The HRC and GLAAD issued statements today condemning a sketch on CBS' Late Show with David Letterman Tuesday night, which mocked the appointment of Amanda Simpson to a senior position at the U.S. Department of Commerce.
Last night we posted (via Facebook) the skit during the opening monologue, when Letterman announced Simpson’s historic appointment and revealed that she is transgender, displaying a photograph of her.
The show’s announcer, Alan Kalter, then feigned “trans panic,” implying he had some prior relationship with Simpson but was not aware of her gender history, and ran yelling from the stage.
In a letter to CBS and Letterman, the HRC writes:
You may not be aware that the punch line in your skit has been used as a defense in nearly every hate crime perpetrated against transgender people that has come to trial. For example, the “trans panic” defense was infamously used by Allen Ray Andrade, who was convicted in 2009 of beating 19-year-old Angie Zapata to death with a fire extinguisher after learning of her gender history.
According to media reports, it has also been the main defense employed by Juan A. Martinez for the killing of Jorge Steven López Mercado, 19, in Puerto Rico last November.
Your skit affirmed and encouraged a prejudice against transgender Americans that keeps many from finding jobs, housing, and enjoying freedoms you and your writers take for granted every day. We ask that you apologize publicly to Ms. Simpson and the transgender community for this unfortunate episode.
Said GLAAD in its statement:
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.
The sketch, in case you missed it:
Filed under: National Headlines
I just love David Letterman's show...all those people that bag him for some of the things he says, get over it! At least someone is willing to say what we're all thinking.
There used to be a day when lgbt people would be very happy and proud even to be mentioned on such a big show. Anyone who watches DL knows that one guy gets crazy about everything. I found it to be routinely funny as his show often is. Totally different from attacks. I am gay.
People getting all excited over it are much more close to how an attacker acks than this version of funny.
It's us who should apologise to DL for acting as an attacker. We can't have it both ways.
As a transgender, I see both sides of this and personally feel that however you look at it, the fact that Simpson is the first transgender appointed into a high government office was overshadowed by this joke and serves only to belittle such an accomplishment and paints the idea that somehow transgendered persons are supposed to be jokes, funny, or reviled because of who they were or are. The fact that the audience was laughing as they were suggests that they saw humor in the idea that Alan Kalter was disgusted by a transgendered person.