J. Crew Ad Showing A Boy With Pink Toenails Is Causing Controversy
LOS ANGELES (CBS) — A new ad in J. Crew's online catalog featuring a company executive painting her son's toe nails hot pink is causing a controversy among social conservatives.
The advertisement shows Jenna Lyons, President and Creative Director for the clothing company, painting her 5-year-old son Beckett's toe nails hot pink. The quote accompanying the image reads, "Lucky for me, I ended up with a boy whose favorite color is pink. Toenail painting is way more fun in neon."
Social conservatives including Erin Brown of the Media Research Center and Dr. Keith Ablow of Fox news link the pink toes to influencing the child's choice of gender identity.
According to Ablow, the ad homogenizes males and females, "And while that may seem like no big deal, it will be a very big deal if it turns out that neither gender is very comfortable anymore nurturing children above all else, and neither gender is motivated to rank creating a family above having great sex forever and neither gender is motivated to protect the nation by marching into combat against other men and risking their lives."
Advocacy groups disagree.
According to Mara Keisling, Executive Eirector of National Center for Transgender Equality, "This is not how the world works and not how children work, and not even how trans advocacy works. Complaints about the ad are totally blown out of proportion. It's just a cute ad with a cute mom-and-son scene and the kid wants to wear pink nail polish…"
We've seen celebrities like Seal and Dave Navarro sporting black and grey polish and Gwen Stefani's son Kingston paint his nails and toenails neon yellow, black, red, white and blue. No gender confusion here, just fashion.
The Williams Institute, a UCLA think tank focusing on lesbian, bisexual, bay and transgender issues, estimates 0.3 percent of homosexuals are transgendered.
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