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For anyone who genuinely doesnāt understand why I feel as strongly as I do about people like Chapelle making transphobic comments that are passed off as jokes, I want to share a story that I hope will help you understand, and contextualize his behavior.
When I was sixteen, I played ice hockey almost every night at a local rink. I was a goalie, and they always needed goalies, so I could show up, put on my gear, and just wait for some team to call me onto the ice. It was a lot of fun.
One night, Iād played a couple hours of pickup with some really great dudes. They were friendly, they were funny, they enjoyed the game, they treated me like I was part of their team. They welcomed me.
After we were finished, we were all in the locker room getting changed into our regular clothes.
Before I tell you what happened next, I want to talk specifically about comedy and how much I loved it when I was growing up. I listened to records and watched comedy specials whenever I could. One of the definitive comedy specials for me and my friends was Eddie Murphyās Delirious, from 1983. It had bits that still kill me. The ice cream song, aunt Bunny falling down the stairs, mom throwing the shoe. Really funny stuff.
There is also extensive homophobic material that is just fucking appalling and inexcusable. Long stretches of this comedy film are devoted to mocking gay people, using the slur that starts with F over and over and over. Young Wil, who watched this with his suburban white upper middle class friends, in his privileged bubble, thought it was the funniest, edgiest, dirtiest thing heād ever heard. It KILLED him. And all of it was dehumanizing to gay men. All of it was cruel. All of it was bigoted. All of it was punching down. And I didnāt know any better. I accepted the framing, I developed a view of gay men as predatory, somehow less than straight men, absolutely worthy of mockery and contempt. Always good for a joke, though.
Let me put this another way: A comedian who I thought was one of the funniest people on the planet totally normalized making a mockery of gay people, and because I was a privileged white kid, raised by privileged white parents, there was nobody around me to challenge that perception. For much of my teen years, I was embarrassingly homophobic, and it all started with that comedy special.
Letās go back to that locker room.
So Iām talking with these guys, and weāre all just laughing and having a good time. Weāre doing that sports thing where you talk about the great plays, and feel like youāre part of something special.
And then, without even realizing what I was doing, that awful word came out of my mouth. āBlah blah blah F****t,ā I said.
The room fell silent and thatās when I realized every single guy in this room was gay. They were from a team called The Blades (amazing) and I had just ā¦ really fucked up.
āDo you have any gay friends?ā One of them asked me, gently.
āYes,ā I said, defensively. Then, I lied, āthey say that all the time.ā I was so embarrassed and horrified. I realized I had basically said the N word, in context, and I didnāt know what to do. I wanted to disappear. I wanted to apologize, I wanted to beg forgiveness. But I was a stupid sixteen year-old with pride and ignorance and fear all over myself, so I lied to try and get out of it.
āThey must not love themselves very much,ā he said, with quiet disappointment.
Nobody said another word to me. I felt terrible. I shoved my gear into my bag and left as quickly as I could.
That happened over 30 years ago, and I think about it all the time. Iām mortified and embarrassed and so regretful that I said such a hurtful thing. I said it out of ignorance, but I still said it, and I said it because I believed these men, who were so cool and kind and just like all the other men I played with (I was always the youngest player on the ice) were somehow less than ā¦ I guess everyone. Because that had been normalized for me by culture and comedy.
A *huge* part of that normalization was through entertainment that dehumanized gay men in the service of ājokesā. And as someone who thought jokes were great, I accepted it. I mean, nobody was making fun of *ME* that way, and I was the Main Character, soā¦
I doubt very much that any of those men would be reading this today, but if so: I am so sorry. I deeply, profoundly, totally regret this. Iāve spent literally my entire life since this happened making amends and doing my best to be the strongest ally I can be. I want to do everything I can to prevent another kid from believing the same bigotry I believed, because I was ignorant and privileged.
So this stuff that Chapelle did? That all these Cishet white men are so keen to defend? I believe them when they say that itās not a big deal. Because itās not a big deal TO CISHET WHITE DUDES. But for a transgender person, those ājokesā normalize hateful, ignorant, bigoted behavior towards them. Those ājokesā contribute to a world where transgender people are constantly under threat of violence, because transgender people have been safely, acceptably, dehumanized. And itās all okay, because they were dehumanized by a Black man. And the disingenuous argument that itās actually racist to hold Chapelle accountable for this? Get the fuck out of here.
I love dark humor. I love smart, clever jokes that make us think, that challenge authority, that make powerful people uncomfortable. I donāt need a lecture from some dude in wraparound sunglasses and a āgit āer doneā tank top about how I donāt understand comedy and I need to stick to acting. I donāt need a First Amendment lecture from someone who doesnāt understand the concept of consequences for exercising speech the government canāt legally prohibit.
Literally every defense of Chapelleās ājokesā centers white, cishet men and our experience at the expense of people who have to fight with every breath simply to exist in this world. Literally every queer person I know (and I know a LOT) is hurt by Chapelleās actions. When literally every queer person I know says āthis is hurtful to meā, Iām going to listen to them and support them, and not tell them why they are wrong, as so many cishet white men do. If youāre inclined to disregard queer voices, especially as they relate to this specific topic, I encourage you to reflect on your choices and think about who you listen to and why.
Too many of my fellow cishet white men are reducing this to some abstract intellectual exercise, which once again centers our experience at the expense of people who are genuinely threatened by the normalization of their āless thanā or āoutsiderā status. Thirty years ago, I centered myself and was appallingly hurtful as a result.
I was sixteen and didnāt know any better. I still regret it. Frankly, a whole lot of people I blocked should feel the same shame about what they said TODAY that I feel for something I did three decades ago when I was sixteen and didnāt know any better. But they donāt, and that is why people like me need to keep using our voices to speak up and speak out.