RuPaul and his hit show “RuPaul’s Drag Race” have been under fire for the past few weeks from many in the transgender community, including trans star Carmen Carrera, over what some considered to be transphobic phrases used during a segment of show. Now, after weeks of controversy, RuPaul has announced that he’s making changes to his show to take out the transphobic language.
The drama all began last month during when RuPaul laid out a mini-challenge called “Female or She-male” in which the contestants were asked to determine whether the woman in a cropped photo was a biological female or a drag queen.
Several transgender activists were offended by the segment, saying that “she-male” is considered to be a violent word against transgender people.
Now, in a statement to the Huffington Post, RuPaul and Logo are claiming that all transphobic language will be removed from future seasons of the show.
“We wanted to thank the community for sharing their concerns around a recent segment and the use of the term ‘she-mail’ on Drag Race. Logo has pulled the episode from all of our platforms and that challenge will not appear again. Furthermore, we are removing the ‘You’ve got she-mail’ intro from new episodes of the series. We did not intend to cause any offense, but in retrospect we realize that it was insensitive. We sincerely apologize,” read the statement.
Well, it’s certainly a surprising move on RuPaul’s end considering that he’s repeatedly claimed in the press that people in general are too hung up on policing so called offensive language. But considering that Logo owns the show and has a vested interest in keeping their transgender audience happy, it’s no wonder that they’re now changing the show to appease their audience. – nicholas robinson
