Jason Isaacs doubles down on support for transgender comedian Jordan Gray, who stripped off on Channel 4, after Ofcom complaints-Cydney Yeates-Entertainment – Metro

Jason Isaacs posted a statement voicing his support for Jordan Gray and her performance on Friday Night Live (Picture: Getty/Rex)

Jason Isaacs has once again shared his unwavering support for transgender comic Jordan Gray after she was hit with Ofcom complaints following her nude performance on Channel 4’s Friday Night Live.

Gray performed a tongue-in-cheek song before stripping off in front of audiences in the revived 80s show, which aired on October 21.

Although Gray’s segment delighted many audiences, television watchdog Ofcom later confirmed 1,458 people complained about her appearance on the programme.

Shortly after her routine, which went viral on social media, Harry Potter star Isaacs voiced his support, writing: ‘Jordan Gray just stripped naked mid-song on #FridayNightLive to show off her magnificent boobs and equally magnificent member, with which she played the keyboard as she brought her set to a close and the entire house down.

‘So much more dignified than parliament today. #Jordan4PM.’

He has since doubled down on his support, sharing a statement on Twitter to ‘everyone who was so bothered by my support for #JordanGray and her stripping off on live tv that they needed to let me know’.

Beginning his statement, Isaacs said: ‘The world is terrifyingly uncertain, war rages in Europe and the spectre of nuclear Armageddon hangs over all of us.

‘Putin’s grain blockade is driving huge numbers of people towards starvation and our western economies are on the edge of collapse, making the future look very bleak indeed for all with no respite in sight.

‘So, what’s really going on with your outrage when someone strips off on a late night edgy comedy show, well after the ratings watershed and where the presence of adult material and nudity has been warned against and is almost ubiquitous? Why?

‘Maybe, since nudity and sex is everywhere on the channel (have you seen Naked Attractions?), the problem is that, this time, the naked body was transgender? And/or that I called Jordan’s boobs and penis magnificent?’

Jordan Gray delighted Channel 4 audiences during a cheeky performance on the revived Channel 4 show (Picture: Rex)

Gray ended her performance by stripping off completely naked (Picture: Shutterstock)

Isaacs went on to explain that he felt Gray’s exposure ‘felt like a magnificent, subversive act’.

‘It was challenging and sensational television in a landscape that feels all too curated most of the time,’ he said.

‘The tsunami of insulting tweets denigrating the shape of her breasts and the size of her penis spoke volumes about the body shaming and fear of the other she was trying to subvert.’

‘Yes, “her” penis,’ he said. ‘An enormous number of people dredged the barrel of playground taunts to find names to call me and Jordan for that grammatical courtesy.

‘Yes, it felt like an unusual thing to type, but I knew that’s what she’d like as a transgender woman so I did it. I’m Jewish and I hate people calling me “a Jew”.

‘I want to be called “Jewish”. Might not seem like much to you, but it’s everything to me – it’s the difference between me hearing a threat and a welcome. Between hate and hello.

Isaacs stressed that he found Gray’s performance funny (Picture: Getty)

‘So calling any transgender or [non] binary person by their favoured pronouns is a grammatical shift for me, hopefully increasingly easier with time, but it’s a huge deal to people who suffer so much from prejudice and violence that it feels pretty selfish not to make the slight effort to ease their journey.’

Isaacs added: ‘Many people wrote that her disrobing was akin to flashing or a criminal assault from a sexual predator and would be triggering to children or adult survivors of attacks who were watching the show. Would I sanction a man indecently exposing himself to my two daughters or on the wards of the children’s hospital I support, some asked?

‘Er…no. But you knew that, didn’t you? Just like you actually do know the difference between a late night TV comedy show and a traumatic private encounter on the street or in the home.

‘Or the difference between a transgender woman singing a satirical song about her superiority and genuine misogyny. You know all of it. You didn’t take the song lyrics any more seriously than you took Harry Enfield’s kgg.$gmpney rants or even Victoria Wood’s comic genius at the keyboards.

‘You’re just angry. And confused.’

Isaacs ended his post by saying: ‘Maybe it’s about the other genuinely controversial issues surrounding trans women: access to women only spaces, early surgical and pharmaceutical intervention, legal definitions, sporting participation etc etc etc.

‘All the minefields that I was consciously nowhere near. I’m a straight, middle-aged white cis male and know where my opinions are uninformed, unwelcome and unhelpful.

‘Those are areas for serious debate between serious people, conducted with respect and compassion on all sides. Not on Twitter and not about this. And, I suspect, not with you.

‘I just thought she was funny.’

Gray was the first-ever transgender person to audition on The Voice in 2016 and she appeared on Channel 4’s Friday Night Special alongside the likes of Rosie Jones and Mawaan Rizwan.

Despite the complaints, Gray told Metro.co.uk she is touched by the support she has received and hopes that her performance will help spearhead acceptance going forward.

‘It’s been incredibly heart-warming that the vast majority of the press has been so overwhelmingly positive about my Friday Night Live performance,’ she said.

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‘Of course, social media has had more of a mixed response, but I’m amazed and thankful for the thousands of supportive messages I’ve received.  And I’m doing my best to engage with the people who aren’t so sure.’

‘And then there are some comments that are just hatred and leave no room to engage with.’

She added: ‘I hope that in choosing to do this performance, I’ve opened the door a crack wider for more acceptance in the long run, so that those who come after me, will one day no longer have to deal with that kind of reaction.’

Friday Night Live can be streamed on All4.

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