Some students at a school where I work came up with this idea for a fund-raiser: Students would donate into boxes representing different (volunteer) teachers. The teacher having the most money donated would be “made-up” by students. The idea seemed OK to the students and many of the staff until some teachers objected that this idea would be promoting disrespect to transgender/transvestite people. I can see where they are coming from, maybe particularly since this is in a school, but it got me wondering if there is a line to be drawn between acceptable and unacceptable humour here.
Is Mrs Doubtfire offensive, for example, (I mean basing a movie on that premiss), or TV skits where male actors dress as women for comedic effect? Or does that depend on how it is done? Is there a meaningful analogy to humour about race?
The analogy to race is the minstrel singer, or any form of blackface. It’s quite offensive to most blacks–most Americans, for that matter.
I don’t know, I don’t personally find Mrs. Doubtfire offensive, but I’m not LGBT. I’ve heard a trans friend bitch about Milton Berle, but not Robin Williams or frat games. I don’t understand the distinction, if there is one.
No it’s not. That would be the analogy if women were objecting to drag queens (which sometimes happens). If this level of whimsical crossdressing is offensive to trans folks, those trans folks need to get a grip: it’s not stereotyping them, it’s humans making a natural joke based on upsetting expectations.
Cross dressing for humor is generally intended to mock gender stereotypes and expectations. Just about every transperson I’ve ever known or chatted with has agreed that society’s gender roles and rules deserve to be made fun of.
Not really. I won’t say a definite ‘no’ because obviously I can’t say what every trans person would think (I’m not trans but have a lot of trans friends and go to a fair few trans venues, and it would depend how it was done.
If it was ‘oh man, isn’t cross-dressing weird and strange, look at those weirdos! Let us never do this again!’ then it would be bad. It doesn’t sound like that would be the case. It sounds like - as with most drag - it’s mocking fixed gender roles, not transgendered people.
Dressing up as a transgendered person could easily be offensive, depending on context, but 99% of the time, a man in a dress is pretending to be a woman, not pretending to be a man pretending to be a woman.
There’s a difference between drag and just dressing like the opposite sex. My daughter’s boyfriend is transgender and it seems like he just dresses like a normal guy, but they go out to the club on Thursday nights to see their friends do a drag show.
So I guess if it’s exaggerated it’s comical. But these days just dressing as the opposite sex would hardly be noticeable. What, the buttons just go the other way?