Thursday, February 12, 2015

A Kiss is Just a Kiss?





This past Friday night, on Real Time with Bill Maher, something extraordinary occurred, that seems to have gone by unremarked upon. 

When Bill welcomed his guest Janet Mock to the set, he stood up as he usually does, and gave her a kiss, as he often does to female guests. What was extraordinary about this, is that Janet Mock is a trans woman. I have never seen a straight man willfully and welcomingly kiss a trans woman on television before. 

Kudos and Bravo to Bill!

Real Time is on HBO, so it's not like it was on a major broadcast network, but HBO has a fairly large audience and Real Time has a loyal following. The liberal leaning audience would likely not have any problem with this public display, and I'm heartened by the normalcy surrounding this. 

The LGBT community is often treated with scorn and derision, and even the conservative guests on Bill's panel didn't offer up any of their usual vile opinions with regard to Mock, or her discussion of the challenges and problems she has faced because of her gender identification. 

Sometimes nice things happen. 



                          

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