Lance Bass joined the ranks of some of our best-known gay and gay-friendly celebrities recently. On national television, the former boy-bander repeatedly said the word "tr*nny," setting off a firestorm of bad press.
Bass apologized in a Huffington Post column, and argued that reports of the slip-up overshadowed his past good deeds.
"I am not defending any of us for the misuse of the word, but I am disgusted with how the gay media has pounced on us as though they have been waiting for us to misbehave and spun it to make us look like the bad guys," Bass wrote.
All who have ever had a foot-in-mouth experience like this can empathize with Bass, to an extent. Bass feels that the rules changed on him overnight, and that rather than healing old divides, the LGBT press used his blunder to corral traffic to their sites.
Dan Savage, Kelly Osbourne and Neil Patrick Harris have all been criticized for using the word in recent weeks ( although Osbourne's slur appeared to be less playful than angry, and Savage claimed his most recent use was to explain why it should not be used ) .
Many gay people have dismissed those controversies as a media obsession with "political correctness," touting the contributions of Bass, Savage and others who were immediately slammed for slurring, despite their past LGBT advocacy.
Bass argued that the LGBT media is irresponsible in its coverage here.
"People do need to be held accountable for the words they use, but the rules of political correctness by which you are and aren't allowed to use them have become so confusing that often we should be relying on common sense and taking into consideration the person's purpose behind using the word," Bass wrote on the Huffington Post.
Bass represents a growing class of gay and gay-friendly celebs who use the word on air and apologize, while simultaneously listing the reasons they should be promptly pardoned. Bass criticizes the LGBT press like the Advocate, Instinct and Queerty for calling him out before reaching out.
However, what is perhaps intended as a call for unity from Bass can come off as a dismissal of the real problem at hand, which is far bigger than Bass, Savage, Harris or any other single offender.
The "T-word" is one with a pretty serious history. That word has historically been used as a precursor to unthinkable physical and emotional violence, especially against transgender women. Not all trans people have a problem with the term, but those who have experienced its violent intent deserve our respect and hesitancy here.
Many gay people will argue that such a word should be fair game to all LGBTQs. After all, gender rules are at the heart of all our struggles as queer people, and gay people understand the pain of such slurs. The reality, however, is that few use the word with the weight and humility it deserves, and fewer will understand the many ways that transgender people continue to be marginalized within the LGBTQ community.
Given the invisibility of transgender issues and lives within the gay movement, it is hardly surprising that our celebs feel entitled to use the slur or worse yet, don't even know it is a slur at all.
The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation ( GLAAD ) , an organization whose name doesn't include transgender identity, jumps at these celeb slip-ups and calls on them to correct themselves. However, GLAAD is as complicit as all of us ( Bass included ) until it works against the invisibility its name preserves. It is not enough to reprimand offensive statements. All of us in media should be explaining not only what words are slurs, but why. More than that, we must work against the invisibility that allows many in our own community to go through the world unaware that they are using anti-trans slurs.
The "T-word" is not a new slur, nor have transgender people recently been dropped from the sky into the LGBTQ movement. Transgender women were on the front lines at Stonewall, and trans people have stayed on the front lines ever since, despite the fact that many mainstream gay wins hardly advance trans rights at all ( "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," for example ) .
Look to our own Boystown, where you can buy a T-shirt that reads "Hot Tr*nny Mess," and you will see that Bass is not the only one to blame here. The fault lies with each of us.
