Transsexual ad

A few years ago there was a TV ad in my country that caused some fuzz: Two men kissing in a restaurant. The discussion was not about whether TV should be allowed to show men kissing, that was taken as given. No, the point was that the ad represented a new trend in advertising.

Since our culture now seems to accept homosexuality, using gay men in an ad targeting a wide audience was a sign of an important cultural shift -- of acceptance.

The following ad, made in Spain for a well known Swedish brand, may in the same way be a sign of changing attitudes towards transsexuals.

Now you could say that the ad is trivializing an extremely important personal decision by comparing it to redecorating a flat. Fair enough, but the point here is that IKEA is saying that SRS as something positive. They want their brand to be associated with a transsexual woman.