So How I Met Your Mother Was Very Transphobic

hello guys gals and enpals and here is  the story of how i first met transphobia firstly obviously before i get into the intro  spiel there'll be a lot of transphobia getting   discussed here so trigger warnings for  that all round if you don't want to hear it   probably not the video for you  anyways on to the actual video   back when i was a much younger person and long  before i found the ability to come out publicly   and transition i was really into this show called  how i met your mother which first blew onto the   sitcom scene in the early days of 2005. this show  was one of the more popular sitcoms of the mid   2000s to mid 2010s period and i like many others  liked its quick barbs and hilarious situations   positioned around a group of friends living in  a situation that you look back on now and think   that the whole premise was a little whack but at  the time it seemed very realistic and relatable   i realize that in describing that you could also  apply that exact same description to friends as   well which is another very similar very cis white  hetero show and there are certainly discussions   to be had around the way friends treats queer  people too but i never really got into friends   i really did get into how i met your mother and  i especially got into barney stinson as a person   to prove this and to showcase that i have the  nostalgia credibility and nerd credibility to   talk about this show in such depth here is my the  playbook by barney stinson something that i bought   in i think 2009 2010 at a men's store like store  that sold like suits and beef jerky um and this   is full of some of the worst sexism i've ever seen  in my life and you know what if this video gets uh   let's say a thousand likes that seems ambitious  a thousand likes i'll make a video reviewing   all of these plays and positioning them  on a ranking of how sexist they are from   the worst to uh not too bad i'm going to get rid of this  now because this is embarrassing i still have   this at this point it's been 11 years and i guess  i kept it around just for this video so but anyway   i liked barney simpson i liked his quick wit and  as what i was at the time to most outside viewers   an insecure guy who was terrible with dating and  desperately did anything to prove my masculinity   he spoke to me as a person here was someone who  knew all about sleeping with women dressed in a   cool suit and was constantly doing these hilarious  pranks and weird adventures and he's played by   a gay guy so he has to be okay right yeah i  was kind of cringe i am fully aware of that   barnie is a serial sexual harasser absolutely has  sexually assaulted people he treats women as mere   objects in his long-standing quest to prove his  value as a man by having as much sex as possible   based on huge amounts of insecurity and lying  to himself for so long that it has become   part of who he is but while that is absolutely  something that how i met your mother needs to be   challenged on for helping to further cement this  pickup bro toxic masculinity as something cool   or funny or okay that we should just ignore  that something that just guys do you know what   are you gonna do stop them tell them no in this  video however i want to actually go over another   aspect within how i met your mother that also  really needs to be challenged and recognized   for its impact on the cultural landscape and  that is far more relevant to me and my current   position right now that's right today we are  talking about how i met your mother and the unseen   trans punching bag that it uses to establish  its wide array of transphobia employed in the show so we can't really move on  from that previous topic just yet the one about   barney stinson and the toxic masculinity because  there is something of relevance in that whole   discussion that will come into play further down  the line when we discuss the trans issues inherent   to how i met your mother and that is the role that each of  the members in the friend group plays in allowing and   enabling this behavior to continue existing see  while barney is the terrible representation of   everything wrong with masculinity given  form and unleashed on women in the show   ted is not much better he still harasses and  engages in toxic behavior he's just positioned   as a romantic so it looks more subtle and less  overt a clear scene that illustrates ted's biggest   issues in a nutshell is the one where he describes  the way that he approaches romantic attraction   and when you love someone you just you you don't  stop ever even when people roll their eyes or call   you crazy even then especially then yikes stuff  and absolutely the kind of thing that is sending   you on the path to a restraining order and on the  sideline of these two we have marshall lily and   robin who either just laugh off the terrible  behaviors of their friends or blame the women   involved for being [ sluts ] or being too stupid to  not see through the toxic [ shit ] their friends   engage in they refuse to criticize them and do  their absolute best to make excuses for them and   that is the kind of thing that makes you just as  bad and 100% complicit in all the issues that they   engage in and this notion that not only is it bad  when someone does a bad thing like being a sexist   or a harasser or a bigot but it's also just as bad  if you were someone who then defends that person   or allows them to keep acting like that without  challenging them as it normalizes the behavior   