If you’ve paid any attention to the world of stand-up comedy over the past decade, you’re probably already aware that there are a handful of straight, cisgender, male comedians who like to portray themselves as “edgy” who have made many transphobic jokes and statements and have attracted a great deal of controversy as a result. The most prominent of these comedians are Ricky Gervais, Dave Chappelle, and Michael Che.
This subject has come up in the news recently, because, on 5 October 2021, Netflix released a seventy-two minute stand-up comedy special starring Dave Chappelle titled The Closer. In the special, Chappelle devotes large chunks of his time to mocking LGBTQIA+ people and transgender women in particular. He repeats many age-old transphobic talking points and hackneyed jokes that people have made a million times before. Among other things, he says that TERFs (i.e., “Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminists”) see trans women the same way Black people see white people wearing blackface before explicitly saying he agrees with them and calling himself “Team TERF,” he implies that trans women’s genitalia are in some sense “fake” by comparing them to plant-based meat, and he expresses disgust over having been “trapped” into calling a trans woman “beautiful.”
In this article, I don’t intend to go in depth about why the things Chappelle says in the special are inaccurate, bigoted, and harmful to trans people, since his lines are so unoriginal that they have all already been debunked a million times. (In fact, I literally debunked some of his exact claims myself in this article I wrote in November 2020 and this other article I wrote in March 2021.) Instead, I want to talk about Chappelle’s justification for what he said, which is the exact same justification that many other transphobic comedians like to use. Chappelle and his defenders have tried to justify his statements in the special by claiming that he says these things in the name of comedy and free speech. I want to address why “comedy” and “free speech” are not inherently benign and are not adequate moral justifications for saying things that are bigoted.
The parts of Chappelle’s special that weren’t totally awful
Chappelle claims that the people who criticize him for his transphobic statements are usually people who only know his soundbites and never watch his whole performance. Thus, in the interest of giving Chappelle a fair hearing, I decided to listen to his whole routine.
There were some parts of the special that I actually appreciated and even thought were funny. For instance, I will admit that I laughed at the jokes about Mike Pence being secretly gay and repressed. I also think Chappelle made a genuinely good point about how white queer people all too often use their white privilege to advance themselves to the detriment of Black people. I also appreciate that Chappelle uses the correct pronouns for trans people most of the time and that he argues against laws that require people to use the restroom of the gender listed on their birth certificate.
Chappelle spends the final roughly thirteen minutes of the special telling a story about a trans woman and amateur stand-up comedian he knew named Daphne Dorman who was relentlessly bullied online for defending him on Twitter and killed herself. Parts of this segment are genuinely touching, despite Chappelle’s frequent transphobic jokes and comments, and I think he does display some signs of empathy for Dorman and other trans people.
ABOVE: Screenshot of Dave Chappelle from The Closer
Chappelle’s ignorance of transgender issues
All this being said, the vast majority of what Chappelle says in the special is ignorant, blithely prejudiced, unoriginal or even cliché, and, in my opinion, completely unfunny. Indeed, the degree to which Chappelle has no idea what he is talking about is painfully obvious. For instance, he attempts to defend J. K. Rowling’s transphobia, declaring:
“Gender is a fact. Every human being in this room, every human being on Earth, had to pass through the legs of a woman to be on Earth. This is a fact.”
Here, Chappelle is clearly relying on TERF talking points, but he is so thoroughly ignorant of this subject that he doesn’t even get the TERF talking points right. In reality, TERFs argue that gender is an oppressive fiction invented by the patriarchy to enslave and oppress women and that “biological sex”—which they simplistically and inaccurately equate with sex assigned at birth—is the only thing that is real and that matters. Chappelle, however, doesn’t understand the difference between sex and gender, so he ends up saying the opposite of what TERFs are actually saying.
In any case, TERF talking points such as these misrepresent the arguments of trans people and trans allies by making it sound as though trans people and trans allies deny that “biological sex” is real. In reality, the vast majority of trans people and trans allies know perfectly well and accept that there is such a thing as biological sex.
We do, however, think that “biological sex” shouldn’t determine which socially constructed gender category a person is allowed to live in and that biological sex itself is a lot more complicated than simply the sex a person was assigned at birth. Indeed, most aspects of so-called biological sex that are directly pertinent to everyday life can be changed through various means (including hormone replacement therapy, various surgeries, etc.).
The aspects of sex that cannot be changed with currently existing medical technologies are irrelevant to most aspects of everyday life. It’s true that most trans women have XY sex chromosomes and most trans men have XX sex chromosomes, but defining a person’s gender based on their sex chromosomes is silly. A person’s sex chromosomes are impossible to see, they have no social relevance of their own, and it is impossible to know for certain what a person’s sex chromosomes even are without having tests done in a lab, since there are intersex cisgender men who have XX chromosomes and intersex cisgender women who have XY chromosomes.
It is also true that trans women cannot menstruate or give birth and trans men cannot produce sperm cells, but there are many cisgender women who cannot menstruate or give birth for various reasons and many cisgender men who cannot produce sperm cells. If being able to give birth is a requirement to be a woman and being able to produce sperm is a requirement to be a man, there are a lot of infertile cisgender women and men who apparently aren’t women and men after all.
There’s a whole chain of misunderstanding going on here, in which Chappelle misunderstands TERFs, who, in turn, misrepresent and misunderstand trans people and trans allies.
ABOVE: Size comparison from the website Punnett’s Square showing a human X chromosome (left) and a human Y chromosome (right)
Throughout the special, Chappelle also speaks as though Black people and queer people are two totally separate and distinct communities. He barely acknowledges the fact that there are Black gay people and ignores the existence of Black transgender people altogether, even though Black transgender women specifically are probably the most marginalized group in present-day U.S. society and are the most likely people to be victims of transphobic violence by far.
Chappelle also fairly egregiously misunderstands the nature of prejudice itself and tries to use people he knows as rhetorical human shields to protect himself from allegations of prejudice. For instance, after telling a story about an encounter he had with an Asian woman in a really cringeworthy, racist manner, he insists that he can’t be racist against Asians because his wife is Filipina. He does this in exactly the same way that some white people insist they “can’t be racist” because they have “a Black friend.” He doesn’t seem to realize that most people who hold prejudiced views can tolerate individual people who belong to the groups they are prejudiced against while still holding prejudices about those groups in general.
Likewise, Chappelle emphasizes that Daphne Dorman was his “friend” and says she was different from all the other trans people because she didn’t have a problem with him telling transphobic jokes—but yet he openly admits that he didn’t even know that she had a daughter until he read it in her obituary after she killed herself. This makes me seriously question how well he really knew her. It really seems to me like he’s using the one trans person he’s ever known, a person whom he doesn’t seem to have actually know very well, as a rhetorical human shield.
ABOVE: Screenshot from this video on Daphne Dorman’s YouTube channel of her doing her first standup routine in 2018
Why “comedy” is not inherently benign
That’s all I’m going to say for now about what Chappelle says in the special itself, although I will come back to it a little bit later. Now I want to talk about how he and others have defended what he says. On 29 September 2021, Netflix released a teaser for The Closer in which a recording of Chappelle’s voice gives what seems to be a preemptive defense for a show that Netflix knew in advance would offend many people. He says:
“Comedians have a responsibility to speak recklessly. Sometimes the funniest thing to say is mean. Remember, I’m not saying it to be mean; I’m saying it because it’s funny.”
This is the line that Chappelle and his supporters have most frequently taken. They argue that he tells jokes about trans people because they’re funny, not because he hates trans people, and trans people just can’t handle humor.
The problem with this is that comedy is inherently subjective. Many people find things “funny” that are openly hurtful and should not be funny. To give what I think may be a rather obvious example, many middle-school-aged bullies genuinely think that it is absolutely hilarious to shove other students in lockers, kick them into the mud, break their glasses, and call them all kinds of awful names. Many grown adults still think that these things are funny, even though they shouldn’t be.
Even people with different values who may not necessarily be bullies tend to think that very different things are funny. For instance, the ancient Greek comic playwright Aristophanes (lived c. 446 – c. 386 BCE) was an Athenian citizen man who was probably at least moderately wealthy. Although we don’t know for certain because we know very little about his life, it is highly probable that he owned enslaved people. As I discuss in this article I wrote in June 2021 about the survival of ancient Greek drama, he is known to have written at least forty plays, eleven of which have survived to the present day complete and others of which are known from surviving fragments.
In his comedies, Aristophanes makes many jokes that many people even today, over 2,400 years later, who have no knowledge of the original context in which Aristophanes himself wrote, still find funny. Perhaps ironically, many of Aristophanes’s most enduring jokes are examples of childish potty humor.
For instance, his comedy The Wasps was first performed at the Lenaia festival in Athens in 422 BCE. In the play, there is a scene where the characters Bdelykleon and Philokleon are having a debate and Philokleon thinks he is going to win. Bdelykleon tells him that he will win—but not in the way he is expecting. He says, in lines 603–604:
“. . . κἀναφανήσει
πρωκτὸς λουτροῦ περιγιγνόμενος τῆς ἀρχῆς τῆς περισέμνου.”
