Op-ed: How TV's CSI Is Screwing Us Again
CSI continues its long-time practice of defamatory transgender characters.
BY NICK ADAMS
DECEMBER 02 2012 12:51 PM ET<TRIGGER WARNING>
http://www.advocate.com/commentary/2012/12/02/op-ed-how-tv-show-csi-screwing-us-againNICK ADAMS is GLAAD's Associate Director of Communications.Wednesday night's episode of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, entitled "Strip Maul," contained the latest in the show's long history of offensive and defamatory portrayals of transgender people.
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Referring to this character repeatedly as a "transvestite" is disrespectful and inaccurate, since the simple fact that she referred to herself as Joslyn suggested she lived as a woman. A glance at GLAAD's Transgender Reference Guide would have led the producers to conclude that the word itself is derogatory, and in any event should never be used to refer to someone who lives fulltime as a woman.
But the disrespect shown by the doctors and the investigator during the autopsy scene is particularly revolting. Many transgender people live in fear that during a medical emergency or after death their true identity will not be respected by authorities or even by their families.
If this were a one-time occurrence on CSI, this episode would still be an exploitative, sensationalistic, defamatory portrayal of a transgender person. However, as GLAAD recently noted in its report about transgender characters on television over the past 10 years, CSI has repeatedly foisted these type of portrayals upon the American public.
While CSI and other police procedurals use lurid, sensationalistic stories to reinforce stereotypes of psychotic transgender "whack jobs" in an effort to get ratings, transgender people, particularly transgender women of color, are dying at an alarming rate.