is actually sort of central to the rest of the  conversation about how i met your mother handles   trans people and towards why this kind of attitude  in shows is a contributor to the behaviors their   audience emulates because it is shown as fine or  not as a problem in their favorite tv show this   is why when we discuss these incredibly popular  shows like how i met your mother shows that defined almost   a decade of sitcoms and was geared towards age  groups that included teenagers one of the most   influenceable groups out there from media culture  it is almost essential to recognize the power that   is placed in the hands of that piece of film or  tv they are given the ability to really present   identities and mindsets that those who watch  will end up absorbing and mimicking in the   same way that people will mimic popular people  or their friends because identifying traits and   ideas in those we idolize slash appreciate and  then adopting them into our own behavior is a   perfectly normal thing to do as part of the social  interactions that go into living in a community or   group and humans are nothing if not social animals  however while this is a good survival mechanism   for picking up those behaviors that are most  likely to get you liked as well it is also a great   way for people to adopt attitudes that are less  desirable because a show either poorly handles   them or that bigotry is just not challenged at  all within those characters and it's very easy to   make the excuse of well they're just a product of  their time that time being less than 10 years ago   so like that isn't that long and that's why it is  still important to debunk and critically analyze   what was expressed in these kinds of tv shows  because the stuff that how i met your mother   pushed and incorporated into the main characters  is absolutely still influencing the mindsets of   people to this day and we are paying for the  bigotry that they made normal with their show   so hopefully that justifies what i'm doing here  and explains it to anyone watching and now finally   we can actually get into the transphobia of  it all  in our first part of explaining the  impact that how i met your mother had on transphobia in   the public mindset it's important to build that  foundation with what comes first and is most   easily noticed in the early seasons and that is  the very basic usage of the t-slur for those who   don't know what it is the slur is currently on the  screen right now i don't particularly enjoy saying   it and i also don't particularly enjoy hearing it  when i play the examples please feel totally fine   to just skip ahead and take my word for it and the  t-slur is kinda prevalent in the first few seasons   of how i met your mother in a way that it just flat out  isn't for other shows at the time this is one   of those weird things where i definitely can find  examples of sitcoms that are sort of designed for   the whole family to watch using trans people  as a punch line something that we'll get into   a little later with this series in particular  but it's a lot trickier to find a clear example   of the usage of the t word in the peers that we  can compare how i met your mother to while you can point   to obvious examples of sort of transphobic stuff  in other shows like friends and chandler's dad   at no point do they call her a t-slur however  and how i met your mother is basically the later more   snazzy version of that show and it's interesting  because of the lack of other slurs within the show   while we hear no end of t-word and shemale there  is no f-a-g-g-o-t or explicitly calling each other   gay they do imply femininity about one another  in that way that a lot of masculine characters   will do as they view any feminineness as a wrong or soft or weak thing to be   yeah marshall's a big girl because he believes in  true love and just finished reading the notebook   why can't two guys who are friends go to brunch  because brunch is kind of girly i've been dreaming   about this day since i was like a little girl but  there was no explicit verbal assault on gay people   this may have had something to do with the fact  that an openly gay man was involved with the show   neil patrick harris in the role of barney stinson  which i don't want to dig into the weirdness that   is a gay man playing the incredibly misogynistic  pickup artist who treats women as sexual objects   like is there some kind of thought process  there from the tv studio that maybe doing that   gave them an out on the character being  open to criticism for exemplifying the   kind of behavior that we totally shouldn't  just write off as boys being boys or sad guy   [ shit] like was that some way to sort of avoid  any sort of criticism maybe regardless that is a   tangent away from the topic at hand here which is  that the show clearly felt comfortable with using   words that are very offensive towards trans people  while not using similar words for other minorities   that were present and now i'm going to showcase  two examples that sort of address the use of the   t-slur from two different directions one openly  hostile and one casually incorporated into a joke   the first one is from lily and trust me the  dissonance of sharing the same name with one   of the characters did not fade away from my entire time  spent re-watching the show in episode 17 of season   one titled arriverderci fierro when she makes  this comment in regards to the gendered nature   of the car how's the fiero she's still in triage  she i thought it was your