I’ll be watching you .

I particularly liked the part in the behind-the-scenes video where she was signing the guy’s “moobs”. They did have nice racks.

I applaud your efforts in educating your company. I would like to read a follow-up post in your blog as to the outcome of your talks with PR and the other execs involved. I know you said they won’t pull the commercial, but I am interested in knowing whether or not they intend to do something positive for the trans community. I think a positive outcome of this event could be to improve the company internally, such as: Protecting trans employee rights, including trans education in HR diversity workshops/sexual harassment seminars and/or taking steps to support trans medical treatment in employer-sponsored healthcare coverage.

Good luck to you!

Having said that, I think it’s the least bit transphobic. It is, however, totally sexist. The only female Nascar racer has a pit crew that wears high heels! And skirts! HILARIOUS! (not.)

While it may look silly, it wouldn’t be any less silly for an all female pit crew to attempt to do their job while wearing heels and miniskirts.

The crew never once acts effeminate or in manner that stereotypes or mocks anyone; they are all guy, just wearing incongruous clothing.

They perform their duties well even with the added hindrance of completely inappropriate attire for the job at hand, and Danica directly challenges the idea that anything in the picture is “wrong”…

that response could just as easily be based on the crew wearing the “wrong” clothing for the job as it might be based on some bigoted attitude towards any expression of gender variance; that is left totally up to interpretation.

If anything, the “it’s just teamwork” line affirms what is going on as something positive- people working together as a team towards a common goal regardless of who they are and what they are wearing….

*that* notion more than anything else is going to be seen by bigots as something negative, and an attempt to indoctrinate the little children by presenting the perverted transgender lifestyle as normal, blah blah blah.

Sorry but I’m with Nancy on this one, and with all due respect I think that automatically seeing it as “negative” in regards to gender variant people says more about the person making that perception than the ad itself…

anyone who pays attention to this stuff knows that even the most sensitive and pertinent coverage of real transpeople’s lives and issues in the media is used by some as an opportunity to say, “You see! If you give rights to transgender people, we’ll see men dressed like this all over the place! Hell, we’ll even see men dressed like this teaching our children!”…

it is sad that the mere possibility of one of these idiots doing so based on this ad using some extremely tortured logic would be seen as a good reason to abolish any and all depictions of male crossdressing in a humorous context…

which brings up another point:

Why is this ad automatically negative, but Ellen DeGeneres dancing spastically in a man’s sport coat and tie for laughs isn’t treated as equally offensive and negative towards FtoM’s?

Vocabulary failure! Eject! Eject!!!

I laughed because, yes, wearing high heels and skimpy clothing is wrong if you’re on a pit crew. Not so much because you’re a man but because you have to put on and take off tires and fill a gas tank in less than 13 seconds. Maybe if they had more practice they could do it, but something tells me the heels would be a deterrent. And skimpy clothing would be dangerous since you’re working around heavy machinery that gets very hot.

But perception is greater than reality and I really can’t argue against someone who perceives a slight against a community they feel strongly about.

I just personally think this is thinking too much about the commercial. But I agree that the poster did a wonderful job using the event as an opportunity to educate. Regardless of what your cause is, educating people is more important than just shouting at them.

That’s the real problem as I see it. Not the joke itself, but it’s underpinnings.