This means, in my own translation:
“. . . you’ll be revealed
as an asshole which triumphs over the bath with august power.”
I should note that this line has often been translated into variations of the following:
“Power is like an anus; you can wash it, but you can never make it clean.”
I myself have quoted versions of this line in the past, but it is, in fact, a terrible mistranslation that badly distorts what Bdelykleon is saying.
Aristophanes also, however, makes many jokes that don’t land nearly as well today as they seem to have landed in ancient Athens. Most notable of these are his many, many jokes about masters often horrifically abusing the people they enslave. For instance, in his comedy The Frogs, which was first performed at the Lenaia festival in Athens in 405 BCE, there is a whole scene in which the characters Xanthias and Dionysos, who are both assumed to be slaves, compete to see who can bear the most lashes of a whip.
For Aristophanes and other ancient Greek comic playwrights, enslaved people being brutally whipped, beaten, and tortured was apparently hilarious slapstick.
ABOVE: Detail of an Attic vase painting showing a scene from a comedy of a master beating his slave
Some ancient Greek people saw what we would now call “punching down” as the fundamental nature of comedy itself. As I discuss in this article I wrote in October 2020, the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle of Stageira (lived 384 – 322 BCE) was an extremely intelligent and gifted thinker who was probably the closest thing the ancient world had to a scientist, but he was also extremely classist, misogynistic, ethnocentric, and frankly proto-racist. These prejudices are quite evident in his extant writings. Aristotle defines the difference between tragedy and comedy in his Poetics II (1448a) as follows, in the original Ancient Greek:
“ἐν αὐτῇ δὲ τῇ διαφορᾷ καὶ ἡ τραγῳδία πρὸς τὴν κωμῳδίαν διέστηκεν: ἡ μὲν γὰρ χείρους ἡ δὲ βελτίους μιμεῖσθαι βούλεται τῶν νῦν.”
This means, in my own translation:
“And it is in this difference that tragedy has set itself apart from comedy; for the latter seeks to imitate men who are inferior [in status, wealth, beauty, intelligence, etc.] and the former to imitate men who are superior [in status, wealth, beauty, intelligence, etc.] than those now.”
You’ll often see versions of this passage with the words χείρους and βελτίους translated as “worse” and “better” respectively, but these are words that have very clear connotations in Ancient Greek of inferior and higher class respectively. Aristotle is essentially saying that comedy is all about making fun of the base, ugly, ignorant lower classes, while tragedy is all about portraying noble kings and heroes from the distant past. The idea that making fun of poor people might be a bad thing doesn’t seem to have occurred to him.
ABOVE: Photograph from Wikimedia Commons of a Roman marble bust of the Greek philosopher Aristotle, who defined comedy as imitating “χείρους,” or “inferior men”
Comedy can even be used as propaganda to promote appalling ideologies. For instance, from September 1939 through autumn 1940, the Nazi Party produced a series of weekly comedy short films lasting two to three minutes titled Tran und Helle. These comedy shorts were normally meant to play in German theatres ahead of the Nazi propaganda newsreel Die Deutsche Wochenschau. They served as entertaining propaganda for the Nazi cause.
The main characters of the shorts were an ordinary German man named Tran, who is portrayed as old, short, bald, dim-witted, gullible, and not completely devoted to the Nazi cause, and his friend Helle, who is portrayed as younger, taller, more handsome, more intelligent, supposedly less gullible, and an avowed Nazi. The shorts often focus on Tran doing something he is not supposed to do or believing supposed enemy propaganda and Helle setting him straight.
You can find many of these films on YouTube. For instance, here is one about the importance of rationing to support the Nazi war effort, titled “Hamsterfragen” or “Hamster Questions,” and here is one about why Germans shouldn’t illegally listen to foreign radio broadcasts and should only listen to legal, Nazi broadcasts.
One especially interesting film from a historical perspective is this one, which is titled “Feindbücher” or “Enemy Books,” in which Tran is portrayed as reading books about Neville Chamberlain and Winston Churchill that his Jewish neighbor “Dr. Falschenfeld” (whose name means “False Field”) left in his home when he “left for Palestine.” (Given that this film was made at some point between September 1939 and autumn 1940, by which point Jews were no longer free to leave Germany, but the main Nazi extermination camps were not yet in operation, it is likely that “left for Palestine” is a euphemism for “sent to a ghetto or concentration camp.”)
As always, Helle is portrayed as correcting Tran and setting him straight. He denounces the books Tran is reading as a Jewish “con trick” and compares the books to “rat poison.” He then goes on to reveal to Tran the supposed “truth” about Chamberlain and Churchill using Nazi-approved sources.
Most people nowadays don’t find Tran und Helle films particularly humorous, but some people in Nazi Germany in 1939 and 1940 apparently thought that Tran’s antics were pretty funny. The Nazis ultimately discontinued the series not because it was unpopular, but rather because they were worried that audiences might sympathize with Tran too much.
ABOVE: Screenshot of the Tran und Helle film “Feindbücher” or “Enemy Books” on YouTube
Contemporary Neo-Nazis promote their ideology using humor in ways that the original German Nazis could never have imagined. They primarily recruit people into their ideology online and they target young, white, straight, cisgender men, especially those who feel lonely or disempowered. They rely heavily on memes and “edgy” jokes.
Using memes and “edgy” humor allows Neo-Nazis to say what they really, honestly believe, while still leaving them enough plausible deniability so that, if anyone confronts them, they can claim that they’re just joking and they don’t really support the ideas they just espoused—even though they really do. This allows Neo-Nazis to find people online who are not Neo-Nazis yet, but who are receptive to Neo-Nazi ideas, whom it might be possible for them to recruit. It also allows Neo-Nazis to normalize their ideas by presenting them “ironically” before eventually presenting them in complete seriousness.
Neo-Nazis have even used memes to foreshadow specific acts of violence that they later committed. The Neo-Nazi James Alex Fields, Jr. posted a meme on Instagram on 16 March 2017 showing a car running into a group of bicyclists with the caption in all caps: “YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO PROTEST BUT IM LATE FOR WORK.” Three months later, on 12 August 2017, Fields deliberately drove his car into a crowd of peaceful counter-protesters at the “Unite the Right” white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. His vehicular attack killed a thirty-two-year-old woman named Heather Heyer and injured at least thirty-five other people.
Obviously, this does not mean that every single person who has ever made a joke about sending Jewish people to gas chambers is automatically a 100% serious, full-on Neo-Nazi, but it does neatly illustrate how jokes and comedy can be used for nefarious purposes.
ABOVE: Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph taken by the photojournalist Ryan Kelly for The Daily Progress showing the exact moment of James Alex Fields, Jr.’s vehicular attack in Charlottesville on 12 August 2017
Returning to Dave Chappelle…
Now let us return for a moment to Dave Chappelle. Chappelle defends his transphobic jokes by claiming that they are “funny.” Most of his jokes, however, only seem “funny” to him and his fans because they are extremely ignorant about transgender people and see transgender people as delusional. For instance, in The Closer, Chappelle compares trans women to white people wearing blackface. This comparison, however, only makes sense and is only funny if someone already assumes that trans women are actually delusional men who are appropriating femininity.
Furthermore this comparison has been done a million times before and is extremely cliché by this point. Chappelle himself made almost exactly the same comparison in his previous 2019 special Sticks & Stones, comparing trans women to Rachel Dolezal, a white woman who lied extensively about her ancestry, her family, and her upbringing, claiming that her father was a Black man and that she was Black. After she was exposed as a liar, Dolezal began claiming that she was “transracial,” which is something she just made up.
Even Richard Dawkins, the eighty-year-old white British evolutionary biologist and atheist activist, who has zero connection to the Black American community and has exactly the sense of humor one might stereotypically expect from a British person of his age and profession, made this exact same comparison in a tweet he made on 10 April of this year, which now has over ten thousand likes because people just love transphobia for some reason.
ABOVE: Screenshot of a tweet Richard Dawkins made on 10 April 2021 comparing transgender people to Rachel Dolezal
Comparisons between trans people and Rachel Dolezal or other white people pretending to be Black are so common and cliché that I already included an entire section in my article I wrote back in March of this year defending the validity of trans and non-binary people in which I explain why these comparisons are not valid.
There are essentially two reasons for this. The first reason is because Rachel Dolezal is a fraud; she made up an elaborate fraudulent personal history about having a Black father, growing up Black, and being discriminated against for being Black and used this fake history to advance her career. Most transgender people, by contrast, are either honest about their personal histories or don’t talk about them at all.
The second reason is because, although race and gender are both social constructs, race in a twenty-first-century U.S. context is inherently tied to ancestry and a history of ancestral oppression or privilege. Gender, by contrast, has no connection to ancestry, since a person of any ancestry or background can be a woman, a man, or neither.
