You React To the
Holiday Inn Controversy


Here is a sampling of letters we received on the Holiday Inn controversy. Some of these are excerpts of email sent to the company, others are letters sent directly to Transgender Forum. I believe that the letters fairly reflect the basic proportion of comments pro and con the advertisement and the company's actions that were received by TGF

--Cindy Martin.


To whom it may concern:

I was fascinated to find that Holiday Inn was actually featuring a transsexual in one of their ads; and not just buried somewhere in the twilight schedule. During the Super Bowl! My gender-nets were all buzzing for days about this, and although I am no football fan, I actually watched the Super Bowl to see if this was true.

And I was not disappointed. At that moment.

I am saddened to find that Holiday Inn has found that being a trend-setter is sometimes a painful place to be. In noting that "some" people complained about the texture of that ad, enough to have you remove it from your advertising schedule, I can only add my utter dismay to the swell, and backlash, that you will surely experience.

I actually find it deplorable that a multi-national corporation would buckle under such low-rent pressure. Do you have any idea what you are alienating as opposed to the few that you might placate? Is your company policy subject to discriminatory homophobia on the order of Texaco's prejudice?

I very often have made Holiday Inn my choice of accomodations. As a politically-inclined person, I have regularly used the local Holiday Inn for meetings and such. Also, many of my friends, associates, and contacts in the gay, as well as the transgendered, community use Holiday Inns and applauded your efforts to overcome a societal taboo.

Daralyn S Maxwell
Former Customer


I saw it and thought the narrators comment really trivialized all that a TS goes through to get where she is - it is sure not a matter of just throwing $$ at it.

Suzih


The real question is, if we, and others, complain, will they be brave enough to put the ad back? Or will they become like the Boy Scouts and their stand on gay members?

Karen


I sent the following letter by FAX on my letterhead and by email:
MR JOHN SWEETWOOD
Executive Vice President & Chief Marketing Officer
Holiday Inn Worldwide
Corporate Headquarters
Three Ravinia Drive, Suite 2900
Atlanta, Georgia 30346-2149


Dear Mr Sweetwood,

We noticed with dismay your removal of the Holiday Inns television ad announcing the Holiday Inns International cap ex project to upgrade your facilities. The ad was effective, informative, attention getting and, in my opinion, taseful. Your choice in not rebroadcasting the ad does have precedence with the McIntosh SuperBowl ad of 1984 and was initially not unexpected by us.

Your ostensible reason for doing so, however, seems to us to be a bit counterproductive. By apologizing to one base of customers and removing materials which they found offensive, has profoundly offended some of our ownership.

As owners of a niche investment banking/management consulting company, We and our employees travel extensively. Holiday Inns and Holiday Inn Express are always a lodging option for us. In recent years we have stayed more often with Marriott Courtyards and suite hotels rather than your chains. Your promotion of your newly refurbished product and our mainstreaming of a transgendered woman had encouraged us to take a new look at Hoiliday Inns. Your apology and action in removing the ad has caused the opposite effect.

Please be advised that in light of your actions, we will not lodge, arrange meetings nor dine in Holiday Inns in the future as the only message we can take from your company's actions is a lack of welcome to the transgendered.

Sincerely,

Sally Anne Ofner


To Whom it may concern, I have just heard that there is intention on your part to pull your recent ad featuring a transsexual because of a few complaints. I would like to urge you in the strongest possible terms to please reconsider!

As a transgendered person (transsexual to be precise) I and my entire community were completely uplifted to see a national chain such as yours portray someone from our community in such a well mannered, tasteful and open way. We are NOT perverts or freaks as some very small minded individuals would automaticaly assume. Our numbers come from the entire population at random.

That a small group of paranoid individuals with obviously no idea of the utterly benign truth about who and what we are could bring a large and very brave-minded company like yours to its' knees is sad evidence of the power weilded by ignorance.

Our lives are full enough of hate and prejudice from these ignorant people (who are just as likely as anyone in our families to have a transgendered member in their midst). Please do not give another victory to these forses of hatred and take back this one small step of pride and acceptance that our community has so desperately deserved.

My disappointment in your company if you do will affect my and my community's future hotel bookings. You could not possibly imagine the number of transgendered people whose only place of refuge is an affordable hotel room.

Sincerely,

Sheri G. Evans


As I work as a Creative Director for a large national agency and as a transgendered person I have watched with professional and personal interest the issue of the Holiday Inn Super Bowl ad featuring a transexual character.

When I saw the ad I initially examined how I personally felt about it - and on balance felt OK. As a practitioner in the industry I was very pleased that a: Holiday Inn was doing, what is for them, some pretty bold advertising which I believed made their point regarding their four year program of modernization, and b: that they had faith in the research done by their ad agency Fallon McElligot, showing little resistance to the portrayal of a transexual character.

