EXCLUSIVE: Siriano Clears Air on Trans Trip
Project Runway winner Christian Siriano wants to set the record straight about comments he made that appeared in this week's Time Out New York. The 22-year-old appears alongside other gay notables for the magazine's Pride issue, but was interviewed independently for the piece. When asked about drag performers, Siriano unfortunately used derogatory slang and made an off-handed comparison that he now regrets. Time Out: Drag has always been part of our experience and always will be. What is its everlasting appeal? Why won’t it ever die?
Christian Siriano: If you think of heterosexuals, they have white-trash women and trailer parks, and we have drag queens and trannies. I don’t know if I’m the one who can explain it. It’s, like, drag queens are just there. These answers are hard!"I wish that my words were not taken in that way," Siriano told GLAAD today. "When I was speaking, some comments that I made were not used in the article. I completely support the fabulousness and amazing fashion inspiration that most transgender people provide."
On Project Runway, the designer practically invoked the word "tranny" at every turn, an offensive slur he is now actively working to remove from his vocabulary as he becomes more involved working with the LGBT community.
"I know plenty of trans people," he says. "Some of my best friends had the struggle finding themselves. As did I considering that I am a very flamboyant gay man. I mean no disrespect to the transgender population and I never will. Some of my close friends happen to be transgender and I think they are some of the most inspiring people in my life."
0 TrackBacks
Listed below are links to blogs that reference this entry: EXCLUSIVE: Siriano Clears Air on Trans Trip.
TrackBack URL for this entry: http://glaadorg.nexcess.net/blog/mt-tb.cgi/248
5 Comments
Leave a comment
Network Responsibility Index
GLAAD Entertainment
Our Mission
How is this "clearing the air"?
Obviously, reporters choose to use some comments made during interviews while leaving out others - but given Siriano's offensive and horrendous addition to the American linguistic landscape ("hot tranny mess" for those that don't follow PR), I'm a bit more skeptical that his comments to Time Out were taken out of context. Comparing transfolk and other gender non-conforming people to white trash and trailer parks seems perfectly in keeping with someone that attached "tranny mess" to anything that he deemed tacky or ugly.
So why again should I believe Siriano didn't mean his comments to be "taken in that way"?
Just another note: the "some of my close friends are transgender" line sounds remarkably similar to the "some of my close friends are black/asian/gay/insert-oppressed-minority-here" statements that are the foundation to arguments that have been used by so-called "colorblind" racists and homophobes for years.
Interesting that he thought he needed to apologize to transsexuals, but not to "white trash", which is just as offensive.
This so-called apology just reinforces his cluelessness.
"I completely support the fabulousness and amazing fashion inspiration that most transgender people provide. ... Some of my close friends happen to be transgender and I think they are some of the most inspiring people in my life."
That's the most condescending apology I've ever heard. (I used to get "you're so inspiring!" in high school all the time; it gets old.) But, I think I'll take it anyway.
Let’s not judge Christian Siriano too harshly. Siriano is all of 22 and at 100lbs soaking wet, with a mincing demeanor and a hugely overdone hairdo he is clearly the “hot tranny mess” he dubs others to be. It’s only funny because it's he who is saying it.
As a flamboyantly gay man of such tiny stature, Siriano is, frankly, a victim waiting to happen and he's surely endured much at the hands of bruts. His sharp tongue is the only weapon he has and he has learned to use it well - like a jock’s punch or a beauty’s power to attract, Siriano is discovering the power of his voice and of his talent and is learning – in the camera’s glare – lessens that usually take a lifetime; like how to be an adult and not stick your foot in your mouth at every turn.
Siriano hasn’t yet grasped that he is, gasp, a role-model and a public person. But he is smart and he will learn soon enough to check himself when he speaks publically because if he doesn't he'll remember Heidi Klum's immortal lesson that, like fashion, one day he'll be in and then the next day he'll be out.
It's notable that “Project Runway” has a HUGE gay following and, moreover, that Siriano, in addition to winning the top prize also won the fan favorite award. Gay and straight people alike loved his fashion and his fierceness (‘fierce’ being another catch term he minted for the masses). And surely, if you were to ask any trans-sexual/gender who the fiercest one of all is, they’d say, with a snap, Christian Siriano, that bitch is fierce! - and that would be a compliment.
I am a transgender woman and I was so turned off by Sirano's "tranny" comments (which, btw, were in a Saturday Night Live skit) I quit watching the show. So do I think he is fierce? NO - I think he is an ASS. I feel his apology, as was already mentioned, is clueless and condesending and I simply cannot take it seriously. I have seen too many LGB folks who don't have a clue about TG people; here is yet another example.
A true PUBLIC "clearing the air" would include an apology broadcast on the next Project Runway, not something buried on the back pages of a New York pride publication. At least GLAAD had the alertness to get the offensive t-shirt removed from sale. Thank you.