GLAAD Attacks SyFy Show 'Lost Girl'

If you’ve watched SyFy, the science fiction cable channel, you may be aware of a show called Lost Girl. The show is well known as being quite inclusive, commonly portraying gay, lesbian and cross-dressing characters. Despite this, a national gay group is attacking the show over a recent episode.

Lost Girl follows the exploits of a heroine named Bo who investigates crimes involving supernatural or mythic beings such as vampires. The show is in its third season on SyFy.

After the debut of its third season opener, the show, a Canadian import, has apparently made an enemy of GLAAD, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, over the way a particular “transgender” character was treated.

Even though the “transgender” character happened to be the villain in the episode, the gay advocacy group was angered by the violent and humiliating end the character experienced.

The villain was a warden in a woman’s prison run by fabled Amazons and portrayed as female through most of the show, but the reveal at the end proved the character was a man. The evil warden ended the episode dragged brutally out of the scene after being viciously grabbed in the crotch.

Later, other characters insist on referring to the warden as a “he” instead of a “she,” even though he chooses to appear as a woman. This particularly upset GLAAD because other characters denied the “choice” of gender chosen by the warden.

In a statement, GLAAD disparaged the show for its attack on the transgender character.

“The Warden being ‘discovered’ and then viciously attacked is a scenario tragically based in reality, but here is played out for the enjoyment of the audience,” Kane said. “It’s also evocative of the offensive claim that transgender women are ‘tricking’ their way into female-only spaces for perverted or criminal purposes.”

The show’s producers initially scoffed at GLAAD’s attack, saying that it doesn’t deal with human characters but mythical creatures. To them, the warden wasn’t just a man; he was a shapeshifter.

Regardless, producers have sitill apologized for upsetting GLAAD, saying, “Lost Girl prides itself on being open and accepting to everyone, and are enthusiastic supporters of the GLBT community.”