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Dan Savage

Gay rights activist and sex columnist Dan Savage, after being glitter bombed at the University of Oregon earlier this month, was yet again showered with sparkles in response to using transphobic language in his Savage Love column and on stage. This story has taken quite a few turns.

The Bilerico first reported the incident on November 14^th, an article which Savage blogged, “actively and maliciously misrepresented” his remarks. On November 9th, Savage, who is on a tour of Universities for his upcoming MTV series, was speaking to an audience at the University of California Irvine. On his blog, Savage explains that he was answering a question from an audience member about her boyfriend who, in her words, “likes watching shemale porn.” In his response, Savage was reported to have used to problematic terms, “shemale” and “freaky tranny porn,” while also confirming that yes, the boyfriend in question was a freak. Savage has fired back to the allegations claiming, “I did say ‘shemale.’ I read the question as-written, repeated the term in my response, and then used ‘transsexual’ in place of ‘shemale’…modeling the use of less offensive terms.” He added, “I never used the phrase ‘freaky tranny porn.’ I never said the word ‘tranny’ at UCI at all.”He does admit to calling the boyfriend “a very freaky boy,” but apparently did not mean it negatively as he and his column are “pro-freak.”

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