Richard Simmons is pushing back against false rumors that he’s transgender.
The 69-year-old fitness guru just filed new legal documents in his ongoing defamation suit against the National Enquirer. Simmons is suing the tabloid over a bogus story it published claiming he was transitioning into a woman.
Related: Richard Simmons hospitalized again, this time for “severe indigestion”
In the new docs, Simmons lists all the reason why he’s not transgender… not that there’s anything wrong with being trans, he says, he just isn’t.
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Simmons writes:
- I am male.
- I am not transgender.
- I have never sought nor obtained any medical treatment or procedure designed to transition from male to female.
- I have never had breast implant surgery.
- I never consulted with any medical professional regarding sex reassignment surgery.
The Enquirer has responded to Simmons’ lawsuit by trying to flip the script and accuse him of being transphobic by suggesting calling a person trans is an insult.
In the new docs, Simmons also writes:
I fully support transgender individuals and their struggle to achieve acceptance and equality. Nonetheless, the false and fabricated claims that I was contemplating ‘castration’ and have had a ‘boob job’ have caused me extreme embarrassment.
Related: Richard Simmons claims he’s been blackmailed for years, and he’s had enough
GayEGO
Good comments. Thinking about one’s gender identity is not easy for those who have different feelings. I did not have a problem with my gender identity, I had a problem with my gender attraction for the same gender back in the day. Once I resolved it everything went into place.
RomanHans
#2 of the Top Five Reasons Richard Simmons is Not Transgender:
He is not transgender.
Wow. That’s the kind of hard-hitting scoop I have come to know and expect from Queerty. Thanks for not letting me down.
inbama
I’m not convinced.
Has anyone seen him naked?
Bob LaBlah
Please, even with clothes he’s photographically challenged. Lets not go there. lol
Jack Meoff
I thought he was ‘sans’gender
Kangol
So that would make him non-binary or agender? Queer he is, cis he ain’t.
Someone should tell him though that a person does not have to have physical surgery to 1) be trans or 2) transition.
Bob LaBlah
Wow! The comments from you two make me so happy I can along during the days when being gay was so easy to identify. It meant you had a sexual preference for men (women if you were a woman). So help me when I look at the terms that have been created to identify sexuality I think back to what an old queen said before I left NY for good. He said gay men today are like wandering nomads all claiming to be the same tribe but each branch of the tribe has their own territory they fight to the death for. No wonder Gay Pride is now called a parade instead of a march. Its now nothing more than entertainment for the media.
DCguy
@Kangol
You’re doing exactly what others are attacked for and telling Simmons what he is or isn’t. After all of the efforts to allow people to self identify.
Just because he is flamboyant, or feminine your pigeon holing him is probably not the best idea.
HOWEVER, there is also the huge possibility that somebody of Simmons age is still somewhat self hating and wouldn’t admit it even if they were Trans because I’m not sure the guy has ever even admitted really that he isn’t straight.
That said, the Enquirer most likely saw that the podcast looking for Simmons was popular so wrote a bogus story and they never thought he would respond.
Kangol
@DCguy and @BobLaBlah,
First, I’m a Richard Simmons fan and always have been. I was just riffing off JackMeoff’s humorous post. Saying that he is agender or even “cis” undercuts the idea of my criticizing him for being “feminine,” so I think you misread me, DCguy.
Seriously. But if I were to go hardcore like many queer and trans theory people today, I’d have said that Richard Simmons is coming off like a quasi-cis-queer male-born-male (MBM) male-assigned at birth (MAAB) trans exclusionary radical male (TERM) patriarchal upholding near male-rights’ activist (MRA). Now that’s a mouthful!
Bob LaBlah
@Kangol………”quasi-cis-queer male-born-male (MBM) male-assigned at birth (MAAB) trans exclusionary radical male (TERM) patriarchal upholding near male-rights’ activist (MRA). Now that’s a mouthful!”
Honey, your lips (or in this case your fingers) are moving but all I’m hearing is blah, blah, blah……. lol lol
As I said, I am glad I came along in the days when we all came under ONE umbrella whether we liked it or not. Once grant money started being handed out for this and that (to keep us quiet since we were becoming politically active) then came the divisions in the ranks, shall we say.
Creamsicle
The Missing Richard Simmons podcast touched on this transition rumor and quickly dismissed it because it was pretty baseless. Sure, Richard Simmons would do drag occasionally, but that doesn’t mean anything one way or the other, and he’s a performer, drag is just another type of performance.
If you haven’t listened to Missing Richard Simmons, I highly recommend that you do. The episodes and short, but give you a bit of his history and it made me respect Simmons a he’ll of a lot.
He has the charisma and magnetism of a megachurch pastor, but he genuinely wanted to use his gift to help people and do good in the world, and he certainly has for the people who admired him and turned their lives around because of his work. He could easily have exploited those people and their complete devotion to him, but he chose not to. He made a buck, don’t get me wrong, but he at least did it with products and performances that actually helped people.