“Late Show with David Letterman” Contributes to Problematic Reporting on Amanda Simpson
January 6, 2010 by Anna Wipfler, GLAAD's Transgender Advocacy Fellow
Yesterday we reported on President Obama’s appointment of Amanda Simpson as a senior technical advisor at the Commerce Department and some of the problematic news coverage about her becoming one of the first openly transgender presidential appointees.
Unfortunately, as coverage of her landmark appointment continues, so does the disrespectful treatment in the media. During last night’s “Late Show with David Letterman” on CBS, David Letterman announced Simpson’s appointment and reported that she is a transgender woman. He also showed a photo of her. The show’s announcer Alan Kalter then reacted to the news with disgust and mock horror, saying, “What? Amanda used to be a dude? My God!” He then hurried off stage to hearty laughter from the audience, apparently to go collect himself after the shock of this discovery.
Using this type of reaction to the discovery of a person’s transgender identity for comic effect appears to be a current trend in entertainment media. We’ve recently criticized similar instances of such defamation on FOX’s “The Cleveland Show.” Depicting people reacting in horror to transgender individuals is a dangerous stereotype for popular media to perpetuate because it contributes to the societal conception of transgender people as abnormal and deceptive, which all-too-often results in anti-transgender violence and/or discrimination when played out in reality.
Since this is a blog and I don't adhere to Maddow's high professional standards.....
Bob Hunter is a cockroach, and drawn out of the moist darkness of obscurity he is sent scurrying to distance himself from the family and attempts to obscure the relationships and influence he and national prayer breakfast family members have in the national politics in each others countries.
This interview should immediately motivate President Obama to issue presidential decrees to distance church and state.
Our transgender brethren in the United Kingdom are fighting for the right to be respected and treated with dignity, as we do here in the states. Our struggles are similar in that transmisogyny's roots are the same. Many gay and heterosexual's, religious or not, abhor us and attempt to shred our dignity by hijacking our identity.
Tranny is to a transgender person like Faggot to a gay man and Nigger is to a person of color.
Good God.Or maybe god is also one of the problems.
Its not improper touching! Its fucking rape!
But maybe good god's love is not to blame. Maybe its gods word being hijacked by the Catholic Church in its attempts to divert attention from seemingly endless disclosures of child rape and cover up? Possibly the catholics pressures it's media contacts to misdirect the public outrage that rightfully should be directed at the perpetrators of these heinous criminal acts of rape committed against children.
And who would draw that ire more than Keira McCormack, a transgender woman who counsels rape victims in Belfast Ireland? Keira McCormack filed a complaint over the use of tranny in the headlines of the largest paper in the UK and has won a victory for transgender people to own our identity. The UK's Press Complaints Commission said the use of the word [tranny] was pejorative and upheld the complaint.
It's time the catholic Church allowed children to own their own identity as well.
Emergency shelter addresses and contact numbers for agencies that will help in Dallas Texas. It's going to be really cold baby, so get your butts inside. Please. . Metro Dallas Homeless Alliance (located at The Bridge)http://www.mdhadallas.org/default.aspx1818 Corsicana, Dallas Texas 75201 . Tel: 214 670 1100
Reed Cowan, producer of the critically acclaimed Sundance entrant film "8: THE MORMON PROPOSITION" which exposes the Church of the Latter Day Saints (LDS) participation in the passage of Prop 8 in California and anti marriage equality elsewhere is entered in a poll in the paper Times and Seasons, to determine which people had the most impact on Mormons and Mormonism in 2008. It only takes a second and your participation will have far reaching effects in educating innocent LDS members and others. Please vote for Reed Cowan at times and seasons.org
It only takes a second and voting ends on January 7 at midnight ET. Please do this and pass it on to others: YOU ONLY HAVE A FEW MORE DAYS TO DO THIS. VOTE, THEN POST TO YOUR FACEBOOK, BLOGS, E MAIL LISTS, ETC. please.