Barry Humphries Sparks Outrage: Transgender Community Wants Him To Apologize

By Jackie Pasaol | Jan 06, 2016 12:50 PM EST

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Australian actor Barry Humphries sparks outrage after saying that individuals who underwent gender transplant are merely "mutilated men" and the famous athlete who is formerly known as Bruce Jenner, who is better known now as Caitlyn Jenner is "publicity-seeking ratbag."

The 81 year old comedian made the remarks at The Daily Telegraph in support to his fellow Australian Germaine Greer who previously said that trans-women were "men who believe that they are women and have themselves castrated."

After being asked about Greer's comments that concerning transgender, Humphries said during the interview, "I agree with Germaine!. You're a mutilated man, that's all. Self-mutilation, what's all this carry on? Caitlyn Jenner - what a publicity-seeking ratbag. It's all given the stamp - not of respectability, but authenticity or something. If you criticise anything you're racist or sexist or homophobic."

Humphries' comments caused backlash on social media, especially to the transgender community. Rebecca Root, one of the famous transgender actress in BBC who starred on Two's Boy Meets Girl said that the actor should be fire from his shows if he won't apologize for making those comments.

Root said Humphries's "retrograde" remarks were "resonant of the bad old days" and she said the comedian should apologize or if he refused to do then he should be "sacked."  

"The fact is that this sense of humour resonates with the bad old days. It's very retrograde, and I hoped we'd moved on from it," Root said.

The actress said if Humphries will just apologize for his comments then they will just forget everything and move forward.

Humphries' new BBC series will begin on Radio 2 on Jan 13, titled Barry's Forgotten Musical Masterpieces and the network confirmed that they will not dismiss the comedian. "Barry Humphries is a freelance presenter for BBC Radio 2 and these are his personal views, which are not reflected in his radio programme," a spokesperson for the network said, as per Telegraph.

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