In the end, Chappelle’s line “I’m not saying it to be mean; I’m saying it because it’s funny” doesn’t work, because his jokes are only funny if you happen to be just as ignorant of and prejudiced against trans people as he is.
ABOVE: Photograph of Rachel Dolezal as a teenager (left) and photograph of her as she looks today as an adult (right)
Why “free speech” is not inherently benign either
Many defenders of Dave Chappelle, Ricky Gervais, and other transphobic comedians have tried to claim that they are standing up for “free speech” in the face of “woke” censorship. In one extreme example, on 11 October 2021, the comedian Damon Wayans told TMZ that comedians were “slaves” to political correctness and that, by attacking LGBTQIA+ people in The Closer, Chappelle “freed the slaves.” Here is the full quote:
“I feel like Dave freed the slaves. The comedians, we were slaves to PC culture and he just, you know, as an artist he’s Van Gogh. Cut his ear off, he’s trying to tell us it’s ok.”
The first problem with the idea that comedians who attack LGBTQIA+ people are heroes of “free speech” is that the term “free speech” can be applied to literally anything that any person says. Whether “free speech” is good depends on what it is used for.
As ironic as this may sound, contemporary neo-fascists and other far-right extremists are constantly trying to portray themselves to mainstream audiences as heroes of “free speech” for saying “controversial” (i.e., bigoted) things that no one else will—not because they actually believe in “free speech,” but rather because they know that appealing to the mainstream love of “free speech” is a surefire way to get people to pay attention to their propaganda.
This is the reason why, if you hear about a rally calling itself a “free speech rally,” chances are that it’s really a fascist rally that has merely adopted a more respectable-sounding name. Neo-fascists, of course, use their “free speech” to advocate totalitarianism and mass ethnic cleansing against Jewish people and people of color, but some people are so ithyphallic about the idea of “free speech” that they are willing to defend fascists without thinking about what fascists actually want to do.
To be very clear, I am not saying that Gervais and Chappelle are neo-fascists; they clearly are not. Nonetheless, in claiming that they are defending “free speech” when they are really only using their speech to promote bigotry, they are using a tactic that neo-fascists use frequently.
The second problem with this claim is that some forms of “free speech” tend to silence other forms. When transphobic comedians relentlessly mock and belittle transgender people and claim that anyone who criticizes them for this is opposed to “free speech,” this inevitably leads cisgender people watching the program to dismiss any criticisms that trans people or trans allies may make of these comedians as illegitimate and “anti-free speech.”
Thus, transphobic comedians who claim that they are defending “free speech” by making transphobic jokes are actually doing the exact opposite, because they are framing their own, transphobic speech as the only kind of speech that is “free” and legitimate and the speech of trans people and trans allies as illegitimate and censorious.
ABOVE: Photograph taken by Josh Edelson for AFP/Getty Images, showing Gavin McInnes, the founder of the Proud Boys, a far-right, neo-fascist organization, giving a speech on 27 April 2017 under a sign that says “FREE SPEECH”
Trans humor
Transphobic comedians like Chappelle and Gervais often claim that transgender people are oversensitive snowflakes who have no sense of humor and can’t take a joke. On 9 January 2018, the website them posted an article titled “Jokes About Being Trans — By Actual Trans People,” which seeks to disprove this assumption. As the title suggests, the article includes jokes about trans people about written by trans people, which are markedly different in tone from the kinds of jokes Gervais and Chappelle have become notorious for telling. The jokes are mostly about trans people’s own lived experiences and include a lot of puns.
Some trans people even enjoy dark, “edgy” humor about their own lived experiences. Natalie Wynn is a transgender woman who has a YouTube channel called ContraPoints. She is not exactly a comedian per se, but she is known for using dark, self-deprecating, and “edgy” humor in her videos. She posted a whole half-hour-long YouTube video on her channel titled “The Darkness” on 2 March 2019, in which she discusses dark humor and humor about transgender people in depth.
Wynn argues that the problem with “edgy” cisgender comedians like Ricky Gervais and Dave Chappelle who make fun of transgender people is that they simply aren’t funny, because they don’t know anything about trans people or what it’s like to be trans, so they only have “two jokes” that they keep retelling that weren’t even funny to begin with. Wynn maintains that there are all kinds of humor waiting to be had about transgender people, but it has to come from people who actually know and understand trans people’s own lived experiences.
ABOVE: Screenshot of Natalie Wynn’s video “The Darkness,” in which she discusses dark humor and comedy about transgender people
Why trans people are so aggressive in denouncing transphobia
Clearly, trans people as a whole do not lack the capacity to appreciate humor—even “edgy” humor. I do, however, think it is true that, in our present moment in history, in general, trans people tend to be more likely to call out and aggressively denounce bigoted statements against them than most other oppressed groups. I also agree that, in some cases, these denunciations may indeed be overzealous and end up seriously hurting people, including trans people.
As Wynn notes in her video, there are many trans people who find her dark humor offensive. This is not the only way in which she has attracted the ire of other trans people. In October 2019, Wynn had Buck Angel, a trans man and pornographic actor, who happens to have made many bigoted statements about nonbinary people, voice one very brief line in her video “Opulence” as a joke.
Many people took this as proof that Wynn herself is bigoted against nonbinary people (even though she publicly identified as nonbinary herself for six months before coming out as a trans woman and has made multiple videos defending nonbinary people). As a result, Wynn was swiftly “cancelled” and dragged online, along with anyone who had ever associated with her who refused to condemn her.
Wynn released a video on 2 January 2020 titled “Cancelling,” in which she addresses the controversy. In this instance, however, I think that an even more interesting perspective is that of Abigail Thorn, who is the creator behind the YouTube channel Philosophy Tube. Thorn was also “cancelled” because she is a friend of Wynn and she happened to voice a line in the video “Opulence.” She discusses the controversy in her video “Artists & Fandoms,” which she posted on 18 March 2020. In the video, she describes how people sent her emails containing death threats and messages telling her to kill herself.
Thus, Thorn says she was “cancelled” and received emails telling her to kill herself because she voiced a very short line she didn’t write in a video someone else made that happened to include another very short line voiced by a man whom she didn’t know, who, unbeknownst to her at the time, happened to have said some bigoted things in the past about a subject that had nothing to do with the subject of the video. (I should note that Thorn publicly came out as a transgender woman in January 2021, a little bit less than a year after posting the aforementioned video.)
Although I feel that Dave Chappelle uses Daphne Dorman to some extent as a human shield, I can’t deny that she was harassed for supporting him online and she did kill herself. As Chappelle himself says, we don’t know what else Dorman might have been going through in her life, but getting attacked online “probably didn’t help.”
It’s also worth noting that, in The Closer, Chappelle says all kinds of bigoted and insensitive things about women, Jewish people, Asian people, gay men, lesbians, and tons of other oppressed groups, but trans people and trans allies are the only ones who are really up in arms right now about what he says.
ABOVE: Screenshot from Natalie Wynn’s video “Cancelling,” in which she discusses why she was “cancelled”
I, however, think that the reason why trans people and trans allies are more likely to aggressively attack anyone who has ever said anything transphobic and anyone who is associated with such people is not because trans people are just easily triggered snowflakes, but rather because complex historical and social forces have created a cultural environment in which many trans people and trans allies feel that they finally have a chance to show the world that transphobia is wrong and that the most effective way to do this is by calling out and denouncing anyone who is associated with transphobia in any way.
As most people are probably already aware, transgender people make up an extremely tiny percentage of the overall population and, until very recently, they have not had any influence over how they are represented in media in any way whatsoever. Until recently, there have not been many representations of trans people in media and nearly all the representations that have existed have been extremely negative.
The YouTuber Lindsay Ellis posted an excellent video back in February of this year, in which she traces the history of negative representations of trans people in popular culture from the early twentieth century to the present day. Meanwhile, Netflix itself has an excellent documentary titled Disclosure, in which trans people discuss how negative portrayals in films and television shows directly impact real trans people’s lives, since the vast majority of people do not know any trans people personally and only know about trans people from how they are portrayed in popular media.
Probably the most influential depictions of characters whom audiences have interpreted as trans women were the characters Norman Bates in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1960 psychological horror film Psycho and Buffalo Bill in the 1991 psychological horror film Silence of the Lambs. Both characters are portrayed as deranged, predatory, psychotic men who cross-dress as women and murder helpless women.
Neither Norman Bates nor Buffalo Bill is stated to be trans. In fact, in Silence of the Lambs, Clarice Starling explicitly says that Buffalo Bill is not trans. Nonetheless, audiences have generally forgotten about the one line where she says that Buffalo Bill is not trans and instead only remembered him cross-dressing, being obsessed with the idea of becoming a woman, and murdering women in order to take their skins. Thus, many people have taken away the message from the film that trans women are really deranged, psychotic men who prey on women. And, unfortunately, for many people, Buffalo Bill is their only point of reference for understanding trans women.