little boy oh it goes   back and forth it's sort of a [ tr*nny ] car how long  have you had her slash him this in comparison to   the other one i'll be showcasing feels a lot more  tame it doesn't necessarily convey any image of   any particular person or identity except for the  fact that it of course correlates transness to the   he she nature of the car character this whole idea  of she-male is one of those really shitty images   that has followed the trans community around  for decades and is often tied to this idea   that trans women are not really women that they  are just men with female bits attached to them   it's not great and it certainly ties further  into the way that we will see trans represented   by how i met your mother as a punch line but when we  watch this joke comment from barney in season 1   episode 19's mary the paralegal we see how much  worse the t-slur can be ted you're my cabron   you think i'm gonna stick you with some  toothless [ tr*nny ] from the port authority   this is very much horrifying as barney is  making it clear to ted that he is a bro   and a cool dude specifically because he would  never dare to get ted an ugly trans person who is   probably a sex worker in cinematic history the  idea of toothlessness and hanging around places   like the port authority is reserved for generally  sex workers or prostitutes a stereotyping of   trans women that yet again absolutely will come up  later in this sense barney is allaying ted's fears   around what could be wrong with the woman that he  would get by comparing it to the worst possible   option that in their minds could be selected  something that actually does buy quite heavily   into ted's massive internalized transphobia and fear  of trans women that can be seen in later seasons   in this sense the t-slur is aggressively being  used to demonize a trans woman to make it clear of   her wrongness and undesirability towards these  straight men it is a pretty vile thing and i   was taken aback when i first heard it because  i didn't remember it being that blatant from my   nostalgic rose-tinted remembrance of how i met your  mother but time serves to make a fool of all of   us and it certainly made a fool of me here as the  show just straight up handed me the obviousness of   its transphobia within the first season there  are further examples of much deeper running   issues around trans women and future jokes but  the ease with which the worst word you can use   towards a trans person is thrown out kind of  already sets the bar very low for what to expect   and this casualness is kind of [fucked] up  especially in a show from the late 2000s   that as i've mentioned before really wasn't that  long ago with most people who grew up watching   it now been in their 20s and 30s and it does raise  the question of how many people were introduced to   using this kind of word in their general lexicon by  this show we often repeat phrases or jokes that we   see being made by the relatable characters that  exist on sitcoms would it be any surprise that   a lot of teenagers especially boys from that time  period would come to adopt the t-slur as something   that they could throw at their friends or make fun  of so lightly we are talking about one of the most   popular shows at the time that it aired a show  that really served to define a lot of people's   experiences growing up and absolutely had an  impact on the social language the people who   watched it are going to use we shouldn't need to  be doing the work of justifying stuff like this   hand waving it away by saying it was a different  time or that clearly wasn't meant to attack trans   people because that's both a) not really true  and b) not really a good excuse with that initial   foundation of the most basic transphobia dealt  with we can now move on to a slightly trickier one now this one that i'm going to discuss here  doesn't use any slurs it doesn't have any   specific words that stand out as egregious but  it is one of the most well-known examples of a   transphobic joke within the show the one that came  up most often when i was searching for articles   that might contain things i missed it is of course  the comment by ted mosby in episode 20 of season 6   titled the exploding meatball sub about a fun  little game that they play when they find out   that there might be a trans woman around  in the office somewhere play the damn clip   hey barney there's a bunch of models in the lobby  and the gossip is one of them is really a dude you   want to play who's hot and who's scott it's always the  one in the turtleneck kid now the first thing you   might notice is how late this transphobia is coming  in on the series like this ain't no early spring   chicken season like those aforementioned slurs it  was heavily into the 2010s when you expect that   a very popular tv show that was on prime time  would be a little bit better around a minority   and how they treat them as objects of derision and  ridicule you might think all of that but you would   be very damn wrong apparently because things  did not change that much really at all within   this joke we find the attitude towards trans women  that is a prevalent issue well into the modern day   a double whammy of treatment that includes both  specifically trying to ferret out and discover   that secret hidden person who might well and  obviously not want people to be discussing their   private life as part of some shitty game they play  with their co-workers and it's also still making those   same old positions about a trans