Gender goes mobile.

Catherine Zeta-Jones compliments a cross-dressing teenager on his dress in a new cell phone commercial, and nobody bats an eyelash--just the most recent indication that despite what politicians say, consumers are becoming more open to nontraditional gender and sexuality. The T-Mobile ad shows a dad so obsessed with the family's cell phone bill that he's oblivious to what his kids are doing as he scolds them. When he walks into his son's bedroom, the teenager is wearing a dress and applying lipstick "We need to talk," the dad says to his caught-off-guard son. 'This wireless bill is out of control." The ad ends with the family standing in a company store next to Zeta-Jones, the face of T-Mobile, who turns to the son and says "Nice dress."

Ad agency Publicis West purposely included the flattery to show respect for the character, says Bob Moore, president and executive creative director. With the son still wearing the dress and pearls at the end, a viewer could "read between the lines," Moore says: that father and son have talked and that the dad respects the son's experimenting with gender expression,

This isn't the first time that T-Mobile has broached sexual orientation or gender identity. Another ad included a gay couple among those exclaiming "You!" as they realized that their high bills came from calling each other.