Transgender Erotica Awards Host a ‘T.E.A. Party’

Cosmo loves the Tea Party – but it’s not the one you’re thinking of. 

In his latest piece [1] for women’s magazine Cosmopolitan, Frank Kobola applauded the new “less offensive name” of the annual Tranny Awards: the “Transgender Erotica Awards.” The transgender adult industry event hosted by Grooby Productions began in 2007 as a “small, online-only awards show designed to celebrate transgender erotica,” but today has transformed into a “full awards show extravaganza, honoring models and performers in 21 categories and attracting attention from outside of the trans community.” The awards after party (surprise, surprise) will play on the acronym of Transgender Erotica Awards to become the new T.E.A. Party.

Grooby Productions published the following statement [2]: 

We started the show as an online event for a bit fun and never anticipated the interest and growth of the show to become the main annual event for trans women and men in the adult industry,” said Grooby Productions owner Steven Grooby. “When we named the show the ‘Tranny Awards’ in 2007 the climate was different and the usage of the word ‘tranny’ was appropriate as a catchy title in an online porn event.  While I personally believe, within the context of porn, that ‘tranny’ has its place as a descriptor in the same way many words have their place only in porn, I do understand why some people have become frustrated with its usage here.

As we aim to be inclusive of all areas of transgender erotica and are looking to broaden the appeal of the show to mainstream media, we believed it was time to re-brand the event to the Transgender Erotica Awards – or the TEA’s.  The acronym works especially well since ‘T’ is used within the community and we’re going to have some fun with the promotions (the after party, for example, will be ‘The TEA Party’).  I’d like to thank the extended trans adult community for their input and feedback over the last few months. We will be producing a show that the whole transgender adult community can be proud of. 

Kobola acknowledged [1] the Tea Party acronym, “which is great if you love irony.” 

Cosmo hyped other “interesting” stories the past from a Holiday Sextacular [3]” piece to calling waiting until a second date for sex [4] as “100% outdated.”