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Thank goodness sometimes reasonable people Lis Wiehl and Kimberly Guilfoyle were on Bill O’Reilly’s show last night to remind the host what gender identity is all about. That didn’t keep O’Reilly from comparing the transgender employees at American Eagle to “Ewoks.”
Last week American Eagle Outfitters agreed — after some serious nudging from Make the Road New York and Attorney General Andrew Cuomo — that its policies requiring employees to wear gender-specific clothing created a whole slew of problems with transgender workers, and updated its rule book to let staffers wear whatever gender-y clothing they want.
O’Reilly’s producers got their hands on the story and, once the headline was read in the segment, I just about threw a coin in the air to see which side of the debate he would come down on. After all, O’Reilly has a mixed history of supporting queers, rationalizing homophobia, and being a nice guy and a jerk at the same time.
This time around, he chose the latter option, comparing the rights of transgender Americans to dress as they feel comfortable with the notion that they are dolling up like Dolly Parton or, ahem, like Ewoks.
Bill O’Reilly comes dressed to work every day as a stodgy elitist. Somebody should make that illegal.
Andy
Another misleading headline. It should be “Old white man has no idea that people might be different from him.” In fact, about half the articles on this could have that headline.
Seán Cunningham
I think he could have meant ‘don’t change the rules to dress as extreme as you want, or as crazy as an Ewok’, I don’t necessarily think that he meant to compare transgender people to Star Wars, he was saying ‘you can wear whatever you want’. But at the same time, that’s really not even applicable. And I think we all know that. A transgender person, like any person, can dress both appropriately and inappropriately. Which is what I don’t think that he get’s. Mostly cause he can be seriously pig-headed, and close-minded..
Ryan Kiefer
It’s so politically incorrect, it’s hilarious.
sweetdog
Someone on another website referred to Billo as dogshit. Someone else replied that dogshit serves a useful purpose and Billo on the other hand… Well said.
dcpwrbttm
My thing is- were people really afraid of Ewoks?
I thought most people found them adorable and cuddable. So if his comparison is apt, trans people are adorable and cuddable.
Seriously, people were afraid of Ewoks? Who knew!
Lanjier
OK, Bill. Your employer says you have to dress like Dolly Parton because the viewers want that. Are you OK with that? No, you are not OK with that. You want to dress consistent with your gender and that should be respected. So show the same respect to others, you FUCK.
Jon
Is it wrong that I find Bill really hot? I just know he’d be wild in bed.
Gorbeh
Hey Ewoks are cool!
D. Lomeli
Ok Ewoks? Mr O’Reilly. Welcome to the Ewok club! See, clearly your viewpoint is based on the adage “be who you were supposed to be in accordance with how/what you were born.” Your hypocrisy shines bright and clear! You see, your vocal passing of gas can be confused with passing of gas from the other end. How?
Well, if one were to subscribe to your flawed logic, that is taken to its logical endpoint, then its high time to practice what you preach. Tomorrow, let nature take its course. Wake up when nature says its time to wake up. Alarm clock? Hey, we weren’t born with one so why interfere with nature’s natural process of waking you up when it deems its time? Microwave, stove, refrigerator? Hey, naughty naughty. If we were supposed to have needed this nature would have materialized them, not the consequence of inventive minds. But getting back to the Ewok moniker, don’t even think about reaching for the razor in the morning. Be a real man, just as nature intended. Stop interfering with your facial hair—-hey nature has declared that the male gender, of which I will skeptically have to assume is one you pertain to since respect of others who violate not laws or statutes is a characteristic of a real man— for certainly real males are born with this natural instinct—as you instinctively reach for your razor—-don’t! I mean didn’t nature proclaim that all men are to grow beards/mustaches? And your hair appointments…cancel them! Let nature let you be who you were supposed to be!
Iknow I’ve made my point. Who declared you the gender Czar? Must America subscribe to your hypocritical description of what constitutes a real man or real woman? Few will find argument that a shaved face is closer to appearance to a female face than to a “real” man’s face adorned with natural, facial hair! Huh? So the gender lines get to be drawn according to Mr. O’reilly’s declaration—the gender lines of demarcation? Thank you, for although you express verbal antagonism of male-expressed femininity, your nonverbal support of male femininity as expressed by your physical attributes speaks volumes! Amen! You forgot your rainbow pin!
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D. Lomeli 38 minutes ago in reply to D. Lomeli
Permit me for this addendum….with Mr. O’Reilly’s permission, the Gender Czar herself, allow my “natural” mind laden with unnatural estrogen and in acute chronic “pain” from the oh-so-welcome “un-male” characteristic of “hypo-testosterone”….let us turn the clock back—-at the count of three everyone reach for the mouse and set the year to 1963….