These portrayals are a large part of the reason why, even today, people still defend banning trans women from using women’s public restrooms by claiming that allowing trans women to use public restrooms will allow predatory men to pretend to be trans so they can prey on women—as though predatory men looking to assault women can’t already just break the rules and walk into women’s bathrooms whenever they want. (If a predatory man is not deterred by all the laws against attacking women, what makes anyone think he’s going to be deterred by a law against going in women’s restrooms?)
ABOVE: Screenshot of Buffalo Bill, played by Ted Levine in the 1991 film Silence of the Lambs
Nearly every major media depiction of trans women from the 1990s and 2000s portrays them as lying men who pretend to be women, usually for nefarious purposes. When the trans woman is ultimately revealed to actually be a “man,” it is presented as evidence that she is lying, duplicitous, evil, criminal, and/or perverted.
In many depictions from this period, when a male character finds out that a woman in whom he has been romantically interested in any manner is transgender, he immediately vomits. Ironically, this trope originated with the 1992 drama film The Crying Game, which otherwise actually had possibly the most sympathetic portrayal of a trans woman of the late twentieth century. The vomiting trope sends the message that trans women are not only evil liars, but also unspeakably disgusting.
These negative depictions of transgender women in popular culture contribute to real-world violence against trans people, which is, sadly, all too common. According to the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), so far, in 2021 alone, at least forty-one transgender and gender-nonconforming people have been murdered in the United States, which is startling when you consider the overall murder rate and the relatively small number of trans people who live in the United States to begin with. The vast majority of the trans and gender-nonconforming people who have been murdered are trans women of color.
The most common reason for these murders is what has been called “trans panic.” Essentially, the scenario goes like this: a straight cisgender man does not realize that a trans woman is transgender and he finds her attractive. Then he finds out that she is trans and he feels that his straightness and masculinity are suddenly in question, so he lashes out with violence against her, believing that she “trapped” him by looking like a woman, and he kills her. This reaction is, in part, influenced by decades of pop culture sending the message that it is shameful for a straight cisgender man to feel attracted to a trans woman.
The worst part is that, until very recently, almost no one who is not transgender themself seems to have even considered that there might be anything problematic about these portrayals at all. Now, though, trans people have discovered that, if they make enough noise in denouncing transphobia, they can finally get people to listen to them. The problem is that there are so few trans people that they have to be as loud and aggressive as possible in denouncing transphobia just to get people outside the trans community to hear them.
I think that the reason why people aren’t up in arms about Chappelle’s bigoted jokes about women, Jewish people, Asian people, gay men, lesbians, and so forth is precisely because people widely recognize that these kinds of jokes are wrong. Conversely, the reason why so many trans people and trans allies are so aggressive in denouncing Chappelle and anyone associated with him is because the general public is only just now starting to realize that attacking and mocking trans people is bigoted at all.
ABOVE: Screenshot from the 1992 film The Crying Game showing the character Fergus vomiting after discovering that the girl he was about to have relations with is transgender
Conclusion
To be very clear, I am not arguing that comedy and free speech are inherently bad. I am merely arguing that these things are not inherently benign and that, if someone says something bigoted or openly hurtful, “I said it because it was funny” and “I said it because of free speech” are not adequate excuses.
I think that Dave Chappelle, Ricky Gervais, other comedians like them, and their supporters already realize this. They use comedy and “free speech” as excuses, but, at the end of the day, they say the things they say because they see transgender people as a comedic punching bag.
It doesn’t matter how many words you use, or how many distasteful examples you identify, free speech is sacrosanct. If you believe otherwise, you are siding with the dictators, the absolute monarchs, the communist party chairmen, all who have tried to impose their worldview on others, happily slaughtering their countrymen in pursuit of absolute authority.
We have no right not be be ridiculed, insulted or mocked. Our only rights are not to be physically attacked or subject to violence.
Who is to decide what is right speech and what is wrong speech? And if you believe it’s by numbers ie percentage in support, then you simply believe in elective dictatorship.
To many are happy to give up the freedoms of others. Particularly if they feel good about doing so. If they somehow feel more ‘moral’ for their efforts.
If you’re white, or Christian, or Muslim, or gay, or straight, a Gammon, a baby boomer, a TERF or a transgender, people are allowed to laugh at your beliefs, or your entitlement, or the absurdity of your arguments and if you are upset or offended by it, tough. Because otherwise you have the book burnings, the proscriptions, the Salam witch hunts or the inquisition. And I say this as someone who is not an atheist.
Yes things will be more messy and people will be offended at their most sacred beliefs being insulted, but who says that life should be lived without these things.
To many people have died defending freedoms and free speech, to have their sacrifices stamped on by middle class, entitled white boys, wishing to parade their virtues.
“ if someone says something bigoted or openly hurtful, “I said it because it was funny” and “I said it because of free speech” are not adequate excuses.” yes they are. They may not be moral, but that is irrelevant.
You seem to be greatly misunderstanding my argument here. This article is not about whether Dave Chappelle has a right to free speech. I accept that he has a right to say what he believes without the state intervening to stop him or punish him for saying it. I never at any point suggested that he should be thrown in jail or sent to the Gulag or whatever else you may think I suggested. In fact, if you read my article more carefully, you will find that I didn’t even argue anywhere that Netflix should take The Closer down off their streaming service.
This article is about whether the excuses of humor and free speech give Chappelle and other comedians justification in the moral sense to attack marginalized communities. My argument here is that, while, sure, comedians legally have a right to say what they want, that doesn’t mean they are morally justified in doing so. I’m not a lawyer or a jurist and, although I do occasionally write about laws and what I think of them, I generally tend to be more concerned with questions of what is moral than what should or should not be legal.
I should also note that, just as comedians legally have the right to say what they want, other people legally have the right to criticize them for what they say as harshly as they think is necessary.
I LOVE being one of your subscribers because I value your take on many subjects, as well as your scholarship.
“This article is about whether the excuses of humor and free speech give Chappelle and other comedians justification in the moral sense to attack marginalized communities.”
I streamed two comedy specials last night, Richard Pryor (1979), and Eddie Murphy RAW (1987).
In both of these legendary stage shows, the comedians addressed misogyny and homosexuality in ways that would be denounced now. Why? Because we are more educated, and therefore, accepting & comfortable with these subjects.
Give some of us some time to learn more about all the different sexes. We older folks didn’t even hear about trans until only 10 years ago or so. I watched Dave’s show and understood where he is coming from. Years ago, he stepped in it with the trans community, and may never be forgiven, especially nowadays when it seems there is no latitude given to those that think differently than others.
Watching his act, I got the feeling that he was trying to come to terms with the issue of the trans community that have been attacking him for years and the friendship he found with Ms. Dorman.
I do not believe that Dave Chappelle is a bigot, nor do I believe that trans folks deserve less than anyone else.
Just give some of us older folks a little room to get accustomed to the new sexualities we are discovering.
Preach, Spencer, preach. Sorry I’ve not been around recently; you’re one of my favorite internet voices.
It’s really too bad that so much “comedy” is repulsive. Don’t know whether that being an age-old characteristic is more reassuring (a known human flaw) or disturbing (humans suck).
Now and then it’s been a handy way to learn something, that is, a bit of ugly humor will resurface, and someone, friend or family member will say, “Ya know…” Discussion points. But people have to be interested in learning, and not threatened by everything. The conservative scaredycats are so good at ruining things. Did a number on Drag Queen Story Hour at the library, the thugs.
Terry Pratchett still said it best, I guess. “Satire is meant to ridicule power. If you are laughing at people who are hurting, it’s not satire, it’s bullying.” And, well, if you’re a comedian aiming at being sharp and cutting and all that — isn’t satire what you’re aiming at.
If a tyrant does some stupid, we will make fun of him; if a poor, powerless person does the same thing, we can’t laugh in the same way just because they are suffering? There’s gotta be a better definition for satire, Terry!
Exactly what jokes are there left to tell, if we can only mock people who are believed to be bad? Hitler alone will offer inspiration to all comedians…
The biggest mistake, it seems to me, is that people nowadays think they can get hurt from a joke. If a joke is based on misperceptions, then it’s just incorrect, but it can’t hurt me, especially not my feelings. If jokes can harm transgender people in a substantial way, then I guess just by laughing at a tyrant we can overthrow the regime?
Another comment to Spencer: I find it unproductive to bring up the issue of whether you (or I, or anyone) find something funny or not. The best anti-Trump joke is funny for me, but “unfunny” for a Trump supporter. And that Trump supporter may well be a marginalized person in the third world.
At the end of the day it doesn’t matter whether I find something funny or not, whether I make a joke about someone or not. Politics is not assessed by the words.
“The biggest mistake, it seems to me, is that people nowadays think they can get hurt from a joke. If a joke is based on misperceptions, then it’s just incorrect, but it can’t hurt me, especially not my feelings. If jokes can harm transgender people in a substantial way, then I guess just by laughing at a tyrant we can overthrow the regime?”