woman being  both actually a man and also not really hot   and that obviously sucks it obviously sucks  because it both objectifies the trans woman   as she merely becomes an element of their scrutiny  an attempt to pierce what is the suspected veil of   treachery that she has cast by daring to be  herself outside and hang out with the other   models that she works with and it also dehumanizes  her too in that same vein by stripping her of any   agency in existence because we never get to see  this trans woman we never get to see her reaction   or her own personality in response to what is  ultimately mistreatment and unseen harassment   and that is something that how i met your mother does an awful  lot in its treatment of trans people it never   actually shows them or engages with them as people they  are merely distant creatures whose only purpose is   to fill gaps in the comedic rhythm of the main  characters and serve as props for the jokes that   let us know how funny and cool these protagonists  are a lot of this stuff obviously doesn't hold up   quite so well now a mere 11 years later as it  is very apparent how poor this treatment is and   how much it cements this idea of trans women  as something that is perfectly fine to mock   to deride and to incorporate into the abuse  that you and your friends exact upon those that   are too societally displeasing to you it is textbook  behavior for externalized transphobia and the show   handles it in a way that makes it seem totally  acceptable and normal and fine the offhanded way   in which it is brought up and how ted handles it  makes it very clear this is something that they   have totally done before that this little game of  scrutinizing women to figure out the fake one is a   not totally uncommon practice within their circles  including at a workplace that definitely should   consider this a hr violation of their customers  as something that their employees are comfortable   doing and that casual approach to this is a huge  part of that aforementioned issue in that it totally   normalizes the behavior it been both unchallenged  and just hand-waved away as a funny comment or joke   is giving the impression to the viewers often  times impressionable teenagers who will definitely   copy those attitudes that it's totally normal and  okay to do this stuff it's contributing to the   kind of harassment and violations of privacy that  are so common for trans women in the modern era   and while it might seem simple to defend this as a  case of them doing it in a way that's just between   them like they don't involve the trans woman in  the joke right so she has no idea what's going   on she's not being hurt by it well not literally  hurt by it she's not hearing it or seeing it happen   to her well that doesn't quite work in the greater  context of the characters in the show we know   that this transphobia is both done when with  friends who encourage and allow it to continue   but it also carries over into the language that  they use and the way that they treat trans people   in public too bigotry encouraged in private is  very easily translated into a more public sphere   especially if the person feels safe at doing it  around people that they know have had no issue   with it in the past that trans woman might not  see the violation of her dignity or existence   happen but doesn't mean that it is not occurring  and its the role of other people who are privy to it to   ensure that they stand up to it and if you agree  with me that this is still not great but are   going to point out all the jokes that are made  by these characters towards any women that are   not challenged examples that come fast and heavy  around these main characters in how i met your mother   like from the exact same episode slightly earlier  barney talks about how the woman whose job it is to   talk about workplace sexual harassment has huge  breasts and that he got the temperature set just   right so they could see her nipples and nobody  stops him and nobody makes it clear that that's   some terrible [ shit ] he shouldn't be doing no you  can't quit tomorrow the lady with the big nipples   is coming back to give another sexual harassment  seminar and i bribed one of the maintenance guys to   keep the room at a brisk 55 degrees baby more than  ever you have my full support but just because the   show mistreats and encourages harassment  towards cis women as well as trans women   doesn't mean that we can just shove under the  rug the explicit ways in which it goes after and   demonizes trans women in that grouping two wrongs  don't make a right and all of this truly does suck the next category i want to talk about  is specifically with regards to ted   and the way that he treats trans women explicitly  this is a little bit of a trickier one because it   incorporates an attitude that is sort of bypassed  as okay that a lot of cis men have and don't ever   really think of as a problem and the best way to  example this is to showcase all the ways that ted   imagines the worst possible scenarios in his head  for women in his life as them being secretly trans   i'll point to first and foremost season two's  episode nine slap bet where ted is imagining   the worst oh no moments that would ruin his future  marriage with robin that he's going through in his   head and he imagines her telling him at the altar  that she used to be a dude and that is terrifying   to him in season 3 episode 8 spoiler alert when  ted is trying to imagine why his friends might   dislike his date so much he daydreams