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Conservatives Are Already Mad About Billy Porter's "Sesame Street" Debut

Legends meeting legends!

Pose star Billy Porter recently took his trademark flair to 123 Sesame Street, and surprise, surprise, conservatives could not handle the heat.

On Thursday, the social channels for PBS and HBO's long-running children's series shared photos of Porter's visit to the Sesame Street set for an upcoming episode. Eagle-eyed Porter stans might recognize his fierce, category-defying tuxedo dress, which the Emmy-winning actor also wore to last year's Academy Awards.

Porter retweeted the sneak peek, too, adding that he was "tickled" to meet Elmo and the rest of the Sesame Street gang IRL.

Naturally, though, Republicans refuse to let anyone have nice things. Less than 24 hours after Sesame Street teased Porter's visit, "fed up" conservatives mobilized against his guest spot, launching a petition begging the network to axe the episode.

"The promotion of drag queens, seen at this year's Super Bowl and also at libraries around the country, is a coordinated effort by LGBT activists to 'normalize' their morally and scientifically dangerous ideology with the young," the petition reads in part. "Transgenderism is not about 'love.' It is an [sic] disorder—gender dysphoria—which has absolutely no place on a children's program."

It's a Friday morning, so we're going to preserve some of our precious energy and ignore that the petition misidentifies Porter as a "drag queen" and completely conflates gender identity with gender presentation.

Besides, at the time of writing, the petition has just over 3,800 signatures. Porter has a Grammy, an Emmy, a Tony, and 169,000 Twitter followers. We'll let you decide who the winner is here.

via GIPHY

Where's that motorized chandelier hat when you need it, huh?

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