Oo Girl, You've Got She-Mail

As I have mentioned before, I am a big fan of RuPaul’s Drag Race. I think it is a phenomenal show and has helped rocket forward the acceptance of drag as an art form, but, like most things in life, it is not without fault. During season 6 (season 7 started on Monday and I could barely contain my excitement) the show came under serious heat from the trans community for presenting a mini challenge called “Female or She-male”. I tried to find a video of this segment, but to no avail, I am assuming all traces of it were removed from the internet after it caused so much controversy. To give a brief explanation of the challenge, the contestants were shown close-up photos celebrity body parts and had to guess if they belonged to a biological female or someone who identifies as female (she-male). After the episode aired there was enormous outcry from people who identify as transgender and found the segment insulting. In reaction to this, the channel the show is aired on, Logo, the self proclaimed gay network, banned all uses of the term she-male. However, this caused further controversy because, for as long as I’ve been watching the show at least, within the first few minutes of every episode RuPaul pops up on screen and delivers a video message to the remaining contestants with the phrase “Oo girl you’ve got she-mail” (click here for a soundbite).

Many have gone back and forth on whether this part of the show should have been cut, and it is interesting to hear people’s differing opinions. I’ve watched a few videos online of people expressing how they felt about the words ban and the two most interesting ones to me were this one, which is from the point of view of a transgender woman, and this one, which is from the point of view of a gay man. The woman in the first video said she found the challenge and use of the term she-male personally offensive, but had no qualms with the phrase she-mail. She admitted she actually enjoyed the play on words and thought it a fun joke. The man in the second video echoed the woman’s view that she-mail rather than she-male was a complex use of satire, rather than a direct attack on someone’s identity. He also raised an interesting point about what it means to reclaim a word and destroy it’s power to cause harm. To quote the video, “In the gay community it’s the F word, and in the black community it’s the N word, and in the trans community I personally don’t know”. This led me to question if she-mail could be the word the trans community takes back. It certainly seems like they are taking the necessary steps to do so, but I am curious to see how far this movement can actually go. Furthermore, I’m not so sure this is the word that causes the biggest impact. If indeed it is the intention of the trans community to take back a word, it seems to me like the T word would back a bigger punch. However, that being said, I am simply glad that there has been movement of any kind towards greater trans inclusion and I hope to see even more in the future.