Jenna Talackova, the transgender Miss
Universe contestant who has won the right to compete in the pageant,
was mocked Wednesday on Don Imus' radio show.
Talackova is the 23-year-old Canadian
who was told she could not compete in the Miss Universe Canada
pageant because she was not born female. The organization later
backtracked, saying Talackova would be allowed to participate. On
Tuesday, Donald Trump, the owner of Miss Universe, said he was
dropping
the ban and transgender women were welcome to compete.
On Imus in the Morning, which is
simulcast on Fox Business Network, producer and known antagonist
Bernard McGuirk repeated Trump's suggestion that Talackova's name
sounded like “genital.”
“I looked at her name, and somebody
brought this up to me, 'jennatal' those are the first letters of her
name. And it's 'genital,'” Trump told ABC's Barbara Walters as he
held up a card which read “JENNATAL.” “And I'm saying to
myself, that's strange. Could there be an ulterior motive?”
“They whacked it right off,”
McGuirk said on the program. “And Trump thinks something is amiss
because the woman's name is Jenna Talackova. So, the first three
syllables are 'genital.' … Something fishy maybe, some sort of
hopes going on.”
McGuirk's observation was met with
laughter from the engineering booth. (Watch the segment on
EqualityMatters.org.)