“The Bachelorette” doesn’t officially kick off its 13th season until Monday night, but one of the 31 men vying for Rachel Lindsay’s love has already started off on the wrong foot.

ABC posted contestants’ bios to its website this week, and Bryce, a 30-year-old firefighter, has been criticized for how he responded to a certain question: What’s your biggest date fear?” 

“The chick is actually a dude,” Bryce responded, per The Wrap. 

The contestant invited swift backlash from the LGBTQ community, including comments from “Ru Paul’s Drag Race” alum Sharon Needles and transgender actress Jen Richards. 

ABC provided The Wrap with a statement denouncing Bryce’s answer. “This comment does not reflect the views of ABC, Warner Horizon or bachelorette Rachel Lindsay,” a representative stated. The network promptly removed the line from its website.

As Refinery29 points out, Bryce wasn’t the only contestant to display uninformed views about transgender people. Lucas, a man who lists his occupation as “whaboom,” stated that if he could have lunch with any one person, dead or alive, he’d choose Bruce Jenner (”dead”) and Caitlyn Jenner (”alive”). 

“Would be a very interesting convo,” Lucas said.

“Lucas is fetishizing the experience of a trans woman,” Refinery29’s R.A. Farley wrote. “I’d like to think that Lucas wants to talk to Caitlyn Jenner in an effort to understand the trans experience. But I can’t help but think that’s not the case.”

Those missteps aside, Season 13 of “The Bachelorette” has been praised for being the series’ most progressive yet, with a black bachelorette and a more diverse set of contestants than ever before. The series returns to ABC Monday at 9 p.m. ET.

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For Julie Andrews, being a patron of the arts and an LGBTQ rights advocate go hand in hand. 

In a new interview with The Advocate, the legendary star of “Mary Poppins” and “The Sound of Music” credited her years of working in film and on stage for exposing her to diversity early on. When it comes to queer people specifically, Andrews said she’s “just always” been an ally. 

“Theater, anyway, is such an open community and free,” the Oscar winner said. She went on to note that she was “very aware of bias and bigotry” from a young age, but that she “was raised not to be that way and not to think that way.”

“It always seemed puzzling to me that the world wasn’t just embracing human beings. But it’s never been something that I stumbled on,” she said. “It’s just always been innate, thanks I think to the professions that I am in.” 

Andrews, 81, is back in the spotlight as the host of “Julie’s Greenroom,” a new Netflix series for children that explores different aspects of the performing arts. Her co-stars in the series are the “Greenies,” a cast of original puppets that were created by The Jim Henson Company. One of the “Greenies,” Riley, is depicted as a gender neutral character. “We tried to be as inclusive as we possibly could within the show,” Andrews, who created “Julie’s Greenroom” with her daughter, Emma Walton Hamilton, and Judy Rothman, said. 

In March, Andrews and Hamilton spoke out against President Donald Trump’s “mind-boggling” plan to cut funding for the National Endowment for the Arts in an impassioned CNN editorial. True to form, the woman beloved by legions of fans for her iconic role as Maria von Trapp doubled down on that stance in the Advocate interview.

“There’s no doubt that [the arts] help people understand each other and they transcend all barriers, and I cannot think of anything more important,” Andrews said. As far as her suggestion for Trump’s apparent disregard for the arts is concerned, she said, “Talk to anybody that is passionate about them and listen and learn, because I cannot imagine a world without them.” 

For the latest in LGBTQ news, check out the Queer Voices newsletter. 

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Samantha Bee can’t get enough of Ivanka Trump’s new self-help book. Well, making fun of it at least.

In a recent “Full Frontal,” Bee went to great lengths to explain why she wouldn’t be reading Women Who Work: Rewriting The Rules again anytime soon.

Then on Friday, her show posted a 33-second video to YouTube which went even further ― by demonstrating what happened when one of its writers read the book from cover to cover. “It was not a good idea,” said the clip’s narrator.

Find out what went down in the clip above.

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