Is the T Word the New N Word?
RuPaul's Drag Race alumnae and transgender women Carmen Carrera and Monica Beverly Hillz argue that the t word is always a slur that should be stricken from the LGBT vocabulary.
BY Parker Marie Molloy and Daniel Reynolds
April 17 2014 7:00 AM ET
http://www.advocate.com/politics/transgender/2014/04/17/t-word-new-n-word (http://www.advocate.com/politics/transgender/2014/04/17/t-word-new-n-word)
The infamous "Female or She-male" mini-challenge that asked competitors on a recent episode of RuPaul's Drag Race to guess a person's gender based on close-ups of red carpet photos has already been apologized for and stricken from video archives. "We did not intend to cause any offense, but in retrospect we realize that it was insensitive," wrote Logo's executives in a statement. "We sincerely apologize."
But that statement did little to quell a long-simmering debate over who has the right to define a word as a slur, and who can "reclaim" such words.
Of the many drag performers and contestants on RuPaul's Drag Race, four have since come out as transgender women. The Advocate spoke with two of them — season 3 contestant Carmen Carrera and season 5 contestant Monica Beverly Hillz — about what viewers should take away from this moment.