Having successfully forced the Jersey Shore to feel actual shame for the first time, an emboldened GLAAD has set out to counter another televised display of trans-phobia—namely a segment from this week’s Saturday Night Live that featured a parody ad for “Estro-Maxx,” an estrogen drug for the male-to-female transgender on the go. Although more generally a play on the stereotypical pharmaceutical ad, GLAAD took issue with the way it mined the bulk of its comedy from shots of cast members in drag.
The organization has issued a statement saying, “There were no 'jokes' per se; all the laughs came from the commercial's offensive and dehumanizing portrayals of transgender women. By telling its audience that transgender women should be laughed at and ridiculed, NBC contributed to an environment that sees transgender people subjected to near-universal discrimination in the workplace and an environment in which at least one transgender person is murdered every month." GLAAD has demanded that the network apologize for the segment and remove it from the Internet, neither of which has happened as of yet. In other news, Tyler Perry got a new movie today and no one asked him to apologize for anything.