Lois not in GLBTA

Is it just me or is Lois on Family Guy getting more and more ignorant? Her attitudes to Brian's various girlfriends are but one indicator. Another is her attitudes towards gays: in "You May Now Kiss the... uh... Guy Who Receives," Lois's initial refusal to allow Jasper's wedding to a Filipino man was not exactly exemplary of tolerance but at least it showed a woman intelligently willing to amend her views.

Last night, in one of the unfunniest Family Guy episodes to date, "Quagmire's Dad," the writers introduce Quagmire's father, a commissioned officer in the Navy, only to have him get a sex change operation. It is not at all surprising that Peter comes to the unmindful conclusion that Quagmire's father feeling like a woman trapped in a man's body is exactly equal to his being gay. But it is surprising—and disappointing—that Lois would come to that same conclusion.

And just for the record, this is the difference, which both Peter and certainly Lois ought to be aware of: a gay man is attracted to other men but has no desire to change his body in any radical way (even if he's usually a "bottom"); a transgendered man may be attracted to either men or women but regardless has a strong compulsion to change his body into a woman's body. Lois apparently learned nothing in "You May Now Kiss the... uh... Guy Who Receives."

Oh, and how could Brian not tell Ida is a post-op transsexual if he's so damn disgusted by the concept?

On another note, it was good to see the animators not putting Private chevrons on every single Navy officer shown (as they have done with police officers in prior episodes), and in fact giving appropriate Navy officer rank insignia to the officers shown. Though there was this one guy whose rank fluctuated between Lieutenant and Commander (two and three solid stripes on the shoulderboard, respectively) but maybe we can chalk that up to the exigencies of animation.