They can. People can get killed as the result of bigotry, and jokes about minorities contribute to hatred against them.
The reason why laughing at a tyrant is less effective is because the tyrant has power. Transgender people don’t have much power. In fact, they are a minority who in many parts of the world are not treated as normal human beings. So, yes, laughing against them works, because it ignites bigotry and hatred, which then spills out into real life.
That, and not “my feelings are hurt” is the problem here.
Response to Louigi’s November 4 comment:
As Spencer points out in the original article, trans people also make jokes about being trans. Most people have made jokes about themselves, some of which belong to the “self-deprecating” genre.
Do you think that trans people contribute to the hatred against themselves when they make jokes about themselves? Do you also think that a tyrant can make jokes about himself and withstand the negative impact due to his stronger power, whereas trans people should be advised against making jokes about themselves due to their relative defenselessness?
It is without doubt that people have been murdered as a result of bigotry, but it is logically unsound to claim that it is jokes that lead to those murders. It will be a productive discussion if you really want to identify what factors drive a bigot to use violence on the people he hates. If you do so you will see how insignificant jokes are.
You say that “my feelings are hurt” is not the problem, but it is the problem in Spencer’s original article. For example, he writes: “Many people find things ‘funny’ that are openly hurtful and should not be funny.”
If you, Louigi, think that “feelings are hurt” is not a problem, then you should see that your position is essentially different from Spencer’s. Does it suffice to make an alliance on a social issue just because you both disapprove the discrimination of trans people, whereas your concrete arguments and views differ?
Moreover, it is very problematic that, in Spencer’s quote above, he suggests that something “should not be funny.” “Funny” is an emotional reaction determined by one’s existing knowledge, worldview, and the social norm one adheres to. To say that “something should not be funny” is to give orders to other people’s feeling. Instead of dictating other people’s emotions, it would be much more productive to analyze the knowledge, worldview, and social norm that create those emotions.
Jokes cannot harm anyone. The feeling of being hurt by jokes only exists in a culture where the social norm provides no socially respectable way to respond to jokes. In other words, we grow up learning that, when someone makes a joke about us, the only thing we can do is to show resentment and treat them as our enemies. The preoccupation with jokes in this current discussion thread only exacerbates this adequacy of our current social norm.
agmercier, you are kind of taking my quote out of context. It is true that I do say, “Many people find things ‘funny’ that are openly hurtful and should not be funny,” but I immediately go on to list examples of bullies shoving other students in lockers, kicking them in the mud, breaking their glasses, and calling them degrading names. Most of these things involve a lot more than just hurt feelings.
As a matter of fact, though, I do think that hurt feelings can be a moral issue. If someone says something that happens to hurt someone else’s feelings by accident, that’s excusable. If someone is making fun of a tyrant or an individual with a great deal of power and authority and they happen to offend the person’s feelings, I also think that is excusable. If, however, someone is deliberately trying to hurt the feelings of someone with less power than themself or of an entire marginalized community, then they’re being a jerk and saying “I did it because it was funny” doesn’t excuse them from moral culpability or make them any less of a jerk.
You maintain that finding something funny is an “emotional reaction” and that it is inherently wrong to say that there are things that people shouldn’t find funny, because this is dictating how people should feel. Saying that something is an “emotional reaction,” though, does not make it morally neutral, because feeling certain emotions in certain contexts for certain reasons can be morally wrong. I think that most people would agree that it is wrong to take joy in harming others. If someone feels intense euphoria while, say, brutally murdering someone, I would say that, not only is murdering the person itself wrong, but feeling intense joy while doing it is also wrong.
I think that nearly everyone would agree that there are certain things that people should not find funny; we simply disagree about what those things are. I’m guessing that your political views are somewhere closer to the conservative end of the spectrum than mine are. Let’s imagine that there is a heroic and patriotic firefighter who has a wife and children and who has saved hundreds of people’s lives from burning buildings, but he has severe PTSD from all the rescues he’s taken part in and he kills himself.
Then, let’s say that someone goes to his funeral and they can’t stop laughing hysterically in front of the grieving widow, because they find it absolutely hilarious that the firefighter had PTSD and killed himself. The funeral director tells the person to stop laughing, but they just can’t stop, because they find the firefighter’s death so hilarious. I’m guessing that you would probably agree with me that there is something morally wrong with this person’s “emotional reaction” and that the mere fact that they are having an “emotional reaction” does not excuse their behavior. Am I correct?
Furthermore, as I argue throughout much of the article above, the whole idea that jokes are inherently harmless and can only hurt people’s feelings at most is incredibly naïve. Negative media representations of people whom audiences will interpret as transgender can and do encourage real-world violence against trans people.
Just yesterday, I published an article in which I analyze a series of violently transphobic screeds in which the author openly exhorts her readers to kill all trans women. She explicitly cites the fictional character Buffalo Bill from Silence of the Lambs multiple times as evidence of what trans women are supposedly like, despite the fact that Buffalo Bill is a fictional character who is explicitly stated in the film to not be transgender.
In my article above, I already reference the idea of “trans panic,” which is where a straight cisgender man displays some level of attraction for a trans woman without knowing she is trans, then he finds outs that she is trans, he feels his straightness and masculinity are suddenly in question, and he lashes out with violence against her. Many of Dave Chappelle’s jokes in The Closer contribute to the idea that it is inherently wrong or shameful for a straight cisgender man to feel attraction to a trans woman. This is an attitude that can feed directly into the “trans panic” response.
To be clear, I’m not saying that Chappelle is personally advocating violence against trans women—only that the jokes he tells about trans women are likely to influence his audience’s perceptions of trans women in ways that can encourage violence against them.
A response to agmercier’s comment from November 14th 2021.
“Do you think that trans people contribute to the hatred against themselves when they make jokes about themselves?”
No, I don’t. Because I doubt that jokes that trans people make about themselves are similar to jokes that people who don’t like trans people make.
A lot of jokes that are targeted at trans people that I object to are along the lines of either questioning the premise of someone being trans, or questioning that they are being harassed as a group and so on. I seriously doubt that trans people make those kinds of jokes about themselves.
“It is without doubt that people have been murdered as a result of bigotry, but it is logically unsound to claim that it is jokes that lead to those murders.”
I did not say that jokes directly lead to murders. Something like Cade’s manifesto is more likely to do that.
I made a claim that, and I quote “jokes about minorities contribute to hatred against them”.
I would say that in terms of jokes the effect is more likely to reinforce these beliefs and validate them, as well as in some cases spread misinformation about the minority group.
“Jokes cannot harm anyone. The feeling of being hurt by jokes only exists in a culture where the social norm provides no socially respectable way to respond to jokes.”
I would also disagree with that.
Imagine that you are a minority. An oppressed group that is generally not accepted by society. Your life is hard, daily.
Now, a famous comedian with millions of followers records a comedy special where he keeps making you the butt of his jokes, again and again and again. I can very easily imagine that this might make someone snap, make them feel even less safe, make them feel misunderstood and unwelcome. This in many cases might contribute to the decline of their mental health.
It’s great to graciously accept jokes when you are part of a majority and don’t have to worry about these things. But I can imagine that it’s not so easy when you are at a disadvantage.
I guess in general I find your statement “jokes cannot harm anyone” way too strong and I don’t see how you can reasonably support it.
Jokes are not necessarily harmless communication. Propaganda uses jokes a lot. Nazis used anti-Semitic propaganda cartoons that were jokes. I am pretty sure those jokes contributed greatly to the spread of hatred of Jews in Nazi Germany.
Kindly piss off with with your censorious, sensationalist horse shit. Good riddance.
Did you even bother to read my article before leaving a comment dismissing it as “censorious, sensationalist horse shit”? Can you point to anywhere in the article where I argued in favor of censorship?
As I explain in my previous comment, my point in this article is not to argue that people shouldn’t have free speech, but rather to argue that the ideas of “comedy” and “free speech” on their own are not moral justifications for a person to spew bigotry. It’s actually really strange to me that people find this so extraordinarily offensive, since it seems to me like this should be obvious.
I enjoyed this article and thank you for introducing me to the word “ithyphallic”!
You mentioned Greek plays mocking slaves, but my first thought when this topic comes up is Minstrel shows. I would like to think that if Netflix put on a legit Minstrel show, most people would realize that it’s incredibly racist, offensive, and not really funny or entertaining to modern audiences at all. Society changes, and you can’t “free speech” your way into being relevant to modern audience when society leaves you behind. Hopefully soon enough, society will leave the dumb transphobic jokes behind.
Thank you from the bottom of my heart. Pithy, straight to the heart of the matter, insightful. I learned a lot.
And thank you also for taking on the labour of addressing the naysayers and clarifying your point, over and over. Eventually it will sink in.
Incredible appreciation should be beaming your way from all corners.
Thank you so much! I’m glad you enjoyed my article and found it educational.
I’ve revised my wording in a few places to make it more clear that I am talking about whether “free speech” gives people moral justification to say things, not whether people should have a right to free speech in the first place.
