should use derogatory words against transgender people, which doesn't seem to include transgender men for reasons which defy common sense, just women.

The point is that RuPaul and Logo TV are promoting derogatory words toward the class of women who are in transition or have transitioned and while they're entitled to use those words in their private lives, they don't have the right to use them on TV or in public.

While they argue they're using them in the narrow context of the show, not unlike other shows, but that's not the point, which is that the represenation is misunderstood by many viewers to apply to transgender wormen and the RuPaul and the show knows this and does nothing to clarify the contestants from transgender women.

And that doesn't excuse RuPaul. The criticism of him is right and he would know it if some groups and people started resurrecting the old anti-gay words of decades past. You can bet the outrage if that happened, but then maybe some would just smile and tell RuPaul the adage about geese.