5 Unexpected Transphobic Moments on Popular Shows

Online streaming services and certain cable networks have forged an era of massive LGBT inclusion in both content and casting. Yet transgender characters on TV, when they show up at all, tend to be written as victims, villains, or both, and this happens on even the most liberal of shows.

Broad City

Season 2, Episode: "Citizen Ship"

As a hard-core Broad City fan, I was completely disheartened when Ilana started spouting some disgusting slurs about trans women in the second season. She associated straight men having sex with trans women as some sort of kink that only creepy Williamsburg lawyers would be into.

In the same episode, Abbi decides to get onstage and "steal" the moment from her housemate, who doesn't want to get engaged, by telling the room that she is transitioning. Her housemate than supports this action by saying, "Yes, she is a man."

The scene not only dismissed the trans coming-out process but disregarded transgender identity. To say the least, these two feminists perpetuated harmful ideas that were not intersectional.

Bob's Burgers

Season 1, Episode: "Sheesh! Cab, Bob?"

Bob, the protagonist of the show, takes a side job as a taxi driver and encounters three transgender women. The women, who are also sex workers, become regular passengers for Bob. The episode's portrayal of sex workers and transgender women is better than that found in most other shows.

The cisgender characters are generally accepting of and friendly toward the women. The energy and intention feels hopeful in this episode. While there are no overtly transphobic slurs and just one misgendering joke that invalidates the women’s gender identity, when rewatching the episode I noticed that there are many subtle transphobic and judgmental moments.

The whole episode kind of centers around what a low point Bob has hit as he befriends these really lovely women. It's shocking that I first perceived “Sheesh! Cab, Bob?” as a generally positive representation, and that speaks to the current state of depictions of transgender women in media.

The L Word

Much of Season 3

Max, whose birth name on the show was Moira, was a transgender man written in a way that he committed gender treason: A classic butch saunters onto the scene, transitions in a badly written storyline that reduces the complexity of transgender issues to a stereotypical war between the sexes, and is made to look like a joke for being himself.

The show also "loses" the only butch identity it had — The L Word had an issue with representing butch lesbians and apparently also struggled with representing trans men. Later in the season Max gets into a relationship with a gay man and becomes pregnant. His dysphoria around the pregnancy is ridiculed and his pregnancy is labeled as going through "motherhood." Ouch, L Word. Ouch. 

Girls

Episode 1, Season 1 & Season 2, Episode: "It's Back"

The first episode of Girls opens with Marnie and Hannah sharing the bathroom. Marnie has been in the same relationship since she was 19, with a guy who would seem passive-aggressively clingy, but his sensitivity makes it hard for Marnie to confront him.

In response to Marnie's feelings on wanting to leave the relationship, Hannah says, “You’re sick of eating him out because he has a vagina." I guess Lena Dunham forgot that sensitivity doesn't equate to owning a vagina.

In the eighth episode of Season 2, Shoshanna, one of the main female characters, goes into a utility closet for an impromptu sexcapade with doorman Steve. Because Shoshanna is stoned and battles with anxiety, she is nervous because Steve has stepped away from his post and is afraid someone will come looking for him. He responds, "A tranny walked in last time, but he was just walking around the floors. It was nothing." Cool punch line.

Mike & Molly

Season 4, Episode: "The First and Last Ride-Along"

In the second episode of the fourth season, Mike takes his wife, Molly, on a ride-along in his police car to help her get ideas for a crime novel.

On the ride, the two meet Lousette, a trans woman the characters repeatedly misgender and question about her genitals. Oh, ya know, just some unnecessary shaming of trans bodies for fun.

Photo: Comedy Central