- A PICTURE OF SOME PIZZA.
PQ Monthly has the story: After the Facebook page of Lonesome’s Pizza filled up with comments from folks offended that the menu called breadsticks “tranny sticks,” the weirdo-pizza joint—known for silly menu names and packaging local art with each pizza—offered a sincere apology and promised to change the name to “some other sophomoric, hopefully inoffensive name,” according to the PQ piece.
Lonesome’s gets a thumbs up on this one. The idea of kowtowing to sanctimonious activists clearly rankles them—as it rankles a lot of people who have lived in this town for more than 5 minutes—but they were able to get past that knee-jerk reaction to recognize that their jokey name had misfired, and to make a sincere, thoughtful apology.
I think transgender issues still trip a lot of well-meaning people up, and getting called out never feels good, even when you deserve it. (I got yelled at for saying “transgendered” recently. Whoops!) But what it boils down to is: Do you want to get defensive about your right to make a dumb joke, or do you want to not be an asshole? Lonesome’s came down on the side of “not be an asshole,” and props to ’em for that.
QUICK! SOMEONE TELL THESE PEOPLE ABOUT THE TRANNY AWARDS!!! http://trannyawards.com/ (link NSFW)
I’m all for avoiding purposely hateful language, but what is ‘acceptable’ and ‘unacceptable’ around this particular topic is such a moving target that trying to hold people accountable is just a bullshit-move.
The pizza in that picture is fucking disgusting looking. Looks like someone jizzed all over it.
Why were scolded for using “transgender?”
I really love their Bi/Curious Calzones (light on the “homo” provolone).
Graham is correct.
Lonesome’s is the fucking shit, for real. Good people.
Did Fred Armisen play the pizza guy, or the person complaining?
TSW, just going with GLAAD here, ’cause they sure know better than I do: http://www.glaad.org/reference/transgender
You got yelled at for using “transgendered?” That’s ludicrous, and also backbiting among friends rather than building alliances across divides. Besides which, you can find trans people who mis-identify themselves and use “transvestite,” in which case are we supposed to correct them?
According to GLAAD (who are about as helpful as the Anti-Defamation League) the reason to not use the term ‘transgendered’ has to do with willfully difficult verb tense stuff that doesn’t really make sense to anyone. They also try and say that ‘pre-op’ and ‘post-op’ are hateful terms. EVEN THOUGH THEY ARE WIDELY USED WITHIN THE TRANS COMMUNITY. They then also fail to even mention the phrase ‘trap’.
Like I said earlier, I am 100% against willfully hateful language, but the people pushing the hardest on the problems with language in regards to trans issues are just about the dumbest people in the world (see glitter-bombing Dan Savage for reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glitter_bombi…).
BUT THEY’LL STILL SELL TRANTIPASTI, RIGHT?
Do you guys think Lonesome’s should’ve stood by the joke?
@Alison: Nope. They weren’t making a philosophical or political point. It was just a stupid joke. And the controversy wasn’t worth it business-wise. It’s just unfortunate that the so-called ‘trans advocates’ weren’t able to handle this in a better way (like maybe just sending those guys an email asking them to stop, rather than making it a public thing). So really, the only people looking good in this story is Lonesomes. Everyone else (me included) are just a bunch of sanctimonious assholes..
I am agreeing with you a lot today, Graham. Let’s put this thread in our memory book.
BETH DITTO WHAT GRAHAM SAID.
They were right to pull the name. I’m all for bad jokes (big surprise there), but transgendered people (sorry, I’m usin’ it, one of my best friends was a transguy, and he used these terms) get enough ridicule and hate, cheap laughs from pizza fans don’t help.
You have got to be fucking kidding me.. wait, nope you’re not.
jesusfuckingchrist. if you get your jimmies all rustled up over a fucking pizzashop naming its breadsticks “tranny sticks” you are an absolute moron with nothing better to do with yourself and your life must be pretty boring and/or empty to waste your activist-energy on bullying a locally-owned small-business into changing a menu item name.
Good on you, douchebags. You just won the lamest, most insignificant fight of your activist careers.
Isn’t a tranny stick a stick shift on a car? That was my initial interpretation, at least. GO VICTIMS!!!!!!
This is really getting out of control.
WHEN WILL THESE TRANS-ADVOCATES START PROTESTING ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW?!?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bc80tFJpTuo
I don’t even understand what the “joke” is – what the hell does “tranny stick” mean?
It’s true this semantic area is currently confusing, and well-meaning people shouldn’t be shouted at, but no matter where the line is drawn, it should have been clear that “tranny sticks” was over it. They apologized and changed the name, so we can all just move on to the next teapot-contained weather event, right?
Colin. I assume it was a reference to trans fats.
I could go the rest of my life without reading someone identified as gender-queer, as opposed to intergendered, or pangendered, or androgynous, or third gendered, or gender fluid, or genderfucked, especially from someone complaining about gender labels.
Absolutely nothing against someone that IS gender-queer, etc., just don’t get all offended when I’m not up to date on what the latest way to say you’re undefined by gender roles is.
And I agree with Graham – good job on Lonesome’s. If people are saying it’s offensive (and rightly so), acknowledge it was juvenile, change it and move on.
The person who screamed at you for using the term ‘transgendered’ is probably one of those people who would like a socially sanctioned reason to flip the fuck out on strangers with a minimal chance of getting called on it. Sorry it happened to you.
Doesn’t really answer my question, Alison. I’ll just assume you called your boss an F’ing transgendered bag of masquerading shim balls for giving you a crappy assignment.
I have quite a few trans friends. Tranny is a pretty gross term. All it takes to not want to use it, as a joke, a slur or anything is seeing the hurt on a friends face. Or see the confusion on a gender variant child’s face.
It’s a slur against one of the single most marginalized and shat on people in the world. So that’s my perspective on naming your breadsticks after a slur.