Billy Porter shuts down homophobes who don’t want him on Sesame Street with just eight simple words
A Republican lawmaker is really upset about Billy Porter on Sesame Street (Facebook)
Billy Porter has responded to the backlash generated by his appearance on Sesame Street with style.
Anti-LGBT+ conservatives have worked themselves into a frenzy over news that the Pose star is planning to appear on the kids’ TV staple – donning the iconic tuxedo gown that he wore to 2019 Oscars.
A petition urging HBO and public broadcaster PBS to pull the episode has so far attracted 47,000 signatures, claiming that Porter, a cisgender man who sometimes wears dresses, is promoting the “dangerous ideology” of “transgenderism”.
One Republican lawmaker has gone even further, and has threatened to defund all public broadcasting in the state over Billy Porter’s appearance.
Billy Porter is promoting ‘perverted demon sex’.
Porter responded to the attacks with grace and aplomb.
Addressing his critics via Page Six, he made clear: “If you don’t like it, don’t watch it.”
The performer expressed confusion about why people were connecting his designer grown to “perverted demon sex”.
Billy Porter at 123 Sesame Street (Facebook)
He said: “Like, what about me singing with a penguin [on the show] has anything to do with what I’m doing in my bedroom?
“The really interesting thing for me is that that’s what it’s all about when it comes to LGBTQ people – the first thing everyone wants to talk about is how we having sex.
“Stay out of my bedroom and you will be fine – that is none of your business.”
Petition rages against ‘drag queen activist’.
The petition against Billy Porter petition, penned by anti-LGBT website LifeSiteNews, claims that Porter is an “LGBT drag queen activist”.
The petition claims: “Transgenderism is not about ‘love’. It is a disorder – gender dysphoria – which has absolutely no place on a children’s program.
“By contributing to this social contagion, Sesame Street is forcing children to deal with adult concepts and notions about sexuality which are beyond their level of maturity, and which can leave psychological scars.”
Porter is not transgender or a drag queen – though he did win a Tony for playing drag queen Lola in the Broadway musical Kinky Boots, as queer theatre obsessives, and apparently some anti-LGBT+ activists, will know.
