Over the past several weeks, discussions surrounding the use of certain words and whether they should be considered anti-transgender slurs reached a boiling point within the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community.
Reality TV competition "RuPaul's Drag Race" recently came under fire for its use of the word "shemale" during a mini-challenge on an earlier episode of the sixth season, with some transgender activists claiming that the word is transphobic. The backlash resulted in Logo TV issuing an apology, the episode featuring that segment being removed from the web and the entire series being reedited to remove "she-mail," used in a different context, from all future episodes.
Now, "RuPaul's Drag Race" season six contestant Courtney Act and self-identified transsexual singer-songwriter Our Lady J have teamed up for a candid conversation about the topic.
"Everyone's just screaming at each other," Our Lady J tells Act. "It just escalates the argument without any solution and suddenly you can't hear what's happening in the room because everyone's screaming. We all just need to take a step back, find our place in things and genuinely stick to that... it's not about changing language, it's not about arguing. It's not about arguing who owns what word."
Check out the discussion between Courtney Act and Our Lady J above.