Bethenny Frankel, who founded the Skinny Girl Margarita during her stint on The Real Housewives of New York City, is getting called out over comments she made about having to discuss gender pronouns and a young “girl with a penis.”
Frankel, 50, made the remarks on the September 23 episode of her Just B with Bethenny Frankel podcast. The train wreck of an episode surrounded her 11 year old daughter Bryn and her recent experiences in school and at an all-girls summer camp.
Frankel started her rant off with expressing her frustrations over having to discuss gender identity and pronouns. The “pronoun conversation” as she referred to it, seemed to become redundant as she claims she had to have the conversation with each teacher and parent:
“We have to go into the fact that I did a Zoom for my daughter’s school and [had] the pronouns conversation with each teacher, each parent, each child…
And my daughter says in school, too, that everybody has to say their pronouns.”
The Skinny Girl entrepreneur continues on to say that her daughter was left confused:
“And my daughter didn’t even know what hers were … [She said], ‘I know what I am or what I think I am, but I have never said it out loud. It hasn’t come up for me.’ So she said she didn’t know.”
According to a 2020 research from the Trevor Project, which provides crisis intervention and suicide prevention services to at-risk LGBTQ youth, “Respecting pronouns is part of creating a supportive and accepting environment, which impacts well-being and reduces suicide risk.”
The part that left viewers extremely outraged were the egregious comments Frankel then made about an experience that took place at her daughters all girls camp this past summer. She goes into (unnecessary) details about the girls at the camp seeing “a person with a penis, who identifies as a girl” sharing bunks at the camp and “the girl with the penis…making out with a lot of different girls.”
“It’s an all girls camp and a person with a penis, who identifies as being a girl, went to the camp and was in the bunk with the girls. And the girls saw her – because it’s her because it’s a male anatomy but identifying as a woman – so the other girls saw a penis. They’re 9, 10 years old, so the parents obviously weren’t that happy,” she said, adding that she had also heard that, “this girl with a penis was making out with a lot of different girls at the camp.”
Frankel then implied that she wouldn’t be comfortable with her daughter sharing a bunk bed with a transgender child, saying “It’s an interesting conversation about a girl, female anatomy being in a male anatomy bunk or vice versa. Ok?”
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Frankel decided to conclude her rant with her opinion on the possible journey of being trans, suggesting that being trans could just be a phase:
“What happens if a child isn’t ready to make a decision? Don’t a lot of girls in college have a lesbian phase and then they realize that they’re not? Maybe they’re going through something, maybe they want attention, maybe they’re going through a bad breakup…
What is the age that someone’s absolutely positive who they are? There’s got to be gray area. I’ve heard of situations when [people] unmake that decision. What does that mean for that camp? What does that mean for that bunk? Maybe a mother isn’t ready for her child to see a penis in a bunk and understand that child identifies as a girl.”
Listeners were outraged by Frankel’s comments – some finding them to be insensitive, ignorant and just straight up transphobic. As usual, they took to Twitter to share their outrage and to try and hold the Real Housewives alum accountable.
Hi Beth! I was going to quote the transphobic language you used in the horrific intro to this episode, but it’s too hurtful to even put it in writing. Maybe do the bare minimum of research before you speak to your audience? https://t.co/x56eMpCOMH
— Matt McConkey Grassi (@mattmcconkey) September 25, 2021
Every parent has the right to raise their child however they want to. However, I personally think this sort of mindset that Frankel has shared could be problematic and is the type of mindset that has incited discrimination and hate towards the LGBTQ+ community. There is enough information out there that Frankel could’ve easily researched to answer some of her own inquiries. As they say, ignorance and hate isn’t something children are born with, it’s something they’re taught.
Do you think Bethenny Frankel’s comments were transphobic? Or are people to sensitive about the way in which she prefers to parent her daughter Bryn?
Source: Page Six
Sounds like she was having a healthy discussion. The reality is, it’s important to have a respectful dialogue about all of this. Even if people don’t like her angle on pronouns and children who are unsure of their sexuality, it important to avoid jumping on anyone who deviates from absolute compliance. Frankly (pun intended) while I admit that I didn’t listen to all of the podcast, I don’t disagree with her position on an 11 year old biologically male child that she doesn’t know who is claiming to be a female sleeping in the same bunk as her daughter. Children are undeveloped humans, so they are trying to figure out who they are and they love to create a stir. These claims are not untouchable, and her first priority is her own child. If the issue at hand for the trans/sexually-undetermined child is mental stability and “suicide prevention,” then I could see where that’s a huge red flag for Bethany. There is no reason to expect a parent to just acquiesce out of sexually-fluid appropriateness.
Exactly. She said nothing “hateful”, and discussion doesn’t equal hate. She brings up some very valid points. Discussion is about finding common ground, and the PC speak “Nazis” prevent that on the grounds of being “hateful”.
She is a cunt, cunt, cunt, cunt, cunt, cunt, cunt, cunt, cunt, cunt, cunt.
She is and has always been a complete bitch. Every word spoken by her comes from her asshole. Someone needs to pie her in public and embarrass that dirty bitch. And she wonders why no one wants to be around her. Fuck her