this post was submitted on 10 Jun 2026
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I'm not sure if OOP understands context; yes South Park has made jokes that could be construed as homophobic and not all of their older episodes have aged well (e.g. the core message of the episode about why it should be okay to use the f-slur, although it's worth noting that the episode is generally sympathetic to people who face anti-gay bigotry), but they also had an entire episode against homophobia in season one, way back in the 90s and well before gayness was widely accepted in American society. With the noted exception of Mr Garrison (admittedly a very large elephant in the room), South Park's portrayal of gay characters has almost always been sympathetic, and the simple fact of their inclusion used to be quite progressive (including, I would argue, their handling of a gay Satan early in the series).
Now their portrayal of trans issues has been more problematic, but at least it's showing signs of evolving in a positive direction, which is more than I can say of society as a whole, and it could have been so much worse (they never even approached Ace Ventura levels of transphobia, for example). Considering also South Park's handling of literally every other issue they've tackled over the decades, irreverence is obviously their MO, so OOP's desired level of unequivocal acceptance is a bit ridiculous to expect. Their irreverence has allowed them to play the role of joker, which has in turn given them a lot more leeway than most shows in lambasting and criticizing truly deserving targets.
But mostly, expecting perfect levels of political correctness from a show that's three decades old and that made a name for itself by covering hot topic issues is just ludicrous.
I disagree about Garrison. While Ms. Garrison wasn't portrayed as a very likeable character, she was always shown as somebody confident and self-empowering. She went on a journey, discovered herself, and was immediately fired from her job as a teacher: we the viewers were meant to be sympathetic to that plight. Later, she is depicted as sleeping with Richard Dawkins an uncomfortable number of times on screen, which is clearly not a visual that a homophobe would create.
I haven't seen the detransition episodes, though, so maybe those were different.
I agree on the other stuff you said, though, especially the irreverence and their role as jokers.
I would need to go back and rewatch the early episodes to have a confident take on Mr/Ms Garrison, but the biggest problem with the character IMO is that they are consistently one of the most garbage characters in the series, yet for a long time were the only part of the main-ish cast who were gay, and afaik is the only trans character at all (I'm blanking on any other trans characters besides "Heather," a fake-trans, although I haven't watched the most recent seasons). So while I would argue that Garrison was portrayed as a bad person who happens to be gay/trans rather than bad because of their gay/transness (basically the whole point of the episode where the kids are uncomfortable with Mr Slave, which the parents misinterpret as homophobia), it's not a great look for that to be the only LGBTQ+ character outside of a few minor characters, and I certainly would be understanding of folks who take offense at this. But as you say, it's not all black and white; even Garrison's sexuality/identity journey is handled sympathetically at times, and the other LGBTQ+ characters are handled quite sympathetically on the whole. That said, the series leans very heavily on the "G" part of that acronym, but that's not too surprising in a show that's always been from a primarily male perspective.