Honest question: why are people focusing on what a comedian said when Palestinians are murdering LGBT people day in and day out, likewise in Iran, Saudi Arabia, and other Arab and Islamic countries. Isn’t that what we should be concerned about instead of what one guy says on TV? The blue check people on twitter will doxx anybody with a slightly different opinion…except Islamic clerics who called for the deaths of countless people for merely being suspected of being gay. I think this “outrage” is all very selective.
“Thus, transphobic comedians who claim that they are defending “free speech” by making transphobic jokes are actually doing the exact opposite, because they are framing their own, transphobic speech as the only kind of speech that is “free” and legitimate and the speech of trans people and trans allies as illegitimate and censorious.”
No, Chappelle is not saying that his views are the only “free speech” or “legitimate speech”. He is not saying that people who disagree with him should not be free to express the contrary.
Well, the problem with this argument is that you can use bad things going on in other countries as an excuse to dismiss just about any legitimate criticism of things going on in one’s home country. If a poor person tells someone that they haven’t eaten in three days because they can’t afford food, the other person could easily tell them, “Get over it! There are people in Africa who haven’t eaten in over a week and are dying of hunger! Don’t you think that’s a more pressing issue?” Just because there are worse things happening out in the world somewhere doesn’t mean we can’t talk about problems at home that seem relatively minor by comparison.
In fact, we’re actually much better positioned to address problems in our home countries than problems in other countries, because we can understand the contexts of these problems better and have more ability to address them. I do not have the power to change the law in Iran, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, or Afghanistan, nor do I really have any power to effect any significant change in the conditions in those countries for queer people.
I personally don’t think that doxing is an appropriate method of activism in most cases, but, even ignoring that, if someone in the U.S. hypothetically doxed a Muslim cleric in, say, Saudi Arabia, what effect could that even have? People in the U.S. can’t reach him to harass him or threaten him anyway. Meanwhile, people in Saudi Arabia who might want to harass or threaten him probably won’t have access to the doxed information and, even if they do, they probably won’t be able to use it because the cleric presumably has significant power and protection.
By contrast, I do have the power to influence people’s opinions on issues in English-speaking countries through my writing, so that is what I focus on.
As I see that there are some really misguided comments, falsely accusing you of arguing for censorship, I would like to add a supportive comment here.
People are incredibly confused about the concepts of “free speech” and “comedy”. And not because they are stupid, but because a nuanced views of these incredibly complex topics requires a great deal of thought that not everyone is interested to invest it. So, many are giving it facile treatment.
I think your take is spot on.
Dave Chapelle and Ricky Gervais are funny people. But I agree that once one is aware of the situation, their transpeople jokes are not funny, because they are deeply misunderstanding the situation. And people who do find these particular jokes funny simply reveal their ignorance of these issues.
And yeah, I think Chapelle’s special ultimately hurts many minorities, as does a lot of his comedy.
I’ve seen that special, honestly it’s not a big deal as it’s made up to be. You can find worse trans jokes on 4chan.
4chan is a disgusting cesspit of seething hatred and bigotry. I’m pretty sure that at least half the people on that site are Neo-Nazis. I would like to think that Netflix, which is the largest, most influential entertainment company in the entire world, would hold its content to a higher standard than 4chan of all places.
Clearly you are one of the fortunate few to not have heard of Cuties.
Cuties actually gives realistic insights into some of the pressures young girls face and how they awkwardly try to navigate a world which sexualizes them even before they fully understand what it means. I think the disgust most U.S. viewers seem to experience when viewing it (or not viewing it but taking the trailers and headlines at face value) is manufactured in the viewer’s brain and not by the director. It’s more comfortable to keep one’s head in the sand but if you read Reviving Ophelia and Ophelia Speaks they will give a different context from which you can choose to view Cuties: Not as an attempt at a sexy exhibition of pre-teen sexuality but as girls getting confusing messages about what makes them valuable and struggling to find the intersection of their individual and sexual/gender identities.
I wasn’t going to say anything because I have not watched Cuties, nor am I closely familiar with the controversy surrounding it. As I understand things from what little I remember reading on the matter, the film was actually intended by its creators to criticize how twenty-first-century western societies sexualize young girls, but the film’s marketers ended up using sexualized depictions of young girls to promote it, which has caused many people believe that the film endorses the sexualization of young girls that it was actually meant to criticize. Is this understanding correct?
Pretty sure you can do this message without using actual child actors to do sexually suggestive dance moves.
Yes it is true that the creator claims it is meant to be a criticism of western culture and blames its poor reception on Netflix marketing. But as Robert just demonstrated, people really just can’t over “child” and”sex” appearing in the same sentence and will take issue with the film regardless of the promo material.
The movie depicts preteen girls watching and imitating the sexually suggestive behavior of peers and older girls online. It juxtaposes scenes of them acting like hussies for the camera with those of them immediately returning to their childish demeanor and intellect as soon as their video is done. It’s not a movie made by a man to show off 11 year olds in tight clothes licking their lips. It’s a movie, made by a woman, to show how even incredibly young girls who we believe to be pure and innocent are affected by the influence of sexualization in our culture. Little girls emulate the big girls, aspire to be like them, and come to believe that their value as people comes from their bodies and gender. There is a subplot involving the protagonist’s ultra conservative Islamic family and how her identity is pulled between two opposite extremes. The resolution involves her deciding her own identity which is not to follow her mother or her friends but to chart her own path somewhere in-between.
I haven’t checked in a while but I promise the actresses are fine — they are not addicted to drugs and working the corner for a pimp. I have two young daughters and the movie didn’t make me go and start molesting them either. I take it as a reminder that no matter how young they are they will be exposed to this messaging and as much as people were afraid of sexual messaging in the media 20 years ago, I think it’s a couple order of magnitude worse on the Internet today. My takeaway from Cuties is that we parents will not be able to shield our children from these influences and that they may do foolish things if we maintain ignorance and leave them to their own devices.
Also I feel like by this logic movies like Blood Dimond and Beasts of No Nation shouldn’t be aired because they show child soldiers murdering people. The point is to show what many children went through during these wars. I’m pretty sure the child actors are fine. I don’t see how Cuties is different in that regard (the child actors are fine and the point is to show what, unfortunately, many girls go through in our society).
Eloquently put. I always enjoy reading your posts. I can’t imagine the effort and time to come up with each one.
All the best,
Thank you so much! I do put an enormous amount of time and effort into writing my posts and, unfortunately, I make very little money in return, since everything I make comes from ad revenues on this website, which bring in very little money. I do this mainly because I enjoy it, though, and my parents are supporting me.
Hi Spencer, I think you need better ads, for one thing. What about affiliate links, I think they’re called?
I don’t know what those are. My Dad set up the advertising on the website using Google ads. I don’t really know how it works.
As always, another really great article!
I really cared about making a positive comment about this article, because I am afraid that you will get exposed to a lot of anger because of this. But I admire your courage.
I like how you use your knowledge about history to make point about the present; it really shows how the past, no matter if beautiful or ugly, has always something to teach us.
By the way, when talking about how neo-Nazis claim that they support free speech when their ideology is expressely against it, you might make a reference to Popper’s paradox of tolerance. I feel like it would make a lot of sense in the context.
I feel a duty to express my different views. Not because I want to argue with anyone but because I fear our society is increasingly withdrawing into isolation bubbles and echo-chambers, becoming deaf to honest and heartfelt discourse. I think Dave Chappelle was saying the same thing: not everybody feels exactly the same way about every issue and that ought to be OK. We ought to be able to express our differences in good-faith and not be mischaracterized because of it.
I grew up in the 80’s and 90’s back when LGBTQIA+ was just “gay and lesbian” and I’ve watched the letters pile on over the decades to, IMO, the point of absurdity. I roll my eyes at the alphabet soup not out of hate or disrespect for the community but because the umbrella is growing so big that it’s now easier and shorter to describe the people it EXCLUDES rather than includes. The amalgamation of all the various causes perhaps dilutes the interests and desires of some for the greater compromise of all.
I grew up when “you’re gay”, “that’s gay”, “he’s gay” was said casually and freely by all genders and ages to all people with no consequences whatsoever. There were many places where people weren’t openly gay and very few people were openly trans. Just being friendly to gays or speaking in defense of homosexual relationship would bring lasting trouble and ostracism. My mother came out as a lesbian when I was around 12 and I undoubtedly had more exposure to the “gay and lesbian” community than the average person of my generation. In my first 30 years of life, however, I met only one openly trans person in my community. I point this out because I think it’s important to emphasize some of the differences between the sub-classes of people lumped under the same umbrella.
In my own lived experience, the “homophobia” of my youth is not comparable to what people label as “transphobia” today. Some degree of disagreement and disapproval was tolerated before crossing the threshold of hate and bigotry. By contrast today it seem that “transphobic” is a conversation-stopping label dropped on anyone who disagrees with an anointed one on any point. Its use is to furthering a cause as vinegar is to catching flies. You will make no friends and change no minds with name-calling, something I have learned from a lifetime of experience. I don’t think it’s fair to label somebody transphobic just because they have different ideas about gender identity than you do.
