By The First‘Friends’ creator Marta Kauffman is again apologizing for her sitcom, nearly two decades after the show’s finale. While previously, Kauffman had apologized for the all-white cast, this time she’s apologizing for using the incorrect pro nouns for Chandler’s transgender parent, played by Kathleen Turner.
“We kept referring to her as Chandler’s father, even though Chandler’s father was trans,” she said.
“Pronouns were not yet something that I understood. So we didn’t refer to that character as she. That was a mistake.”
From BBC.com:
Kauffman was speaking to the BBC World Service’s The Conversation in an interview to be broadcast on 11 July.
Turner appeared in the hit sitcom in three episodes in season seven, which was first broadcast in 2001.
Her character was the butt of jokes from others, including Matthew Perry’s Chandler and his mother, about her gender identity and appearance.
In a 2018 interview, Turner said she would not take on the role if she was offered it again, and would leave it to a trans woman.
She also said elements of Friends had not aged well, noting how there was confusion over whether the character was a drag queen or a trans woman.
