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US network ABC has pulled its cross-dressing comedy Work It after just two episodes.

The show, which has been blasted by critics and transgender activists, suffered from poor ratings since it was aired on Tuesdays at 8.30 pm. According to Entertainment Weekly, the new show managed to bring in 6.1 million viewers when it premiered on January 3, but ratings dropped to 5.1 million for the second episode. It further noted that the modest debut is despite the show’s biggest comedy competitor, Fox’s Glee, airing a repeat. 

Work it ad and screen shot.

Work It followed two straight male characters played by Amaury Nolasco and Benjamin Koldyke who are fired from their jobs as car salesman and decide to pose as women in a last-ditch attempt to find work in a difficult economy, was met with negative reactions.

Organisations such as the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), a non-governmental media monitoring organisation in the US, which promotes the image of LGBT people in the media, didn't find the premise funny. 

"During a period in which the transgender community now routinely finds itself in the cultural crosshairs, the timing couldn't be worse for a show based on the notion that men dressed as women is inherently funny," the organisation said in a blog post titled Why ABC's new sitcom work it hurts the transgender community on its site before Work It premiered.

"GLAAD has seen the pilot and while the show’s pilot does not explicitly address transgender people, many home viewers unfamiliar with the realities of being transgender will still make the connection. Work It invites the audience to laugh at images of men trying to adopt a feminine appearance, thereby also making it easier to mock people whose gender identity and expression are different than the one they were assigned at birth. Said GLAAD’s Acting President Mike Thompson, 'Transphobia is still all too prevalent in our society and this show will only contribute to it. It will reinforce the mistaken belief that transgender women are simply ‘men pretending to be women,’ and that their efforts to live their lives authentically as women are a form of lying or deception.'"

After viewing the pilot for Work It, GLAAD and the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) launched a campaign against the show in an effort to stop the airing of the new television series they say is offensive to transgender people and mocked transgender struggles in the workplace. The two organisations went on to place a full-page ad in Daily Variety magazine and write a joint opinion piece on the Huffington Post firing back at ABC for airing the comedy in the first place.

"[ABC] should know how offensive this show is, and that it even has the potential to jeopardise the safety of many transgender Americans in the process," the ad said, among other things.

Enlarge ad placed by GLAAD and HRC, two national LGBT advocacy organisations, in media industry publication Daily Variety as part of a campaign to educate the media industry and the general public around the show.

Upon hearing news of the show's cancellation, Herndon Graddick, GLAAD's Senior Director of Programs and Communications, said, "While many of ABC's positive and groundbreaking portrayals of LGBT people have been critical and popular successes, the public had little interest in this outdated show. As a result of this campaign, an important dialogue has been started in Hollywood and mainstream media about the real discrimination faced by transgender people today."

“By encouraging the audience to laugh at the characters’ attempts at womanhood, the show gives license to similar treatment of transgender women…,” the ad read.

The organisations also claimed the show could contribute to the high levels of job discrimination that transgender Americans currently face and will give license for people to mock and ridicule those whose gender expression might not fit with what society considers the norm.

ABC’s head of entertainment, Paul Lee, defended the network’s decision to air the show earlier this month, telling reporters Tuesday that he loved the 1982 cross-dressing movie Tootsie, and I still love ‘Tootsie.'

"I don’t find it to be offensive. So in that particular case I didn’t get it.” 

Noting the well-received gay characters on ABC’s Modern Family and Grey’s Anatomy, he added, “We thought there was room for a very, very, very, very silly show.”