Joe Solmonese and Mike Thompson
ABC's Work It Unnecessarily Injurious to Transgender Americans
Posted: 12/21/11 06:00 AM ET
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joe-solmonese/abc-work-it-transgender_b_1161749.htmlAsk many transgender advocates and allies and they'll tell you that ABC's new sitcom Work It just doesn't work. Next month, ABC plans to premiere the show, which features two men who dress as women in order to gain employment. And while the characters in the show are not presented as transgender but rather as "unrepentant guy's guys" in dresses who very much identify as men, audiences will nevertheless connect them with transgender women.
The so-called "comedy" of Work It is based on the premise that people who were born male but encounter challenges in presenting themselves as women is inherently funny. The problem is that some transgender women may find themselves in this situation, at least temporarily, during the early stages of their transition, due to the prohibitively high costs of transition-related medical care and widespread insurance inequities. Transgender Americans -- who can be legally fired in 34 states today just for being who they are -- face an inordinate amount of workplace discrimination that images like those on Work It perpetuate.
