South Park slammed for mocking trans athletes

The Hollywood Reporter

This week's "Board Girls" episode featured Heather Swanson, a transgender character who looks and sounds like late wrestler Randy Savage. "I'm not here to talk about my transition, I'm here to kick some fucking a**," says Swanson. On Thursday, transgender world track cycling champion Rachel McKinnon called the episode "lazy" and Trey Parker and Matt Stone "transphobic." "I'm not particularly mad about the South Park episode," she tweeted. "Yes it's transphobic. Yes it's lazy. Yes it contributes to harm to trans women and girls. But they're lazy and increasingly irrelevant. F*ck, Futurama made the same stupid storyline in 2003. Transphobes don't have new jokes." She added: "South Park has been deeply transphobic the *entire time.* This isn't their first explicitly transphobic story line. It won't be their last. Stone and Parker are transphobes. Write them off. Ignore their lazy show." Meanwhile, The A.V. Club accused South Park of "punching down, literally," while Forbes called it "a clumsy take on a complex, divisive topic...that the episode doesn't fully explore." Out magazine called the episode "actively harmful," adding: "Reinforcing the idea, even unintentionally, that trans women are fraudulent decievers leads to violence — like when men flirt or sleep with trans women."