An Open Letter To Hasbro

Your new series, Transformers-Robots In Disguise, is going to air on Cartoon Network. In the press release, you said it is because more boys watch Cartoon Network, that Transformers are for boys, and that girls watch what is still The Hub and will become Discovery Family.
Are you aware of how many of your fans you just insulted and dismissed.?  I am a female, and I have always loved Transformers, even though many deemed me nerdy and geeky because of it. It’s bad enough to be looked at as a freak by your peers simply because you love a particular toy. It is worse when fans of those same  toys — and the toy creator itself — ostracize those they don’t believe belong in the fandom. Yes, girls and women love Transformers just as much as boys and men.

I started watching Transformers when I was a kid in school. It was the original, now known as Generation 1. That was 30 years ago and since then I have watched many different incarnations, Animated, Armada, Beast Wars, Prime. I’ve seen the movies. Cringed at the deaths of Transformers I came to care about. I’ve read the comics, fan fictions, bought toys, tee-shirts and movies.

Now you say they are for boys. Why? Why do feel the need to dictate whom the cartoon is for? Why can’t it be for girls as well? Have you seen Twitter, Facebook and Deviant Art? So many of the Transformer fans there are girls and women.

Gender bias is nothing new and sadly a very real topic in the geek world. To have the very creators of something I enjoy so much deem it not for me because I am a woman bothers me. Transformers are just as much mine as any boy or man’s.

But your comments did not just insult Transformers’ legions of female fans. They also insulted and dismissed the legions of Bronies who are loyal to My Little Ponies. These boys and men have faced mockery and ridicule for their enjoyment and loyalty to a show, you and others have deemed appropriate only for girls. School age boys have been bullied, men have been laughed at and in some cases physically attacked for being Bronies.

Perhaps you could lead the way in ending the gender biased and separatism that plagues not only the geek world, but society in general, by not delegating which genders your shows and toy lines are for. Instead, you could promote and market them to all their fans regardless of gender.