Jaclyn Moore, co-showrunner of the recently concluded Netflix series Dear White People, who transitioned during the COVID-19 pandemic, tweeted, “I will not work with [Netflix] as long as they continue to put out and profit from blatantly and dangerously transphobic content.”
“I never loved Dave’s trans material before but this time it felt different. This is the first time I felt like, ‘Oh, people are laughing at this joke and they’re agreeing that it’s absurd to call me a woman,'” Moore recently told Variety. “Look, I have no desire to cancel Dave Chappelle. He should make whatever he wants to make but I will say to Netflix, it’s not like this was a live special.”
The writer added, “People like to say, ‘Oh, it’s just a joke.’ I get the joke. By the way there’s a lot that’s funny about being trans, but the idea that it’s funny that we call ourselves women, which was the subtext of a lot of those jokes, is not one of them. It’s actually the same language used by people who seek to hurt us.”