Conan O'Brien Apologizes For Anti-Trans Joke

[Shana A]

Conan O'Brien Apologizes For Anti-Trans Joke
Monday, June 18, 2012 - 12:20pm by Matt Kane, Associate Director of Entertainment Media at GLAAD

http://www.glaad.org/blog/conan-obrien-apologizes-anti-trans-joke

Conan O'Brien apologized today after a monologue joke on his show last Tuesday upset members and allies of the LGBT community. O'Brien referred to Chicago as "the city of the big shoulders" and followed up by saying that it "was better than the name they almost went with... 'the unconvincing tr*nny.'"  GLAAD contacted producers of the show after LGBT Weekly columnist Autumn Sandeen became aware of the joke and reached out.

    .@ConanOBrien You're better than your "unconvincing tr*nny" bit. You've deeply offended a fan who's trans ow.ly/bEETg #girlslikeus

    — Janet Mock (@janetmock) June 18, 2012

[...]

GLAAD received the following statement of apology from O'Brien:

    My staff and I had no idea that term was offensive to the transgender community.   We apologize and you will not be hearing that term again.

The show has also confirmed they will remove the clip of the joke from the website.

[crazy old bat]

Same excuse as every other celebrity has used.  It must be in a publicist's handbook or something.

[justmeinoz]

"Didn't know it was offensive?"  Pull the other one,  it plays Jingle Bells!

[JennX]

I stopped watching him after he moved to basic cable. Much of his humor is sophmoric at best.