Dave quotes Daphne when making his final point: “I don’t need you to understand me, I just need you to believe that I’m having a human experience. Just believe I’m a person and I’m going through it.” I think there’s common ground here and this is a starting point for people who are “transphobic.” Dave’s message is not one of hate or intolerance or dehumanization. It’s one of acceptance and mutual understanding on a fundamental level before getting wrapped up in pronouns and restrooms.
In recent years there has been an explosion, maybe even a celebration, of openly trans people. I have a young coworker who transitioned, many respectable people in technology circles have come out, there are streamers, retail store workers, and trans is even a mainstream genre of porn now. At least in my neck of the woods I think society is quite willing to accept trans people as having an authentic and valid human experience but I think there is still controversy around some of the finer points you take for granted.
I think a lot of people are unwilling to accept that a trans experience is equivalent to a cis experience for a variety of reasons but mostly boiling down to genetic differences. You can argue the outliers but it will not be convincing to people who hold that the shared experiences of cis people are different from those of trans people. Just because you disagree does not mean you are justified in labeling them enemies or transphobic or bigoted or hateful. You will make enemies of those who would otherwise be your friends.
What I’m trying to say, Spencer, is you are yet young and you seem to see social issues in very black and white terms as young people are wont to do. You sometimes use language that is accusatorial and charged and presumes its own righteousness. I do not think there is a way forward that ends with most people seeing the world exactly as you do and thus becoming no longer deserving of the accusations. I do think there is a way forward that ends with people being accepting of each other and the validity of their identities, but that takes dialogue and mutual tolerance of minor disagreements. It may even be that the way forward is to accept transgender identities as equally valid but distinct from cisgender identities such that it would be allowable for a man to accept a transgender woman’s identity but also not be considered bigoted or transphobic for him to not be sexually attracted to that gender on account of genetics or personal beliefs. A world with 3 or 4 primary genders, somewhat like a 2-state solution to all of this heated disagreement.
Wow, so much condescension in just one post. You accuse Spencer of righteousness, but your post is just soothing with disdain.
There are a couple of main problems with your “different opinion”.
1. At no point does Spencer treat the issue as black and white. On the contrary, his post is aiming to add nuance to what Chapelle and others dubbed as just comedy one has to get over.
2. The issue at hand is kind of black and white – transgender people should not be killed and should have exactly the same rights as everyone else. There’s not much nuance here. And if you disagree – you are part of the problem.
Your post also shows a deep misunderstanding of the fight for trans rights. You write:
“It may even be that the way forward is to accept transgender identities as equally valid but distinct from cisgender identities such that it would be allowable for a man to accept a transgender woman’s identity but also not be considered bigoted or transphobic for him to not be sexually attracted to that gender on account of genetics or personal beliefs.”
If you believe that anyone demands that people are obliged to be sexually attracted to transpeople – you are severely misguided. You are “concerned” about bubbles, but I guess you’ve been in a bubble yourself.
I actually don’t find Rick’s comment especially offensive. I think he’s making a good faith attempt to have an open discussion with the goal of mutual understanding. I think he’s ignorant about some things, but I do think he is genuinely trying to understand, which is why I have merited his comment with a lengthy response.
I agree with you that the acronym “LGBTQIA+” is too long and it’s a mouthful, but I don’t like using versions of the acronym that don’t include intersex and asexual people. I generally prefer the term “queer” because it’s much shorter and it’s open-ended, but I don’t always use it because sometimes it can be too ambiguous for a given context. It’s also a reclaimed slur, so many older people who still remember when it was a slur find it offensive.
It is true that the different groups that fall under “LGBTQIA+” and “queer” have, in some ways, disparate interests, but the main thing they all have in common is that they all face varying degrees and forms of marginalization and oppression related to sex, gender, or sexuality. The reason why it is useful to group all these different people together under one label is not just because there is significant overlap between the various groups (with many people being, for instance, simultaneously transgender and lesbian, gay, or bisexual, simultaneously intersex and transgender, etc.), but also because, individually, these groups each make up relatively small segments of the overall population and have less political and social influence without the other groups supporting them. Forming a coalition together allows them to more easily effect political and social change.
I do not know of a single trans person or trans ally who argues that transgender women are identical to cisgender women or that transgender men are identical to cisgender men. What trans people and trans allies generally argue is that trans women and cis women both fall under the larger umbrella category of “women” and trans men and cis men both fall under the larger umbrella category of “men,” in the same way that naturalized and native-born citizens of a given country both fall under the larger umbrella category of “citizens.” I certainly don’t think anyone would say that a trans woman’s experience is exactly identical to a cis woman’s experience or that a trans man’s experience is exactly identical to a cis man’s experience; the whole point of distinguishing between cisgender people and transgender people in the first place is because there is a difference between them. If there were no difference, these words would not exist.
Likewise, trans people and trans allies generally do not believe that it is inherently transphobic for a cisgender person to not want to pursue a sexual relationship with a trans person. On the contrary, I think that the vast majority of us agree that it is perfectly acceptable for someone to not want to pursue a sexual relationship with a trans person for a whole variety of reasons, including because they are not attracted to the trans person in question, because they have a preference for a different set of genitalia than what the trans person in question currently has, or because they really want to have biological children and they know that the trans person in question cannot produce biological children with them.
The reason why we consider people who call themselves “Super Straight” transphobic is not because they don’t want to pursue sexual relations with trans people, but rather because they explicitly say that they categorically don’t want to have a sexual or romantic relationship with any trans person under any circumstances specifically because they don’t consider a trans person to be the gender that they are. The transphobia here is not the refusal to pursue sexual relations with a trans person, but rather the denial of the trans person’s gender.
Some people use the acronym QUILTBAG for greater inclusiveness.
That works so much better!
There is actually a much better acronym (and also more used, afaik) than QUILTBAG; that is, GSRM (Gender, Sexual and Romantic Minorities), which allows every part of the sexual/romantic/gender spectrum to be represented without having to add letters. It also respects non-Anglo Saxon labels, such as two-spirits or aikāne.
Even better!
It makes no sense to include intersex conditions (otherwise known as Differences in Sexual Development or DSDs) in the umbrella term. DSDs are not related to sexual attraction or identity. They are a constellation of medical conditions, mostly caused by a genetic abnormality, that have impacts on the person’s health (some minor, some major, depending on the condition). You might as well include people with color blindness or hemophilia or other genetic problems.
People with DSDs do suffer from stigmatization and misunderstanding of their conditions, but this is not solved by tying them in with the LGBT+ community. Quite the contrary, considering that their needs are very different.
Intersex people do, in fact, face significant forms of oppression that are sufficiently similar to the forms of oppression faced by transgender and gender-nonconforming people that it is worth including them under the umbrella of “queer” or “LGBTQIA+.” Most intersex conditions are, for the most part, medically harmless, in the sense that a person may be infertile or at greater indirect risk of certain other health conditions, but the intersex condition itself is not in any way inherently directly harmful to their life or livelihood. Most of the problems intersex people face are caused by society and social attitudes.
Notably, doctors routinely perform medically unnecessary sex reassignment surgeries on intersex infants who are born with genitalia that are seen as “ambiguous” or “wrong,” without the infants in question being able to give consent, to make their genitalia appear either conventionally male or conventionally female. In some cases, this may involve removing the intersex infant’s working gonads, thereby forcing the person to take HRT for their whole life when they might otherwise have just lived with the sex hormones their body was naturally making. Adult intersex people are also in many cases shamed for not fitting conventional norms of how a person of a certain sex is expected to look or act.
Being intersex is certainly not the same thing as being transgender, but intersex people and transgender people do have much in common and face similar social pressures to conform to a rigid sex and gender binary. There is also significant overlap between the two groups, since intersex people are statistically more likely to be gender-nonconforming or transgender than non-intersex people.
Intersex is primarily a medical condition — or rather it is a group of medical conditions. Some of these conditions may present themselves as minor; others have more serious health implications, for example, heart defects, or an increased risk of testicular or ovarian cancer. Most intersex people are infertile, which can be very distressing.
Many intersex people have objected to being included in the LGBT+ umbrella and find it unhelpful See for example: http://www.intersexinitiative.org/articles/lgbti.html .
The page you have linked here acknowledges that there are intersex people who do think it makes sense to include intersex people with LGBT people and it doesn’t take a firm position against including intersex people in with LGBT people. Instead, it includes both reasons why some people think it might make sense to include intersex people under the LGBT umbrella and reasons why some people think it might not. In any case, the article ultimately takes the stance that activism and advocacy to support intersex causes is what matters.