talking  to her about how she used to use the urinals   implying that she had a penis and therefore used  to be a dude as well and he is shocked again   because oh no it's another trans woman and finally  we have season 7 episode 6 mystery vs history   where ted is going on a date with a woman he just  picked up at the bar and he's trying to do it without   looking at the internet so his friends stalk her  online to find out what is wrong with her and   then he imagines it because they keep withholding  information and one of the imaginations he has is   that she walks into the men's room and walks up  to the urinal yet again and implies that she has   a penis which leaves him recoiling and gasping  as this nightmare scenario to him plays out   this whole thing is a recurring theme that keeps  popping up over and over again whenever ted is   trying to position the worst possible thing  that could pop up about a potential partner   and it really reflects an attitude that's common  in cis men especially right now this idea that a   woman might be a regular normal woman as far  as you're concerned but then secretly maybe   she's actually a trans woman and she's tricked you  into being gay or whatever might be going through   their heads and it is a blatant transphobia it's a  blatant transphobia that people don't think of as   transphobic but when you position it in the way  that clearly lays it out it so obviously is say   you're into someone you're attracted to them this  is going great you and them are having a wonderful   time together you've had a wonderful time for months and  months and then she tells you that she's trans   and all of a sudden you don't like her anymore the  only thing that's changed in that scenario is the   fact that you now know that she is trans and so  in that essence her transness is the reason why   you can't date her in the same way that if you  were having a great time with someone online you   talked to them a whole bunch and you thought  they were really attractive and then you   met them in person and you were still like oh  yeah they're really attractive still physically   but they're also black and i don't date black  people that's racist that's racism in dating   it's not hard to recognize that one and yet when  it comes to trans women it seems an awful lot   more difficult for people to pick up on it and it  also buys into this idea that cis men seem to have   that trans woman's whole existence is there to  trick and deceive them to lure them into sex and   then suddenly pounce on them and reveal that this  whole time they've secretly been sleeping with   someone who may have previously had a penis and  that would be a bad thing for their masculinity   or for their sexuality and that they would have  to do something about it because oh no they've   got they've got to prove it now that they're not  really gay or whatever it is that people who are   going through this might be thinking it's a weird  combination of sexism homophobia and transphobia   to really ram home one of the worst and most  toxic attitudes that trans women can deal with   one that is involved with a lot of the anxieties  towards existing or dating in the large community   that trans women have and it's also contributed  to the old trans panic defense this defense that   argues that if you shoot or attack a trans woman  who has revealed that she's trans to you during a   date or whatever then you are totally within your  rights to do that because she surprised you and   you were not responsible for your actions  a truly horrifying legal loop hole that   thankfully does not hold up much anymore across  the states but it used to be quite a common thing   and trans men have a lot of fear from this there's  a lot of fear around getting killed or getting   attacked for being trans which would lead a lot  of them to not revealing who they are why would   they ever mention that when it's possible that the  date might turn violent you know so it's kind of   a double whammy of transphobia in that it is  literally attacking trans people but it's also   making them afraid to be who they are publicly  because of what might come along with that   and this is something that is normalized in the  show yet again it's a sort of joke because oh   no yeah what if what if the woman has a dick but  what is the real joke there what is the joke about   ted being horrified to find out that people  are trans to be horrified to find out they've   been attracted to trans people the only way i can  see the joke functioning is if you do seriously   view trans women as disgusting and therefore  finding out someone is trans to you is like   one of those kind of gross laughy things which if  that's your opinion that's transphobia and i think   you fully recognize and know that i don't think  that's a surprise for anyone to be able to say yep   that's transphobia but regardless that is one  of the most egregious examples that comes out   from yet again the main character of the show  the person that we are supposed to be rooting for   the good guy the one who gets the girl in  the end the one who a lot of men presumably   looked up to or used to copy as a you know oh  he's the hero so the heroes are you know good   people and i should i should emulate them  as a person if i'm going around in society on to our penultimate comment about trans people  presentation in this show and it's in direct   contrast to a comment i made earlier on when  i said there were no trans people in this show   because while that is kind of true it's  