Larry King Inadvertently Performs Transgender Comedy Theater


It seemed like a comedy sketch meant to parody the unique Larry King interviewing style but last night satire met reality when King interviewed several transgendered people on his show. Because Larry didn't change his typical interview style a bit, the show came off as both extremely surreal as well as unintentionally hilarious. Here is a portion of the transcript from King's August 10 show which melodramatically begins with this introduction:

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She took away our father, but in return she gave me another parent, a better parent. Our love is unconditional.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: An 18-year-old in transition from male to female aiming to be the first transgender Victoria's Secret model. A former city manager named Steve who was fired after announcing his plan to change genders. He's here now as Susan. They are all next on LARRY KING KIVE.

Good evening. Tonight's show takes on the topic of gender reassignment surgery and the people who have had it. They are born one gender but emotionally they feel more like the opposite sex, so at some point in their lives they embark on a long, tough journey to physically change themselves into the person they feel like most rather than the person they were born as.

We begin with the amazing story of Jessica Lam, born a man, went on to marry, father children, eventually underwent gender reassignment surgery. Let's take a look at part of her story.

King starts out the interview by attempting to find Jesus:

KING: Good evening. You'll meet a number of people tonight in this situation. Jessica Lam, the 37-year-old in that piece there will be with us throughout the show, born male and underwent gender reassignment surgery four years ago. She's the parent of two sons of whom she has full custody, by the way and they are with us as well. Jesus Lam is 17 years old and Christopher Lam is 16 years old. Jessica, what was your name as a male?

JESSICA LAM: Jesus Lam.

KING: You were Jesus.

JESSICA LAM: Yes, he's junior.

KING: When did you first know in your life something was wrong?

 The dating life of the former Jesus causes Larry to become quite inquisitive:

KING: Do you date men?

JESSICA LAM: I date women.

KING: You date women.

JESSICA LAM: Yes.

KING: So then you're like a lesbian.

JESSICA LAM: I identify as lesbian, yes, absolutely.

KING: So your sex relations would be with a woman.

JESSICA LAM: Yes.

KING: Guys, thanks for coming. Jesus and Chris, I give you a lot of credit, man.

Um, Larry, don't you mean "woman?" King next interviews Ryan Sallans whose sex surgery will change him in the opposite direction from Jessica formerly known as Jesus:

KING: How did you know something was wrong, Ryan, but wrong I mean something out of whack?

SALLANS: Well, you know, just like most stories you hear from a transsexual person from a very young age I always thought I was a boy even though people tell me I'm a girl and my parents telling me I was a girl and I kind of got cued in there and it wasn't until I was 25 where kind of a light bulb switched that I realized I could do this, I can transition.

KING: Did you ever think you were gay.

SALLANS: I did identify as lesbian for about eight months and never felt lesbian but since I was attracted to women I just took on that label.

KING: So now you date women?

SALLANS: Yes, I have a partner. We've been together for over three years now.

Now Larry comes to the point about the actual details of the operation:

KING: How far -- how much have you had done so far?

SALLANS: I've had the chest surgery which was shown in the Logo documentary. I've had the total hysterectomy and the hormones.

KING: And what do they do with regard to a penis?

The questions become even more hilariously voyeuristic as King questions Toni Llerena, a male to female transgender:

KING: What are you now, are you just a man dressing up as woman?

LLERENA: Basically if you want to put it in those terms.

KING: You're not a transgender at all yet?

LLERENA: Technically, yeah, because I do feel as a woman, I feel woman inside trapped in a male's body, so yeah.

KING: You're not a cross-dresser?

LLERENA: If you want to put it like that, yeah.

KING: Jessica, what is she -- what is Toni to you?

Cross-dressing must have been on Larry's mind because it is a theme he returns to when interviewing Susan Ashley Stanton, formerly known as Steve, who was a city manager of Largo, Florida:

KING: What was the surgery like?

STANTON: I've not had surgery yet. I scheduled it. I'm excited about it but I've not had it yet.

KING: Well, now I understand. You're a transgender but you haven't had surgery.

STANTON: Yes.

KING: So basically you're a cross-dresser?

Larry King finally reaches an inadvertently comedic height with this series of questions to the former Steve Stanton:

KING: Don't you feel funny with the wrong genitalia?

STANTON: Yes, it feels out of whack now. So maybe I'll have to have it corrected. But yes, and some people do and some people don't. I do.

KING: Not as a joke, you stand up in the women's bathroom?

STANTON: No, I don't. No, I sit down in the woman's bathroom.

KING: You do sit down?

 

 

—P.J. Gladnick is a freelance writer and creator of the DUmmie FUnnies blog.


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Now that's

Now that's entertainment.

