A video posted on the website of The Onion (link here) seems to have gone viral, at least in the small corner of the web that I frequent. It’s a spoof TV news report suggesting that, in the U.S. the easiest way for gay couples to circumvent the legislation against same sex marriages is for one of the partners to undergo a “quick sex change”.
I understand full well that the joke is trying to have a dig at absurdities inherent in the legislation around SSMs, but it makes me decidedly uncomfortable that the writers chose to use transitioning as their vehicle for satire. Because to my mind, it simply perpetuates cliched stereotypes and ends up mocking trans people, and not the right wing reactionaries it targets.
As far as I’m concerned, it’s trans-misogynistic; nothing more and nothing less.
So Helen has no sense of humour and can’t take a joke. So sue me.
bird of paradox 
June 5, 2009 at 2:42 pm
this uppity trans dyke totally agrees with you.
June 5, 2009 at 6:00 pm
I didn’t think it was -entirely- humourless, but I could probably find it funnier were it not for the fact that I know the Onion audience and know they’re getting a laugh from the wrong thing and it was written as such. Hell, a lot of cisgender queers are probably laughing their asses off at how “gross” the concept is.
June 7, 2009 at 12:06 am
I got uncomfortable watching that.
Mostly because I’m tired of people mixing up sexual orientation and gender identity, and because some people actually believe that trans people medically transition to not have to deal with society’s homophobia.
August 27, 2009 at 3:27 pm
At least they could have acknoledged that they stole this from the Iranis, who, at least acording to Wikipedia, are the forerunners in this discipline – if the other option is death, sex change seems to be the way to go if you want to be with the one you love.