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I hate most commercials. Oh there are the few interesting or humorous ones. (Think Super Bowl ). Overall they just suck. Or they just have stuff you don’t understand til sometime later. Like feminine protection ads. Or stuff you don’t want to think about. Like sceptic tank cleaner. (ok, the ‘for her’ KY lubricant with the lesbian couple ad has some appeal nowadays).

My kids are at an age where they break down into fits of laughter at Viagra and condom commercials. Sometimes I wonder if they think adults just obsess about sex all the time. I’ll have to admit that watching commercials with oldsters giving each other that ‘let’s get it on before I end up in the ER with a 4 hour erection’ look kinda creepy.

I hate to break it to them. It most of the time I am thinking about bills and how to pay them. Or kids and how to feed and clothe them. Or, throw in a which one of them will I have to scream at to clean up after the puppy thought. Oh, I still think about sex, usually five minutes before I fall asleep and about 4 of those minutes before finding out my wife is already asleep.

But recently the worst commercials on the tv nowadays are the ones for Men’s supplements. You know the ones that claim to increase your testosterone. The magic formulas that will make you a real man again. Stronger, faster, more virile than when you were 18. I despise them. For the past year I have been actively suppressing my testosterone. I cannot stand the stuff and what it does to me. Or did to me. My wife sees those ads differently. She sees a chemical brew that can bring her husband back. She even commented once (with a sad longing tone in her voice) that she should get me some so things could go back to being the way they used to be. I look at her when she watches those commercials and can see the film of tears forming in her eyes. She won’t cry, she never does. I can tell she wants to turn and see the man she married sitting next to her. She can’t though and that almost breaks my heart. I hate commercials.

Trans children’s programming?

Like most kids in this country, mine are glued to Disney Channel, Nickelodeon, and Cartoon Network. Recently though I have noticed more and more instances of crossdressing in the live action shows as well as the cartoons.

When I was a kid I remember Bugs Bunny occasionally dressing like a girl. But other than that I don’t recall many cartoons that had situations involving crossdressers. There were sitcoms that featured crossdressing like Bosom Buddies. However not too many kids shows.

Nowadays, even Sponge Bob dons woman’s clothes. A recent episode of the new Speed Racer show had Speed and his brother Rex go drag in order to get by security guards. In the new Nickelodeon show Bucket and Skinner’s Epic Adventures, both protagonists dressed as girls to attend a party.

But the most surprising show is The Amazing World of Gumball on Cartoon Network. Gumball, who is male, gets stuck having to wear a dress to school after his dad shrinks all of his clothes doing laundry. While dressed he begins to enjoy the attention he gets being a girl. It’s not until his best friend starts to become attracted to him (he doesn’t know that the ‘girl’ is Gumball) that he starts to have second thoughts. That comes close to being the most trans situation I have ever seen in a mainstream children’s program.

I know that most of these situations are played for laughs. However, many of them are done without the overdone slapstick elements of the past. Is children’s programming becoming more trans friendly? Only time will tell.

A side note:
This current trend of crossdressed characters has not escaped my wife’s attention. I think she believes it is a conspiracy designed to remind her that I am trans no matter what she watches on tv. For her even children’s shows are not safe.