RuPaul Weighs In: Approves 'tranny'

by Rhonda J Mangus | February 5, 2009 at 07:59 am
381 views | 14 Recommendations | 2 comments

Photos

RuPaul Weighs In: Approves 'tranny' | Photo 02

RuPaul Weighs In: Approves 'tranny' | Photo 02

see larger image

uploaded by Rhonda J Mangus

In response to a demand by Planetransgender, the blog who demanded that Dallas Voice, The Community Newspaper for Gay & Lesbian Dallas, stop using the terms "drag queen" and "tranny", Dallas Voice turned to the 'Judge Judy of Drag', RuPaul, to find out if RuPaul agreed.


"Okay, Let me put on my Judge Judy robe," RuPaul says. "People really need to get a life. And quit taking every opportunity to be offended by the world. Years ago, political correctness made it unbearable for anyone to have a laugh or be free. You can’t make the whole world ’baby safe.’ That’s really the uneducated approach to dealing with issues.

"There are more things to do in this life than to try to correct people with how they should refer to you. That’s your problem. That’s not their problem," she continues.

Years ago, RuPaul was roped into another controversy because she’s been very supportive of Shirley Q. Liquor, a drag comedian and former Texan, who was condemned by GLAAD for promoting "ugly racial stereotypes." Not that Shirley defamed gays. GLAAD caved to pressure because "Grey’s Anatomy" star Isaiah Washington (a black dude) was being spanked for saying "faggot." In short, GLAAD agreed to a prisoner exchange.

"We are obsessed with trying find areas where we get offended," RuPaul says. "And people who identify as being victims have a hard time accepting a new identity. They hold their ’victim identity’ in place. And they continue to look for people or organizations where they can point their finger at and, in essence, confirm their victimhood.

Is it possible to reclaim "tranny" and "drag queen"? The truth may be that not everyone wants to reclaim certain LGBT Terminology. From the National Lesbian & Gay Journalist Association who compiled a list of LGBT Terminology (see NowPublic Forum Topic: LGBT Terminology, here):

"tranny: Often a pejorative term for a transgender person, it is now being reclaimed by some transgender people. Caution: still extremely offensive when used as an epithet and should be avoided except in quotes or as someone’s self-identified term."

Advertisement
recommend This comment thread is now closed
0
lefty_liberated

Rupaul was a regular at a coffee shop I worked at in the West Village! 

0
Rhonda J Mangus

lefty_liberated, thanks for sharing! Thank you for the recommendation, too!

This story was created over 3 months ago, the comment thread is now closed.

NowPublic on Facebook

What is NowPublic?

NowPublic lets people work together to cover news events around the world.

Find out more

Crowd Power

Cypresso
First Flagged at 5:38 PM, Feb 5, 2009 by Cypresso
These members have powered this story:

Most Recommended Stories in Culture

Recommendations (14)

Most recently recommended by:
 

closeSign in to NowPublic

is reporting from