04 June 2015

Defending Wendy Williams, Sort Of

Today I am going to do something I never imagined I would do:  I am going to defend Wendy Williams.  Sort of.

All of the fans of hers I've met are--how can I put this?--the sorts of straight men who think that anything with 42DD cups can do no wrong.  All right, I don't know WW's bra size, but you get the idea.

The few times I've ever seen her show--which were purely by chance--she struck me as vulgar, obnoxious and ignorant.  And that's when she wasn't making transphobic or homophobic comments. 

Lest you think I am not being fair to her, I will now disabuse you of that notion--at least somewhat.  I don't know exactly what she said about Caitlyn Jenner and, honestly, don't care to know.  But after the Vanity Fair photo of Caitlyn appeared all over the Internet even before the issue of the magazine saw the light of day, someone used it to treat WW in a way nobody deserves:


I am Walter.  Now, if she were "coming out" as a man--as she has been rumored to be--why would she wear that dress?  Why would she wear her hair that way?  I don't think she's an attractive woman (What do I know?), but a woman she is unless she tells us otherwise.  

Some might say, "She had it coming to her."  No.  As tempting as it is to give a hater "a taste of her own medicine", it doesn't solve anything.  It certainly doesn't do anything to vindicate what Snoop Dogg and other transphobes said about Caitlyn, or any other trans woman.  It also doesn't bring back any trans woman--or man--who was murdered simply for being.  

More to the point, whatever one thinks of Wendy Williams (and I think I've made it abundantly clear that I don't think much of her!), she has the same rights as anybody else. One of those rights is to not be slandered or demeaned.  Or to have assumptions made about her identity.