Rush Limbaugh may have thought he was bonding with a caller by referring to her as a “tranny,” but instead the conservative radio host got a lesson on political correctness.
In an audio clip obtained by Media Matters, a transgender woman named Tina called in to “The Rush Limbaugh Show” Thursday to question the host for linking same-sex marriage rights to the expansion of transgender rights earlier in the show. While the conversation started out cordially, it quickly took a bizarre turn.
Limbaugh told Tina, “I’ve been for trannies for a long time.” But when Tina explained that the term was “rather offensive,” Limbaugh seemed shocked.
“I didn’t know that. Tranny is offensive?” Limbaugh asked, saying he thought it was an acceptable term.
“A lot of us do find that to be rather offensive because of the way that it’s been historically used,” Tina explained. “We’re reclaiming that word like black people and the N-word.”
Limbaugh defended himself by saying liberal actor and former MSNBC host Alec Baldwin had previously used the word. “He used the term tranny as though it were hip, and an inside baseball term that made him cool with the transgender [community],” Limbaugh said.
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After that, the radio host asked Tina how people know she’s “a tranny” and how transgender sex works.
“A lot of them don’t, and that certainly leads to part of the problem,” Tina said. She then went on to explain that some people worry that she might try to “trick” them into thinking she’s a “real woman.”
A curious Limbaugh wanted to know how that might happen, and when it does, how you prevent someone from knowing your “real” gender, especially when things get intimate.
“Well a lot of times people have oral sex or anal sex in the dark,” Tina said.
TheWrap reached out to GLAAD for comment on Limbaugh’s use of the word “tranny,” but the organization did not immediately respond.
Listen to the audio clip from “The Rush Limbaugh Show” below: