Hell Pizza sorry for 'transgender' cookies

By Laura MCQuillan

http://www.3news.co.nz/Hell-Pizza-sorry-for-transgender-cookies/tabid/421/articleID/235342/Default.aspx

Hell Pizza is apologising for its new "misfortune cookies", which sparked accusations the company is bigoted.

One misfortune, reading "you will marry a transgender", has led to a backlash against the company.

Hell Pizza customer Tamsyn Clemerson told NZ Newswire she was shocked when she opened a cookie and read the fortune on Friday.

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Hell Pizza admits "sense of humour failure"
Posted in: New Zealand Daily News
By GayNZ.com Daily News staff - 5th December 2011

http://www.gaynz.com/articles/publish/2/article_11147.php

Hell Pizza is apologising for its cookie message which classes marrying a transgender person as a misfortune, saying its regrets that it has caused offence.

The company faced a backlash through Facebook, Twitter and emailed comments after a number of people picked up on a message in some of its 'Mis-fortune' Cookies "you will marry a transgender".

The cookie fortune should have read "you will have the misfortune to be a bigot."

When I decided to transition, I didn't know how many people consider us worthless/worthy of ridicule. I thought...I thought Mexicans were the last category of human that were still being openly cruelly treated (I'll admit to being small-minded here; I've heard about but I'm not familiar with the treatment of Gypsies, Pakistanis, Aborigines, etc, in a lot of countries). I didn't know people didn't like us.

People don't like us only because they've been taught not to like us. What's not to like? And every time there's a period of economic downturn, people get more scared, therefore more rigid, and therefore more phobic. What we're seeing in the UK right now, in terms of increased homophobic and transphobic (and xenophobic) hate crimes, is pretty much exactly what went on in the 80's - with the exception that we have some more rights now than we did. Not that this helps the victims of hate crime much.

Quote from: Venus-Castina on December 05, 2011, 11:29:44 AM
I think there was a mix-up with the fortune cookies 

Yeah.  It's a simple mistake anyone could make.

I think many people and companies are quickly learning that discrimination of any kind is not going to do them well