The Reason Why You Shouldn't Watch 'Dancing With The Stars' (Hint: It's Not Chaz Bono)

In recent weeks, the media, as well as numerous Christian groups, have focused on Chaz Bono, and his participation on this season's 'Dancing With The Stars'.  As Chaz is the first transgendered celebrity to participate in a nationally televised reality competition, it's easy to see why he would receive so much attention.  Christian organizations under the guise of "family groups" have called for the show's boycott.   A regular correspondent for Fox News has even warned parents not to let their children watch the show, fearing that Bono's "she/he" ways will influence their impressionable minds.

While this debate has been fervently taking place amongst the nations pundits, something far more insidious has casually been infecting the hearts and minds of DWTS viewers over the last two weeks:  Nancy Grace.

She trying to be sexy, people!!!!  Come on.  I mean, I just threw up in my mouth a little.  Last season?  Kirstie  Alley?  I totally believed it.  She sold it.  And, let me tell you something.  I was buying!  Hook, line and sinker.  But this?!

I just want a shower, and not the good kind.  Was thinking of something more along the lines of guys in hazmat suits with brushes, attached to long sticks.  

Supposedly, during tonight's live performance, Ms. Grace had a "wardrobe malfunction" of sorts.  The video below is of the end of her performance.  While it allegedly shows a "nipple slip", I don't see anything.  Then again, I'm not going to look for it, either.  The reason why I am posting the clip is the audience reaction.  There is obviously an editing error.  

The clip, of what is supposed to be a live television broadcast, has the audio of the studio audience applauding, but shows the audience quietly sitting in their seats.  They're practically motionless.  Very bizarre. It's quite a funny end to a performance on a television show.

Fox News: "Don't Let Your Kid's Watch 'Dancing With The Stars'"

In what can be characterized as the most insensitive and transphobic online article in recent months, Fox News is advising their viewers not to let their children watch the new season of 'Dancing With the Stars'.  Why? Solely due to the presence of Chaz Bono.

In a post titled, "Don't Let Your Kids Watch Chaz Bono On 'Dancing With The Stars'", psychiatrist, and frequent commentator Dr. Keith Ablow warns of the dangers that Bono's transsexual influence will have on your children.

Throughout much of the article, Ablow refers to Bono as a "woman" and uses the pronoun "she".  Saying that 'Dancing With the Stars' is nothing more than part of Bono's transsexual "victory tour", is the last thing impressionable growing young people need to see:

"The last thing vulnerable children and adolescents need, as they wrestle with the normal process of establishing their identities, is to watch a captive crowd in a studio audience applaud on cue for someone whose search for an identity culminated with the removal of her breasts, the injection of steroids and, perhaps one day soon, the fashioning of a make-shift phallus to replace her vagina. 

It is a toxic and unnecessary byproduct of the tragic celebration of transgender surgery that millions of young people who do watch "Dancing with the Stars" will have to ponder this question: Maybe my problems really stem from the fact that I’m a girl inside a boy’s body (or a boy inside a girls body). Maybe I’m not a tomboy; I’m just a boy! Maybe I’m not just being bullied because I’m a sensitive, reflective young man interested in flowers, not football. Maybe I’m not just uncertain about my sexuality. Maybe I’m a girl! Maybe all this angst and suffering I’m feeling as I emerge into puberty and pass through it isn’t just because I’m changing, but because I should change completely—and have my breasts removed or my penis amputated!"

As a psychiatrist, Dr. Ablow should be aware of gender identity disorder, which is the primary reason that someone becomes transgendered later in life.  It is generally a life long condition, presenting itself early on in life.  It's not like a teenage girl would watch someone on television and say, "Hey, I like working on cars.  Maybe I need a penis."  Or perhaps a teenage boy is watching TV and says, "I don't like football.  Guess I should cut off my junk."  When it comes to the "If your friend jumps off of a bridge" analogy, it doesn't work too well when your talking about private parts.

Ablow then goes on to assert that Bono "should not be applauded for asserting she is a man (and goes about trying to look like one) any more than a woman who believes she will be happier without arms, has them removed and then continues to assert that she was right all along—her self-concept was that of a double amputee".  He then asks that if your child came to you and said that they would only feel complete if their legs were cut off, would you make a beeline for the plastic surgeon, or get your child the psychological help they desperately need.


What Ablow isn't telling his readers is the process that transgendered people must go through before undergoing sexual reassignment surgery.  At this point, Chaz Bono has not undergone surgery.  He has not stated whether or not he will do so.  Within the United States, before a plastic surgeon will agree to complete the procedure, they require a written recommendation from the patient's psychiatrist (and, often times, therapist).  To receive a recommendation, the patient is required to be under the care of the psychiatrist for a minimum of two years and to have lived as their new gender for that time, prior to surgery.  This isn't a spur-of-the-moment decision.  Ablow knows this, so why is he acting like your 16 year old kid can make an appointment to get a sex change next Tuesday?


I don't buy it.  Even Fox's own correspondents don't buy it.  Still, Ablow insists Bono "is not a man!"