I imagined that interview with John Cleese reading Larry's part. It was much funnier that way.

This is ridiculous....Larry

This is ridiculous....Larry Springer???

It figures though, he has a show on this subject and doesn't invite Micheal Moore or Rosie. Well if that isn't biased..er ah....sexist...ahhh....i dunno!

"I hired you to get some track laid, not jump around like a bunch a kansas city faggots" Slim Pickens

Is Larry serious?

Given that CNN goes out of their way to promote this sort of thing, you have to wonder was Larry being intentionally funny or was he serious and it just came across as funny?

Either way, he will have to be rehabilitated so as to understand the seriousness of this subject matter.

}}---> I saw it Rock

I think Larry was discombobulated with the subject and the terminology.

Poor Larry

Which is why, if he values his job at CNN, he will get with the program!

The YouTube Snowman is watching... always watching... waiting...

I caught some parts of that

I caught some parts of that and found it bizarre. I particularly thought Larry's very ornate suspenders were appropriate for the occasion.

The Cadaver Meets the Freaks

This looks like one Larry King Show I shouldn't have missed.  As I was reading the transcript, I imagined a laugh-track overlayed to it.  This could've been a good SCTV script.

Close, but no cigar


>KING: Do we know how many transgenderites, if that's the correct term, there are in this country?<

 

That may not be the correct term, Larry, but you're getting there.

I think...

...that the proper term is "Transgenderinis". (Singular: "transgenderino").

"Transgenderite" is the singular pre-op descriptor following breast implantation but pre-weenie-ectomy.

...or something.

 

Larry the Cable Guy

I'm surprised he didn't ask one of them for a date.

I didn't see it, thank god.

I didn't see it, thank god.

I watched.  Mr. King was

I watched.  Mr. King was perplexed yet mannerly. NPI.

Question: What's in it for them to air their problems on t.v.?

King's Irrelevancy

I didn't think Larry King could not become any more irrelevent than he currently it. He proved me wrong.

OMG! I actually watched

OMG!

I actually watched part of this late last night on his rerun of the show....

I truly felt sorry for the kids that were on though...

What a thing to do IMHO...have your kids on and have them give their opinion and experiences with mom/dad? growing up...

I found it disgusting...needless to say I did not watch anymore after the jesus character.

Pathetic what this country has become.

bigtimer Agree

bigtimer

Agree

Pathetic in what sense?  I

Pathetic in what sense?  I mean, given, its in my honest opinion that if you've 'always known' as Ive been told by a certain transgendered friend is the case for most, then why get married, have kids, THEN decide to do it?

I still don;t see that as pathetic, but it certainly puts more of a strain on the children than need be.  I doubt growing up with a 'mother' who used to be my father would be much easier if I had only ever known them as a woman, but to raise the children AS a father and then transition, well, that's tough on the children.  Either way, I think a bit more open-mindedness to the genuine issue of gender dysphoria is needed in America.  It doesn't mean endorsing crossdressers as legitimately normal, sane people by and large either.  Some are, but most are over the top 'queens.'  I can assure you, most of the transgender population just wants to correct the issue and get back to living a normal life in the gender they mentally are aligned with.  I too found it hard not to poke fun at such things, but I assure you, once you know someone who goes through this and you see all they've dealt with and you *know* them and its not some arbitrary stranger you can easily discount, you gain a much better understanding and respect for how serious and tough it is for someone to go through such gender dysphoric feelings.

 

Its just a shame that the fringe 'crazies' are the ones the camera focuses on.  If you still have a hard time believing any transgender person could *ever* be a normal person who just was 'born in the wrong body' due to media's coverage of the subculture, then I ask you, how does the media portray conservatives?  Bible bashing, elder-hating, money-loving, greedy fat white men who only care about themselves.  Like the crazy transgenders, sure, there ARE some conservatives like that, but also like the transgender community, most conservatives are just like you and me and aren't anywhere near the charicature media paints them out to be.  One might ask why a homosexually sympathetic media would promote such a fringe group as the poster child of the transgender standard but the main reason is homosexuality as a culture is usually sexually 'loose' and explicit, in your face, and totally over the top.  The transgendered person I know gets flak for not being 'out enough' or not being as 'fabulous' as they 'should' be.  The sad fact is, the homosexual fringe that endorses such a 'fast' lifestyle sees transgenders as merely a tool to further push their message of abandonment of morals and when they realized most transgenders are like the 'normal' people of the opposite birth sex, they saw it as a road block.  They'd rather push the 'drag queen' types into the spotlight since it helps further their agenda rather than an introverted 20 year old boy who has always identified as a female and once gone through transition plans to live like any other female. (or vice versa for the female to male transexuals.)