Going First

Dan Savage reacts to Letterman's comedy bit about Amanda Simpson, Obama's transgender appointee:

Better first than never. Unfortunately one of the jobs for a first—unfortunately—is to endure, deflect, defuse, absorb, lance, exorcise, etc., the cultural biases that created the discriminatory climate that prevented someone else, long ago, from being the first before you. Being the good-humored butt of a joke or two—jokes that acknowledge your arrival and help lance, exorcise, etc., some of those biases—is one of the ways a first like Simpson contributes. Ultimately this video tells us more about Letterman's discomfort with trans people—and his audiences' discomfort—than it does about Amanda Simpson. And it isn't a joke that Letterman can tell every time a trans person walks through the door that Simpson (and Obama) opened for her community. It's [a] "first" joke.