Oh what the hell.

This morning on ‘The Today Show‘, Karl Stefanovic and Sylvia Jeffreys crossed to Christine Ahern, the journo who was heavily reported on yesterday after being attacked and mugged on the street in Rio.

Many of the stories about the mugging were reported with insanely inappropriate headlines that contained slurs and outdated terminology. You see, the people who robbed Ahern were transgender, so of course, their gender becomes the point focus point of every story and headline.

While this is clearly awful, Stefanovic really outdid everyone by not only using outdated terms and transphobic slurs such as ‘transvestite’ and ‘tranny’ during the live cross this morning, he used them repeatedly, and finished off with a transphobic “joke”.

They posted part of the piece on Twitter, but cut off all the footage that included slurs:

In possibly one of the most transphobic pieces of Australian television seen in many years, Ahern described her attackers as ‘a group of transvestites’, then Stefanovic joked that their cameraman was “no stranger to trannies”.

“He has fought off tougher. Tougher trannies. They don’t call him the bull for nothing.”

Then, the host, garishly laughing, told viewers they’d made up a ‘WANTED’ poster for Ahern‘s attackers. He then proceeded to hold up a placard with a photo of Hugo Weaving‘s character in ‘Priscilla: Queen of the Desert’ on it.

“The other thing is Chris, I know that you have gone to see the police about this tranny. We have a confit made up and we know they don’t all look the same. Is that the tranny they are talking about it? Christine sent me that on email.”

Now, to any person who’s even thought twice about transgender rights, this is shocking and bitterly disappointing.

Firstly, GLAAD and Aussie LGBTQIA groups list ‘transvestite’ as an outdated term that’s always referred to a drag queen, and ‘tranny’ as a slur.

Secondly, ‘drag queen’ is not the same ‘transgender’. While it is possible for someone to be both of those things, those two terms are completely different – one refers to a man who dresses in exaggerated women’s clothing for the purpose of entertainment. To be transgender means that someone was born a particular sex that is different to the gender they identify with.

All of this information is easily findable on the internet – it might be worth researching a topic, especially a sensitive one, before you start repeating defamatory slurs on national television.

So, let’s give a huge congrats to Stefanovic and his team for validating every neanderthal who’s used ‘tranny’ as an insult, laughed at someone for their gender, or assaulted a transgender person simply for presenting themselves as the person they’ve always felt they are.

Karl, we love you mate, but it’s 2016 – this shit is not on.

Source: The TODAY Show.