I was slightly dissapointed that it appeared that they had not cast a true transexual for the role but felt that the treatment was not entirely unsympathetic to this issue. I congratulated Holiday Inn on their willingness to look beyond this, potentially controversial issue and at the ad's message content. The subject matter of the ad was not false in indicating that there would indeed be some surprise should a transexual appear at her reunion - I know this must have happened to some of your readers. Additionally the portrayal of the transexual character as a woman of grace and beauty did not reinforce some stereotypical perceptions of post-op TSs as bizarre Drag Queens. For this I believe they are to be praised.

I then watched as the controversy unfolded. As far as I can gather directly from the statements issued by Holiday Inn - and not their interpretation of them by the media - It is NOT true to say that the spot was pulled following complaints. The ad was, as I understand it, meant, to air on Super Bowl with possible, but not planned, use in the future. There were I believe a small number of calls from Holiday Inn owners expressing concern at the content. This led to a review of the entire campaign planned by Fallon McElligot. This was clearly communicated in a statement by Craig Smith - VP of Communications. On the whole though I believe the response was favourable.

I believe that there is little ground for complaints to Holiday Inn on the basis of a decision to 'pull' the ad . When the decision as to whether to show it again had not been made prior or post its SuperBowl outing. In fact I believe that they should be congratulated for showing the ad at all, and for doing something to bring the issue into the mainstream with some sensitivity.

The press coverage of this story has been, at best, patchy and selective, and, at its worst, mendacious. This probably says more about the press we enjoy and tolerate than about Holiday Inn and their willingness to air the ad.

Yours sincerely

Tina Bourne


In today's world, you are never going to please everyone. Potentially, if anyone could have been offended, it could have been the transgendered community...

What has offended our community is that you pulled the ad because some people, who would like to make everyone live to thier idea of morals, were offended because you used a transgendered person in the ad. I would say that this implies that we are not worthy to be displayed on national television and that our nation should be ashamed of our type of people. Now that offends me. We are people just like anybody else. If you had used a racial slur then that would have been different but all you did is display a person who took a little pride in themselves to add a little color to the canvas that God gave them. What really is so wrong with that. In my opinion, in today's society, that takes courage and am proud to be a part of the transgendered community.

Michelle Elaine


I will send a complaint to Holiday Inn..... BUT NOT FOR THE SAME REASON AS YOUR SAMPLE LETTER.

I am not so much concerned of the ad being pulled as its content!

I am a transexual in transition myself... and I find it demeaning that a commercial would project us as people that have "AMAZING CHANGES" for a few thousand dollars! We are REAL people. If it were my choice, I would have liked that it was NOT aired at all.... given its projection of transexuals.

Julie

Mr. John Sweethood
Executive Vice President
Holiday Inn Worlwide
Atlanta, Georgia
Mr. Sweethood,

Today I was informed that under your direction, Holiday Inn pulled the Super Bowl ad (showing a Transgender person) because if offended some people. Let me ask a question: would you have pulled the ad if the person would have been homosexual? I'm sure people would have been offended, but Holiday Inn would not have pulled the ad. Are Transgendered people any different then homosexuals or "normal" people? No!! We pay our bills, support our families, go to church, work for major corporations, shop at the local grocery store, etc. Why should we be looked at differently? When I saw the ad I was proud of Holiday Inn, a company that was willing to recognize and accept us. But, ...you reacted to a few.

There have been many other companies that have offended people (e.g. the battle between Walt Disney and the Southern Baptist Convention), but they have not backed down. Please reconsider you action.

Sincerely,

Whitney Lynn
MtF Transgender


We shouldn't rush to judgement about Holiday Inn's pulling their ad featuring a transsexual. We don't actually know whether Holiday Inn caved in to anti-transgender criticism. In fact, two reviews in the San Francisco Chronicle about the ad were both negative for reasons that are pro-transgender, if anything. One reporter complained that the model was a genetic woman made up to look like a transsexual. The other complained that the facial expression by the school chum as he recognized his former friend in a new gender conveyed disapproval. As such, the reporter thought the ad was anti-transgender, and didn't like it for that reason.

Perhaps some of the criticism of the ad was from transsexuals themselves, who might not like its emphasis on appearance rather than on the deeper feelings that motivate gender transition. My feeling is that Holiday Inn simply has already accomplished its purpose---they got the public's attention and now want to move on. I feel we should appreciate what Holiday Inn has tried to do. Moreover, we might acknowledge the fine service many of us have experienced at the Holiday Inn on Van Ness in San Francisco.

Sincerely,
Joan Rowe


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