I can imagine a dialogue with Mr. O’Reilly proceeding forth as follows:
So Mr. O’Reilly, your expression of free speech is protected by the U.S. Constitution but inquiry minds want to know….the Constitution declares “all men are created equal”..including persons with black/dark skin….yet today you said that “black people look like E_OKS and they also look like _ _ _ _!” Now, everyone reach for your mouse and turn your computer calendar back to 2010. Any discernible difference between those in the early 1960’s who practiced hate-speech against dark-skinned members of our human species and those seeking gender equilibrium today? Isn’t this battle being waged from those who look at others not from the spirit but from vision beginning at the optical nerve and ending at the cornea? Aren’t there innumerable hidden burial sites and many not-so-hidden with many who have lost their civil right to life that has been the consequence of such bigotry? Or is my history book incorrect?
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Demont
Comparing trannies to Ewoks is an insult to Ewoks. Seriously, why does a clothing chain that is trying to project a particular image and style for its product line have to allow Dame Edna to work at the front desk? American Eagle is private property and its owners should have the right to promote their company brand without being attacked by trannies.
Nickadoo
“I gotta go, you’re babbling” loosely translated: “I gotta go, you’re making sense and I can’t think of a witty comeback.”
Jimmi
@Jon: Yeah, real wild. 😛
Otis Criblecoblis
Please! Calling O’Really idiotic is not fair to the rest of the idiots.
Jose
That’s old white male republicans for yah!!
Andrew
Watched it twice. A stretch to say he compared them to Ewok’s. Fail Queerty.
Becky
I’d rather be an Ewok than Bill O’Reilly.
In fact I’d rather be most anything else than Bill O’Reilly:)
haviomally
So here we are. May 2010. Transgender and Ewok both used in the same breath by Mr. O’Reilly. OK WARNING! HOLD YOUR BREATH FOR THE FOLLOWING RUN-ON SENTENCE!! I am faced with two options: Place my brain in neutral and not make the implicit association between the two OR keep my brain in drive and make an intelligent deduction of the association that MR. OREILLY made between a fictional non-human character hideous in appearance with those of us who have NOT BY CHOICE but BY BIRTH always know who we are and reached deep down inside for intestinal fortitude not possessed by the average person??
How advantageous Mr. O’Reilly! With a captive audience numbering in the millions domestically and internationally, you CHOSE to express your PERSONAL and SUBJECTIVE opinion slandering millions of people who are undergoing, in most locales, a legal and medical process to seek personal happiness and fulfillment, two objectives that are instrumental for producing self-actualized citizens who form part of the building block of society.
So now that you have DEHUMANIZED by association, millions of us, SIR, shall we await our “TG” placard to be placed AT ALL TIMES around our neck visible to all as a SCOURGE of society that you have made us out to be?
Shall we start congregating in city parks to be marched out to railroad stations to await our boxcars that shall take us to wonderful and “secure” areas that will be encircled with concertina wire for our “safety” as we get registered, divided up by “gender” and age and sent to be “cleansed” in the showers???
Mr. O’Reilly, if this isn’t hate speech, I will eat my computer and its mouse, tail and all.
ewe
O’Reichy is an idiot. What else is new. He ended this piece by saying all he wants to do is buy a shirt. That is not true. He wants to tell everyone else which shirt is appropriate for them to wear because he said so. No surprise. OReichy is an ass. Hysteria is his schtick.
ewe
@Andy: You must be young and stupid Andy. First of all Oriechy is not that old and secondly age has nothing to do with individual bias.
ewe
@Andy: You are proof that you have no idea as well. You must be ancient.
Bridget
@ewe: Oooh he’s old alright and it’s true, most bigots are as old as O’reichy, as pale as O’reichy. Oh and as right wing as O’reichy full stop
ewe
@Bridget: That’s not true. there were many young fools on here who thought it is completely appropriate to make jokes about AIDS. That is beyond being rude to those of us who have memories that demand a basic decorum. It was just as stupid and Oreichy. My point is that being a bigot is not about age.
haviomally
Let us forever remember that taking a life with malice aforethought is murder. Hate begets anger which begets a fatal consequences.
Let us forever remember that taking lives en masse is genocide. Hate begets dehumanization which begets mass fatal consequences.
Or did my school history books have it wrong?
Becky
What exactly is Mr O’ Reilly’s problem with Transpeople (…and Ewoks)?
Could it be that he’s bitterly jealous that he can’t be an intelligent life form, too?
Jenna
I want to put a bullet right through his bigot-ass forehead.