also kind of not see if you go to watch   season 6 episode 5's architect of destruction  there is a scene where ted is waiting outside   of this hotel the arcadian that he's looking  to bulldoze as part of his work for the gnb   and a woman approaches him and asks if he's  looking for a hook up and it's this very obvious   trans sex worker and he turns it down saying  that he's not interested in that kind of thing   and that's it that is the only trans woman you get  to see she's a set up for a future joke   where zoe a cis woman walks up to ted and he  then turns her down as well and says oh but you   know you're making me very confused about  myself because you look really attractive   and the implication there of course is that  the cis woman is attractive the trans woman is not   attractive and that he mistakes a certain woman  for a trans woman because you know they're both in   the same place the place where the sex workers are  working and the only trans woman that we ever see   is a sex worker a very common stereotype that  a lot of trans women are sort of over yes there   are sex workers within our community for us  it's an easy way i think for trans people to   get access to money because normally it's hard  to find a stable job or to get access to that   kind of thing so sex work is an easy fallback for  those minority communities that exist like that   but it's not all that we are and often times it  is merely used as a joke or a way to label us as   an outsider or as something of disgust because sex  workers are generally also treat pretty poorly   by society too they're also very commonly shoved  into a box that is deemed as outcasts as socially   wrong and well that's not okay that's not okay to  double down on that and this is something you see   a lot more in sort of csi shows or crime detective  shows but it's still very prevalent here too and   of course how i met your mothers only trans person would  be a sex worker what more would you expect really the final point i want to get into around  transphobia in this show is a double whammy point   because one of them is an actual real point of  transphobia and the other one is more of a   comment on gender and gender presentation within  the show the first one is in season four's episode   three where barney is trying to trick queer  women into sleeping with him by going around   and pretending to be a butch lesbian the trojan  lesbian as he calls it and this is one of those   things where it in itself is not a transphobic  thing but when you think about it as it's a   straight man who is dressing up as a woman to  attempt to trick women into sleeping with him then   you might recognize in that a discourse that a lot  of terfs seem to be adopting with regards to trans   women wherein this idea that they're men trying to  trick women into sleeping with them that there's   some kind of evil deceiving there and it's a very  similar one to the cis men being tricked and decieved   that we mentioned earlier on both sides really  are coming together to put them down and how i met   your mother being an adoptee of both of those attitudes  is honestly yeah that seems totally reasonable   to me and this is more of a comment on barney  stinson as a person he's a terrible person it's   not a reflection on any trans woman he's not trans  he's not at all it's merely him trying to adopt a   visage of it almost to attempt to go  after lesbians and not great not good   kind of a horrendous mixture of a whole bunch  of things really yet again your classics sexism   homophobia transphobia all being crammed  together into one big ball but there's not much   more to talk about with that there is a lot more  to talk about with the next point which is with regards   to robin and the way that her dad treats her now  we know from multiple examples that robin's dad   wanted a son and to repair that in his life  he forced robin to be a son effectively   he made sure that she would do all the things that  what his son would do all the very hyper masculine   things and almost refused to recognize her as a  daughter and this caused intense dysphoria for   her it's something that you see come up quite often is  the way that she has a lot of real doubts and   issues around herself because of that treatment  she isn't very feminine because of the fact that   she you know has been effectively abused for most  of her childhood and sort of early teenage years   and this sort of dysphoria is an interesting  thing that doesn't get talked about often   enough it's one of those kind of commentary  things where how i met your mother accidentally did   a good trans thing but not on purpose this is one  of those kind of elements of we can see here the   effects of what it's like to be forced to be a  gender that you're not through early childhood and   through all that kind of stuff and how it really  impacts you as a person and how finally being free   from that allows you to grow and really flourish  but it's still hard to move on from the mental   health impacts that are caused by that and robin  is really a great example of that robin honestly   could kind of be a trans woman robin's story  has a lot of things in common she's forced to   be treated as a guy while she's growing up and  then she finally gets away from her family and   sort of becomes herself fully and she does have  a lot of masculine elements to her as a part of   that but it's all part of her greater element as  a woman it doesn't remove that or strip that from   her she is still a woman but unfortunately