LivingSocial Super Bowl Ad Degrades Transgender People

Like millions of other people around the world, I sat down to watch the Super Bowl around 4:00 PM MST on 2/6/11.  Sadly it started on a sour note, thanks to an offensive advertisement from a website called LivingSocial. Once again transgender people were used as a punchline to a joke.  This is unacceptable and needs to stop.  I refuse to allow these offenses to continue to go unchecked.  It just continues to add to the discrimination faced by the transgender community.

Here is the offending advertisement:

Why is this offensive?  It says: look at this masculine man in a dress, isn't it funny?  It sends a message that transgender people are something to laugh at.  That is not okay.  Some comments were posted to the YouTube video calling out this anti-transgender message.  LivingSocial couldn't take the heat, and decided to disable comments on the video.  It currently has 28 likes, and 29 dislikes.

Below I present a screenshot of some comments on LivingSocial's Facebook page.  It is an example of the harm this ad has done to the transgender community.  Click the image to enlarge it.

I Liked the Facebook page so that I could post a comment.  Here is the comment I posted:

You should be ashamed of yourselves for the horrible anti-transgender ad you aired at the beginning of the Super Bowl. I was unaware of your company prior to the ad, but will now be telling everyone I know to stay away. You should have thought twice before making that ad, because now you have angered the transgender community. I hope you enjoy the loss of business after spending money on that terrible ad.

In closing, I strongly encourage everyone to boycott this LivingSocial service. They should apologize for airing this advertisement, and pull it from all distribution channels. Please share this blog, and help spread the word.