NBC Maine's Transgender Weathercast

I don’t know whose idea it was to put a transgender woman in a ridiculous, ill-fitting dress to do the weather Saturday. The dress looked like something an ice skater would wear in the Olympics. News Center Maine's (NBC) weathercast -- with a person named “Chartreuse Money” -- was a terrible idea for which apologies are required along with a promise never to do it again. 

 

Why? Probably not for the reasons you might suspect. 

 

Unlike, say, sports, people do not perish if they don’t take the baseball scores seriously. But, meteorologists' and weathercasters' #1 job is to provide life-saving, time-critical information that people -- too often -- don't immediately act upon. When warnings are not acted on, it can result in tragedy.  

In nearby Upstate New York, just 13 hours after this weathercast, three died (including six-year-old twins) when a tornado struck in the middle of the night. There was an advance tornado warning issued for the town of Clark Mills where the fatal tornado occurred. Whether the warning was received by the occupants of the twins' home, I don't know. The media described the girls as "sleeping" when the storm struck. Here's my point: Having a woman – trans or otherwise – appear in an ill-fitting, inappropriate dress, calling the audience 'honey' and other derisive behavior  – makes a mockery of television weather and, in my opinion, makes it less likely a future critical tornado or flash flood warning will be taken seriously. The management of the TV station is essentially saying, "we don't take weather seriously." If they don't, why should you?

 

If a television station wants to celebrate Pride Month with a transgender presenter, please put him or her in the appropriate business attire and let them present the weather in a serious manner.