Peppermint as Pythio. Photo: Joan Marcus

The Gray Lady apparently can’t learn how to use pronouns correctly. In a review of Head Over Heels, the hybrid Go-Go’s jukebox musical and Elizabethan farce that opened on Broadway last night, the New York Times’s chief theater critic Ben Brantley misgenders the character of an oracle played by former Drag Race contestant Peppermint, who happens to be making her debut as the first openly trans woman actor to create a principal role on Broadway. The character, a non-binary oracle named Pythio, uses they/them pronouns, something clearly established within the show. In Brantley’s review, he made a joke at the expense of the character’s identity, referring to someone who “finds himself strangely drawn to her–I mean them.” The line, which somehow made it through edits, drew plenty of ire on online.

This comment is at best, unfunny, and worst, transphobic. We’ve got to do better, folks! Haven’t seen @HOHmusical, but this problematic @nytimestheater review just made it jump to the top of my list! pic.twitter.com/ope6e3vb5P — Andrew Keenan-Bolger (@KeenanBlogger) July 27, 2018

who else is shocked ben brantley is a condescending fuck face pic.twitter.com/y4KbWQ9ksU — laura j. brown (@laurjbrown) July 27, 2018

Does Ben Brantley know his gender is a social construct? — Alan Henry (@AlanHenry) July 27, 2018

If this is how dismissive you are about nonbinary gender identity, perhaps you are not the right person to be reviewing this show! pic.twitter.com/H3rysqeEwf — Louis Peitzman (@LouisPeitzman) July 27, 2018

Hey @hellerNYT this is seriously problematic. And really hurtful. Just because you don’t get it doesn’t mean it’s okay to demean people’s existence. Fix this. People are dying because we are seen as fake. But we are real. Make a correction and apologize. pic.twitter.com/5t0LXmMjOY — Chase Strangio (@chasestrangio) July 27, 2018

On Friday morning, the Times updated the language in the review to say that the character “finds himself strangely drawn to Pythio.” Brantley then released an apology saying, “I was trying to reflect the light tone of the show, as well as a plot point in which one character learns to acknowledge another not as ‘she’ but as ‘they.” He continued, “this unfortunately read as more flippant than I would ever have intended, especially with regard to a performance that marks a historical first. I am deeply sorry.”