Hi Spencer,
I really love your posts and appreciate the lively debate that results from them. I have learned so much from reading what has been shared, so thank you. I believe that debate of this nature is the key understanding each other. Yes, it takes time and is often uncomfortable but that is better solution than the alternatives; restrictive laws or mental and physical violence, to put down views that don’t align themselves to the majority or the minority. We have a moral obligation to challenge and be challenged, to the benefit of humanity and progress. So thank you, for your efforts in this regard.
I would also like to pick your brains on what you know of Amanirenus, Kandake of Kush? All about, her life and times for a film I am writing. There is so little I can find about her but I am determined to tell her story and celebrate her extraordinary achievements. Please, get in touch if you feel you can help.
Best wishes.
Hello,
Just wanted to say I’m really glad I found your site (found while following up on some reviews of “Enlightenment Now.”) I just checked back to see if there was anything new, and found this timely article. I started reading it with a little trepidation, but found your points to be cogent and well-supported, and I really appreciate your bringing in historical contexts. Thanks.
You’re welcome! I’m glad you found my argument persuasive. A lot of other people in the comments seem to find my arguments abhorrent. A lot of people don’t seem to realize that there is a world of difference between saying that there is no moral excuse for what someone said and saying that they should be thrown in the Gulag for saying it.
This is an incredible article – I’ve honestly been trying to understand the topic of Transsexuality a lot deeper, especially after watching Chappelle’s latest Netflix addition so THANK YOU! I’ll be honest and say the idea of transsexuality still confuses me a bit, but I also acknowledge that because I don’t feel how a trans person might feel regarding their gender and/or sexuality, I will NEVER understand what it’s like to experience life as Trans. Just as a White British person will never fully understand the daily experiences of someone from an ethnic minority in the UK – a White person might educate themselves about it but could never experience it. This is why I believe it’s massively important to treat every single person with empathy, and I 100% agree with you when you say it is not morally right to make jokes about people suffering.
I’m a huge fan of how Chappelle gets people to think deeper about certain issues in society and really respect how deep of a thinker he is; I believe there are points he’s trying to get across in many of his shows that tend to go right over people’s heads (pretty sure he’s mentioned this somewhere in an interview which I saw a while back – that sometimes he makes very serious points through a joke and he can tell the audience haven’t taken it in because they’re caught up in the humour side of the joke). From watching all of Chappelle’s Netflix specials, he seems to have issues particularly with the dialogue which surrounds the topic of transsexuality in the mainstream media and social media. He also heavily communicates a sense of injustice for how much progression LGBTQ as a POLITICAL MOVEMENT have made in such a short space of time compared to Black communities and/or movements in USA. And he makes it clear that he doesn’t think it’s wrong for things to be progressing well for those communities (in fact he encourages better laws) but perhaps this is a man speaking with the pain of having to see and/or experience blatant racism, discrimination, injustices to degrees unimaginable to most people and so on. To me, it looked and sounded like he was suggesting reasons for why the LGBTQ community have progressed so quickly compared to African Americans. I don’t feel this particular message of his was transphobic as he is actually discussing race issues. But some of his jokes were transphobic and this is obviously what made the headlines and got people talking. Doubt you’ll find lots of mainstream media properly taking into account what he says about race and how it plays a role in “The Closer”, compared to the extent to which they’ve dubbed the whole show as “transphobic”. And I can’t imagine that many big media outlets run by majority White men will want people thinking about how race plays a role – but they will want people to be focused on outrage and division.
I feel really conflicted in the sense that I find his jokes generally really funny and love how well he exposes race issues, but for the first time ever whilst watching one of his shows, there were quite a lot of jokes which I didn’t laugh at and I felt he missed out quite a few things such as not talking about how heavily affected Black trans people are (as you mentioned in the article). I didn’t laugh at quite a few jokes purely because I understand what it’s like to feel like an outcast and your mental health declining as a result of distasteful jokes. But, I do strongly believe Chappelle’s whole issue with the topic is not transsexuality ITSELF but rather with the race issues which are intertwined in the dialogue surrounding LGBTQ. He uses his personal experiences from the viewpoint of a racial minority, making the point that he particularly notices how reactionary the LGBTQ community tend to be, rather than taking into consideration the struggles of ethnic minorities and just how deep rooted they are.
To many ethnic minorities, the idea of Transsexuality is completely alien to them and in turn, there will be jokes made. Perhaps because it makes the people who make those jokes feel more comfortable in their own insecurities. Of course I don’t know you, but I’m guessing you’ve at some point in your life made jokes about a group of people you may not fully understand? Perhaps you made one without even noticing.
Coming from an ethnic minority myself, I’ve heard transphobic jokes from certain people in my environment and it’s so clear to me they just haven’t been educated and/or don’t understand it. People mock what they don’t understand! Definitely not advocating jokes about transexual people, but the whole process of understanding is always a two-way street. By sending a message that certain jokes SHOULD NOT be told (and yeah I know nobody here including you is suggesting censorship and shutting comedians up), I do also believe it subtly and subconsciously discourages room for understanding and discussions between people who may need to understand it more and people who are experiencing such horrible and intense struggles in daily life as Trans. For example, I’ve been quite afraid to even have conversations about the topic, in fear that one of my questions or something I say could be misinterpreted and I’ll be jumped on, then be labelled as transphobic. In the same way, people being dismissive of trans struggles and even the idea of being transexual strongly discourages discourages those discussions to take place.
Once in a real conversation, I was simply discussing the potential implications of, theoretically, a man wrestler who has transitioned into a woman then joins the Women’s Wrestling League. By simply opening a discussion and trying to understand the train of thought more, I was shut down and straight away labelled transphobic. Truth be told this really hurt me because I come from a background which wasn’t exposed to any transsexual people at all basically (apart from one), and then when I tried to understand it (which like I say is sometimes extremely difficult when looking at it from the viewpoint of an ethnic minority) the answer I essentially got was “if we don’t like what we’re hearing, you’re transphobic”. In this sense, my viewpoint as an ethnic minority felt completely IGNORED. Which then discouraged me to ask any further questions, causing me to feel stuck in a loop of trying to understand!
It’s only until I read this article of yours that I’m understanding things more. And I completely recognise that many people don’t have this attitude of shutting others down and instead want to educate people, but we also need to truthfully acknowledge that understanding both sides is an education within itself, and it takes a huge amount of time for people to get used to things in society which they are simply not accustomed to. And I really do get that jokes about oppressed groups of people don’t help, but neither does making people feel as if they’re treading on eggshells when they have conversations about it. So much empathy, patience and love is needed in genuine understanding in my opinion. Also, encouragement to cancel comedians who are speaking about what they see from their viewpoint and tarnish their name has effects in the real world – just as transphobic jokes have its effects in the real world! Again, not saying you suggest cancelling people in your article but just voicing my opinion. Not saying they are the same effects by any means either, but I do think they’re as important as each other for differing reasons and many people seem to be ignoring this because it has the potential to personally benefit them. I think one of the points Chappelle is getting across is that these attitudes intertwine with white privilege, but his jokes involve a lot of reading between the lines (which is probably why he has said in the past that he knows messages he’s attempting to get across sometimes goes straight over most people’s heads, and also could go some way to explaining why the focus is so much on the actual jokes he made).
Sorry about the long comment, massive thank you again for putting all your time and effort into writing a really informative article and it definitely confirmed a few of my suspicions about the latest Chappelle special! Take care and I’m mega glad I found this website, you’re a natural writer 🙂
Cheers
I don’t have time to respond to everything you’ve said here, but I will respond to the part about the trans wrestler.
To tell the truth, I don’t really know or care very much about sports, but I did write an article earlier this year about the controversy over trans athletes, simply because the matter seems to be attracting so much attention. It’s definitely not one of my better articles, since it’s about a topic that I’m not really an expert in, but I did try to research it carefully. I think the key points of the article are:
1. There are very few trans women competing in sports in the first place. In fact, in many of the states that are trying to pass legislation to ban trans women from competing in women’s athletics, there are no recorded cases of trans women competing in athletics in the first place, meaning lawmakers in those states are trying to preemptively ban something that isn’t even happening in their states just out of fear that it might happen.
2. Many trans women choose to go on feminizing hormone replacement therapy (henceforth feminizing HRT), which causes the body to physically change to become more feminine. According to experts, at least after a certain number of years on feminizing HRT, trans women generally do not have inherent advantages over cisgender women that no cisgender woman could conceivably have.
3. Some cisgender women athletes are extraordinarily tall, strong, or massive, but no one is questioning their womanhood or considering banning them from their respective sports for having “unfair” advantages.
4. Transphobes routinely use the claim that trans women are “destroying” women’s sports as a device to promote general transphobia. Anti-trans propaganda outlets love to fixate on this issue and conservative lawmakers often use it as a Trojan horse to sneak in other transphobic bits of legislation that might otherwise be unpopular. Notably, many of the laws Republican state lawmakers in the U.S. have passed or are trying to pass banning trans women from competing in women’s athletics also contain explicit provisions that define gender as identical to sex assigned at birth, which could be enforced to deny trans people access to gender-affirming medical care and/or stop trans people from being able to legally change their gender marker.