South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker have come under fire after the latest episode of the show appeared to mock transgender athletes.
Season 23 of the show got off to an explosive start with an episode that resulted in South Park being banned in China, and it seems the writers have no intention of holding back offensive content in the rest of the series.
The most recent episode Board Girls, which aired on Wednesday, November 13, focused on the character Strong Woman, who enters a Strongwoman Competition alongside a new character named Heather Swanson.
Check out a clip from the episode here:
Swanson bears a striking resemblance to the late American wrestler Randy Savage, who died in 2011 and was known for his time in the World Wrestling Federation, World Championship Wrestling and Total Nonstop Action Wrestling.
During the South Park episode, the athletes are asked why they’ve signed up to the competition. In response, Swanson explains she started identifying as female a few weeks ago in order to take part in the Strongwoman event.
She goes on to say:
I’m not here to talk about my transition, I’m here to kick some f*cking ass.
Swanson goes on to win the competition and it’s later revealed the character is actually an ex-boyfriend of Strong Woman, who he wanted to beat in order to get revenge for a bad break-up.
A number of viewers took to Twitter to criticise the storyline, with transgender world track cycling champion Rachel McKinnon describing the episode as ‘lazy’.
She pointed out that while the story was transphobic, it was nothing new, and encouraged frustrated fans to ignore the show.
McKinnon’s tweet read:
I’m not particularly mad about the South Park episode. Yes it’s transphobic. Yes it’s lazy. Yes it contributes to harm to trans women and girls. But they’re lazy and increasingly irrelevant. F*ck, Futurama made the same stupid storyline in 2003. Transphobes don’t have new jokes.
South Park has been deeply transphobic the *entire time*. This isn’t their first explicitly transphobic story line. It won’t be their last. Stone and Parker are transphobes. Write them off. Ignore their lazy show.
Another viewer responded:
South Park is contributing to a culture of transphobic and hatred and along with being painfully unfunny it is also actively harmful.
It’s complete and utter trash.
However, some Twitter users stuck up for the show’s creators, with one arguing the episode was actually used to call out ‘a sexist cis man who says he’s trans just so he show how superior he is to women in sports’:
The South Park creators have not responded to the accusations at this time.
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Emily Brown first began delivering important news stories aged just 13, when she launched her career with a paper round. She graduated with a BA Hons in English Language in the Media from Lancaster University, and went on to become a freelance writer and blogger. Emily contributed to The Sunday Times Travel Magazine and Student Problems before becoming a journalist at UNILAD, where she works on breaking news as well as longer form features.