By Laurelai
So a so-called comedian by the name of Ryan Broems went on a date with a unnamed transgender woman, and this was apparently something he thought worthy to live tweet to his audience. While live tweeting a date in itself is a bit odd under any circumstances, live tweeting a date with a trans woman using the hashtag “#trannygate” was just revolting.
http://storify.com/stuxnetsource/tweet-archive-of-transmisogynistic-live-tweet-rant
As you can see his vile tweets completely misgendered her, treated her like an object of ridicule and utterly dehumanized her by making common activities during a date seem like a freak show.
I don’t even know if she was aware that he was tweeting this, if she was not then we also have a privacy violation going on here. And that’s just fucking creepy.
Ryan Broems, you owe her an apology, and you owe the transgender community an apology.
Not a fake ass half apology, a real one.
A genuine understanding that you realize you have done wrong, and a demonstration of learning from this. If you want to have any hope that your career will move forward you will do this.
Update: Ryan Broems states that this was a failed comedy bit. This however does not change the problematic nature of the tweets. Making a marginalized community the butt of such jokes is very harmful. He states that he “didnt know tr***y was a slur” but fails to address the bathroom panic joke and the whole vile nature of making a joke out of the possibility of dating a trans woman.
http://storify.com/stuxnetsource/just-a-joke-not-funny
I for one do not find his apology genuine or complete, I also attempted to contact him via facebook for comment and did not receive any reply.
Second update: Seems Ryan found time to reply after all. Below is the message I received.
Hey,
First, I want to apologize for offending you personally. To be quite honest, I didn’t realize “Tranny” was a derogatory term as I had many Transgender friends back east who would refer to eachother as “tranny bitch” and then laugh. I am, however, glad that this was blown up for this reason. If I didn’t know then a lot of other people don’t know. Hopefully this will create awareness for people that are unknowledgeable of the pain words like that cause others. It was a completely made up event meant to humor my minimal followers, which doesn’t make it right, but it was in no way meant to be malicious. People are mad that I deleted the tweets, but the only reason I deleted them is because my friend suggested issuing a sincere apology and getting rid of the tweets. Half way through deleting and shortly after my apology, my account was suspended so I couldn’t change anything or even tweet to explain why I deleted. I do apologize, but I completely understand where you are coming from and I hope this creates awareness of the ignorance in the world that I and many others encompass.
Sincerely,
Ryan BroemsPS I will be on Brash Babble with Vicki Wagner Time Warner Channel 36 at 830 tonight in West Hollywood, and I will be issuing an apology for what I did immediately.
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