Dave Chappelle Blames GOP for Weaponizing His Trans Jokes

Dave Chappelle spent years making trans people the butt of his jokes, then watched Republicans use those jokes as campaign material, and has now arrived at the conclusion that he’s the one who’s been wronged.

In an interview for NPR’s Newsmakers podcast, the legendary comedian once again defended his jokes targeting the trans community in recent stand-up specials, but says he resents how “the Republican Party ran on transgender jokes. I felt like they were doing a weaponized version of what I was doing. That’s not what I was doing.”

Speaking with NPR’s Michel Martin, Chappelle recalled a trip to Capitol Hill where he was flocked by many, including far-right Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.).

“I didn’t want to say ‘no’ in front of everybody, but I didn’t know the phrase ‘I respectfully decline,’” he explained to Martin. “So I just took the picture. And then she posted the picture and says something to the effect of, ‘Just two people that know that it’s just two genders.’ Just instantly, like, weaponized or politicized. So I got to the arena, and I lit her ass up for doing that. And she should never do that to a person like me.”

Chappelle’s first taunts of trans people began in his 2019 Netflix special “Sticks and Stones,” where he compared trans identity to performing an offensive Chinese racial caricature.

By then, there was already rising anti-LGBTQ violence under the first Trump administration; specifically, violence against Black trans women had accelerated.

Nevertheless, Chappelle continued and, in one subsequent Netflix special, said that he sided with author J.K. Rowling and her anti-trans views, claiming that he was on “team TERF.”

Separately, according to a report from Vulture, Chappelle allegedly mocked a nonbinary “Saturday Night Live” writer during a dress rehearsal for a 2022 episode of the long-running variety show.

I don’t know if Chappelle is a political news junkie, but he certainly understood how his celebrity could influence policy in 2022, when he appeared at a city council meeting in Yellow Springs, Ohio, to stop affordable housing from being built there.

If he understood his celebrity well enough to use it at a city council meeting, it’s hard to believe that he didn’t anticipate what a Netflix special might set in motion.

Other comedians were publicly challenging him on those jokes and their ramifications at the same time he was telling them.

And did he not leave “Chappelle’s Show” and go to Africa essentially because it dawned on him that white folks were laughing at him and not with him?

I have enjoyed Chappelle over the years, and though he has the right to tell whatever joke he wants, no matter how harmful some may find it, the most frustrating aspect of this entire controversy is how boring and lazy most of the jokes have been. He was so defiant about his trans tirades masquerading as comedy that they ultimately turned into something less comedian and more monologue from a disgruntled conservative uncle in a Black barbershop doling out verdicts about a community he knows nothing about.

Of course, conservatives latched onto Chappelle’s poking at trans people because it doesn’t require much to get a kick out of those looking for any means to punch down at others.

Republicans have long employed a playbook in which they use a litany of methods to debase a targeted group, chief among them the use of “humor” and entertainment.

Chappelle is the child of two college professors, but even if he didn’t take after them, he is a 52-year-old Black man in America. He knows how this playbook works. He also knows his role in it.

Yet, for all his complaints of GOP-hijacking, Chappelle refuses to acknowledge any fault, insisting that he was the victim of “rage baiting” by media outlets that had misrepresented his jokes.

It recalls complaints he made last year about being blacklisted and snubbed by the Grammys and the Emmys — that the industry was punishing him for the specials. The record shows six Grammy wins and two Emmy nominations for those exact specials. The punishment, apparently, was applause.

And if the alleged misrepresentation bothered him, he had every platform available to correct the record, but he never bothered.

Victimhood, it turns out, is more useful to him as a narrative than as a fact.

As for the trans people who took issue with his jokes, he told Martin, “I would say that, you know, not everything is for everybody. I don’t tell country artists what to sing about if I’m not going to go see a country show. If they bought tickets ever, maybe I’d listen. I don’t know. They’re just never there.”

That analogy only works if trans people choosing not to attend a show that mocks their existence is the equivalent of a music fan simply not vibing with a certain genre. It isn’t a disagreement about taste. It’s about whether a person’s existence is a punchline.

Chappelle doesn’t like the Republican affiliation, but perpetual victimhood and false cries of media bias and blacklisting are the hallmarks of the modern Grand Old Party.

As is the refusal to apologize.

“I don’t feel like anything I do is malicious or even harmful. And I think if I did hurt somebody with my work, boy, they would have been laid that at my feet,” Chappelle said. “I’m just not doing that.”

Chappelle’s accused sins have been laid bare at his feet repeatedly since the moment he cracked those jokes about trans people on stage. He just never valued the critique until now. One wonders what has changed, but presumably, it’s rooted in yet another climate shift, with any perceived linkage to Republicans and their conservatism right now being harmful to one’s bottom line.

Chappelle can cry about it all he wants, but he picked an easy target and understandably attracted ignorant bigots as a result. If he truly resents it, he should try switching up his routine.