South Park on Trans-Acceptance
South Park is notorious for its use of its offensive imagery to bring light to important and sensitive issues. From the acceptance of LGBTQA+ people, to raising awareness about the common issues of addiction in society, South Park has been around long enough to cover a fair amount of modern topics that remain relevant today. One of the show’s more infamous episodes, Board Girls, is quickly deemed transphobic because of the harsh portrayal of transwomen. Although this episode is quickly denoted as transphobic, I am going to explain why it is not and as of which was not the creators’ intention.
In the episode, Strong Woman (the name of one of the supporting characters who will be referred to as Strong to avoid confusion) enters the Strong Woman Competition as she does every year. The competition consists of various sports related to strength such as boxing, wrestling, shot put, deadlifts, etc. This year is the first time a transwoman enters the competition, much to Strong’s delight as she is a trans ally and implied advocate for trans people. When the trans person in question steps into frame, you can see that she is an extremely muscular person with veins bulging out of her arms and is dressed like a professional male wrestler but is, however, wearing a pink sports bra (otherwise a parody of Macho Man Randy Savage with the voice and mannerisms to boot).
Her name is Heather Swanson, and the episode repeatedly states that she began identifying as female a mere two weeks prior to entering the Strong Woman Competition. As one would expect, Heather dominates the competition of women who were born female. The episode occasionally cuts to clips of her winning medals and being a sore winner (borderline misogynistic) to her fellow contenders.
Though this episode paints a very rough picture of the transfeminine community, it is not, however, transphobic which I will now illustrate why. Ever since the explosion of LGBTQA+ acceptance, more and more transfeminine people have been coming out of their respective closets. It is common knowledge that women who began transitioning after they had reached male puberty are built differently compared to women who have been biologically female since birth. The topic of whether transwomen should be included in mainstream women’s sports is not what I want to address in this post so I’m steering clear of that entirely.
What I do want to address is that South Park is touching upon our society’s hypersensitivity towards trans issues. What the show is addressing is not whether transgirls should be in women’s sports or not, it’s how volatile our reaction is to the question itself. Obviously, lots of people will say no, the critics of that argument will say yes, and the two sides will argue endlessly. But what the episode is trying to bring to light is how the people are tolerant of trans athletes, and trans people in general, are just scared. Scared that raising a gender-based issue of strength will make them seem transphobic. Strong’s boyfriend PC Principal is repeatedly called a transphobe by Heather because he calls her out on her identity quite possibly being a hoax. I don’t at all think that’s what transfeminine athletes are doing (obviously being part of an organization that coincides with a trans person’s identity provides euphoria and a level of acceptance which is commonly the reason why they want to join women’s sports). Furthermore, it is not explicitly stated that Heather is faking being trans which brings it back to the point I am trying to make: everyone who would want to question her would be seen as transphobic. The whole idea of investigating a trans person’s authenticity is what scares people so deeply that if they take a single wrong step, they, and whatever organization or group they are a part of, will be viewed as transphobic. The episode was not taking a jab at transwomen in sports, it desperately tried to bring awareness to how many people and groups end up walking on eggshells attempting to avoid bad publicity.
