‘Today’ host Karl Stefanovic says sorry for ‘tranny’ jokes: ‘I was an ignorant tool’

“The Today Show” presenter Karl Stefanovic has apologised on Friday for his series of “tranny” jokes on air. He joked with 9News reporters Christine Ahern after she and her cameraman were apparently attacked by a transvestite on a Rio de Janeiro beach.

“I was an ignorant tool,” the Nine Network host has told the viewers.

He made repeated jokes about transgender people on Thursday after hearing Ahern’s brush with thieves while she and the cameraman were setting up for an Olympics. He called the thieves “trannies,” jokingly referring to the 1994 Australian film “The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert.”

“Yesterday, I got it very wrong. … By using the word ‘tranny,’ I offended an awful lot of beautiful, sensitive people. I honestly didn’t know the negative and deeply hurtful impact that word has, not only on members of the LGBTQI community, but on their family and on their friends,” a remorseful Stefanovic said.

As he knew trans people as fun-loving, he thought they would laugh along with him. However, he has learnt that the word offended them instead. He admitted that he didn’t knew what LGBTQI (lesbians, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer/questioning and intersex) meant before he made the joke. He was also unaware that his comments had crossed the line, and for that he was sorry.

The presenter has admitted that he didn’t know he had offended a group of people because he hasn’t experienced the oppression they feel in their daily lives.

“Therein lies part of the problem, I think. I never bothered to ask. Like so many other words we’ve used in the past, it’s time to throw that one in the bin.”

He concluded, “I get it wrong, I probably always will. But as a result of yesterday, I truly have learned a lesson. People, my brothers and sisters in the community who like and respect me, have told me to educate myself. I have started to.”

Tranny is a pejorative word that usually refers to transvestites, transgender and transsexual people. A transvestite is a person, generally male, who likes to wear clothing of the opposite sex. Transgender, on the other hand, is a general term describing people who diverge from their conventional gender roles. Transsexual, meanwhile, is a person who identifies with and feel he/she belongs to the opposite sex.