Joss Whedon says ‘No’ to trans women in a tweet about how to make strong female characters
Well, today it has happened. A sad day really. Because I was a big Joss Whedon fan up until about 20 minutes ago. Why? Well, because I loved Buffy. It was fun and charming, and awesome, and girl power, and lesbians, and… Yeah! I loved Firefly. What geek, nerd, or lover of fun things didn’t? Heck, even the Avengers movie was pretty fricking great. I mean yeah, he’s had a few small trans* issues in the past.
But then he tweeted this:
And everyone here got really sad all of a sudden.
Let me share a story. Back a few years ago, my buddy got tickets to an advanced screening of ‘Serenity’, ya know, the Firefly movie. And I was all super excited. I was a little nervous though, it was one of my first outings as a ‘girl’ back then. But I couldn’t have been more relieved to find that I wasn’t the only trans chick eagerly waiting in line at that theater in Atlanta, or the only Lesbian. There were quite a few, honestly. Everyone was cool. Like really really cool with it. So, in that moment I thought that the geek and firefly cultural mix was LGBT friendly. I mean to be honest, most true science fiction lovers don’t seem to be bothered at all by anything gay or trans related. Sci Fi fans are pretty open and understanding. And it has remained so for quite some time… or at least all I’ve seen of it has been.
But it seems that the Whedon himself… doesn’t care for the T in LGBT. And that is kinda heartbreaking for a geeky science fiction, and fantasy loving trans chick like me. And I know I’m not alone in this. I hang out with a lot of trans chicks who have, until today obviously, been huge fans of this guy. Most geeks place him just as high as George Lucas at this point, some may have put him even higher, who knows?
But I know that I couldn’t be more disappointed than I am right now. It’s an odd thing when this happens. Here you think you’ve got an awesome guy who likes the LGBT and is a super geek, and great filmmaker/tv making dude… then he separates women, from women who have a penis and balls.
That hurts a bit.
Easily higher than Lucas… At least till very recently.
Upsetting
(Source: transitiontransmission)