she  is a cis woman its made very clear by the show   so we can't kind of take that exact example from  here we can't give how i met your mother at least one good trans   tick because they haven't earned it if only it was  then that would be amazing but alas it is not but   regards to that we can still look at robin and the  way her dad treats her as a good example of what   could be trans representation in this regards  something that's become a lot better these days   and it is something that you can see a lot  of parallels too robin's story does a lot   of parallels of the sort of trans stories of later  characters from other future shows and i think   that there might have been inspiration there  i think for some trans people there might have   been some takeaways or some things they got from  robin's story in the way that she felt she is also   someone as we find later on who is incapable of  having children something that does impact a lot   of trans women and does cause a lot of issues that  doesn't get talked about often enough and i think   that her strength in the face of all of that is in  some weird way an inspiration to trans women who   deal with a lot of the same issues she might be a  cis woman in the show but she is in some regards   a trans icon and definitely someone the trans  community could adopt as something of our own   there's no reason not to and honestly how i met your mother is  so bad that we deserve some kind of recompense   i think there should be some sort of reparations  paid to us and i think one of those could just be   telling us that robin is a trans woman that's  a great way to fix that up so uh it would also   be quite interesting because that would mean  that ted is ultimately ending up with a trans   woman down the line which i think would be uh a  real good way for him to get to the end of his   transphobia you know he finally understands it  finally accepts and goes you know what that's me   being wrong that's me having a lot of issues  and a lot of like wrapped up things in my head   around how i view trans women and i find  robin very attractive and i love her and   that doesn't matter if she is a trans person or  not or a trans woman that doesn't impact that   so all i'm saying how i met your mother is  if you want to retroactively fix your series   make robin a trans woman and make ted finally  realize that his internalized transphobia is a   problem holding him back from his true love and  acceptance there we go fixed it they should hire   me to write that thing i'll be [ fucking ] amazing  at that but anyway that's my detailed detail   of how i met your mother and the way that it handles  transphobia and the way that we can see a lot   of our modern transphobias reflected in the  show itself and that as i've mentioned a few   times now should be no surprise it was a landmark  series that had a huge impact that was watched by   millions and millions of people so it's no wonder  that it ultimately probably did impact society in   a way that we're seeing coming back at us now it's  unfortunate for the most part it's impacted in a   very negative way that the way that it presented  trans women as either objects of ridicule   or as sex workers or as something to mock or laugh  at is not good and has ultimately probably led to   the way a lot of people view trans women or did view  trans women and for me certainly it probably did   have some issues with the way i saw myself it probably  did have some impacts on the way that i felt about   who i was and maybe kept me in the closet a  little bit longer that's not something thats great   what we can take from that i would hope is  examples of what not to do examples of how   we can be better than that of how we can move on  and progress as a society to one that is much more   accepting and more open towards trans people and  doesn't just put them in as the butt of the jokes   or as the invisible trans punching bags that  exist within our sitcoms that they can be full   characters that can have jokes about them but  they're done in tasteful ways that understand   their transness and don't seek to merely make it  some kind of reviled social fetish i think that   is an important lesson a lot of sitcom writers and a  lot of people going to the future that we can take   from this show every bad show is still an example  and while it's a lot easier to take good shows and   just sort of copy what they do it's also important  to take bad shows and learn from their mistakes   and that's what we can hopefully do here if you  like what i've said in this video and you think   that i was right or that you think there was some  good points in there then that's wonderful that's   really cool and i hope that you would like share  subscribe comment all the youtubey stuff that helps   make me feel good about myself and might make it that  this video does well in the algorithm because it'd   be nice for one of them to do so if you really  like what i've done here you can go down below   to a link and hit on my patreon and you can give  me money on my patreon which helps me to make more   videos and also helps me to pay for food and rent  and other things that are essential towards living   even if you know you might disagree with that i'm  not going to point any particular for this but   just saying other than that thank you for watching  this video and i hope you have a great day

Channel: Lily Simpson

Views: 414,036

Keywords:

Id: S4fX5CMvmnk

Length: 36min 7sec (2167 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 31 2022