If your Facebook feed looks anything like ours, you’ve well realized by now that everyone and their drag mothers have a stance on the great “tranny” debate of 2014, but unless you have a personal stake in the discussion, all those opinionated voices end up sounding like that noise you used to have to endure when dialing on to AOL in the ’90s.
Which is why Candis decided to join the conversation during a recent interview promoting her new film Crazy Bitches, we were apt to listen. The actress has been a public figure of the trans community since the mid-’90s, gaining mainstream success on Nip/Tuck and Dirty Sexy Money.
Here’s her take:“There’s no transphobic anything [on Drag Race]. There’s a group of people who don’t like certain words and now everyone has to change their lives around it. The word ‘she-male,’ if someone called me that, I’d be irritated, but I’m not going to change a whole segment of a television show that’s about drag because they used it.”
Cayne went on to defend the Drag Race team even more:“These are a group of guys who do so much for the gay community, the trans community, the drag community.”
And noted how she feels context is everything:“To me, it’s not a serious show. It’s a fun, whimsical competition. I believe words mean something with intention. I don’t believe the word ‘tranny’ is ‘wrong.’ I don’t believe the word ‘she-male’ is that tasteful — it’s not something I would use — but I don’t see why there’s such an uproar about it.”
Recalling the days when being trans meant flying under the radar as much as possible, she said:“We weren’t allowed to be [trans], but we all called each other ‘tranny.’ A new, young activist isn’t going to tell me I can’t use that word. That’s how I feel.”
QUEERTY