The Katie Couric Show

Many of you have heard about Katie Couric’s questions to Carmen Carrera and Laverne Cox about their transition and how they deflected the questions. They refused to answer Katie’s question about their transition and if they had surgery and refocused the question to how the media seems to always want to know about our transition and it makes our lives seems one dimensional. On the show she said,

"I do feel like there's preoccupation with [transitioning]," Cox told Couric in the above clip. "I think the preoccupation with transition and with surgery objectifies trans people and then we don't get to really deal with the real lived experiences. The reality of trans people's lives is that so often we're targets of violence. We experience violence disproportionately to the rest of the community... when we focus on transition we don't get to talk about those things."

In response to the show Katie Couric said on her show Friday that,

"Even if some thought my question was off base, I wanted to make sure my question and Carmen's answer stayed in the show as a teachable moment for me, as well as our viewers. I'm really proud we were able to spotlight such an open and honest conversation with Carmen and Laverne Cox, who are both terrific, about the myriad of struggles that this often maligned, marginalized and misunderstood community faces."

Laverne Cox replied on her blog,

I am so deeply moved by the dialogues that are happening around my appearance with Carmen Carrera on “The Katie Show” on Monday… I am so grateful to Katie Couric and her show for the opportunity to highlight these important issues.

My take on the show and the discussion around the show is that both Carmen Carrera and Laverne Cox handled the questions with class and professionalism. I also think that the public has a morbid fascination over genitalia and she reflected that fascination in her questions and yes I do believe that those questions cross a boundary being asked by everyone, except for one thing in an exception is in an educational setting where questions like are to be expected.  I believe that Ms. Couric error was not in backing off when the questions when they refused to answer questions transition. Slate said it this way,

Here’s the ideal approach journalists should use when interviewing an LGBTQ person: Acknowledge that person’s sexual or gender identity upfront since it is an important part of their lives, but then only focus on that identity to the extent that the individual seems interested in talking about it. Some people will find their queerness supremely salient and want to discuss it in detail; others, not so much. The important thing is to treat individuals as just that, and to back off—as a decent human being should in any situation—when it’s clear that certain lines of personal questioning are meandering toward undue discomfort or outright disrespect.

One last thought; it always seems that the media has to always say "and she used to be a man..." just to put a dig in about our history.