Dave Chappelle spoke out against the Republican Party this week for the ways in which he believes GOP lawmakers have “weaponized” his controversial history of joking about the transgender community.
In an interview with NPR this week, Chappelle suggested that prominent Republicans had taken his trans-focused comedy wildly out of context.
“I did resent that the Republican Party ran on transgender jokes,” he said. “I felt like they were doing a weaponized version of what I was doing. That’s not what I was doing.”
As an example, Chappelle recalled a 2023 visit to Washington, D.C., during which Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) and Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) asked him for a photo.
Boebert later shared the image on X, writing: “Just three people who understand that there’s only two genders.”
Noting that Boebert had instantly “politicized” an otherwise apolitical image, Chappelle said he doesn’t ask how people vote before agreeing to pose for a photo with them. Still, he added, “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 has drawn the ire of LGBTQ+ advocacy groups and allies in recent years for taking aim at the trans community in his stand-up performances and televised comedy specials.
In 2021, Netflix employees staged a walkout of the company’s Los Angeles offices following the release of “The Closer,” one of Chappelle’s comedy specials on the streaming platform, which included jokes about trans people.
For the most part, the comedian has pushed back on claims he’s transphobic.
“Do I discriminate against somebody because they’re trans? I would like to think absolutely not,” he told The Washington Blade in 2017. “I’m not an obstructionist of anybody’s lifestyle, as long as it doesn’t hurt me or people I love and I don’t believe that lifestyle does.”
As for Chappelle’s latest claims in his NPR interview, however, many LGBTQ+ rights advocates weren’t buying them.
“If Dave Chappelle didn’t expect his trans ‘jokes’ to be weaponized by Republicans as hate speech and policy, he’s the most oblivious person on the planet. But the thing is… Chappelle isn’t oblivious,” trans activist Charlotte Clymer wrote on X. “For him to now pretend he didn’t expect the secondary effects his commentary would create and encourage is a punk-ass coward move.”
Added novelist Patrick S. Tomlinson: “Yes who could have predicted your jokes punching down at a disadvantaged minority would be taken up by the political party that has been relentlessly attacking and scapegoating them for the last decade.”
Though Chappelle has been known to steer clear of overt political references, he did offer a few words about President Donald Trump during his NPR chat.
When asked if he agreed with those who found Trump “funny,” he said, “Maybe if he wasn’t president, I’d think that was funny.”
“Like, if I were to talk about him, it would be funny,” he continued. “But I think what he does is so consequential … in my lifetime, I’ve never really seen anything of a phenomenon quite like him. I’m not trying to be political, but it’s remarkable. I don’t know how funny it is.”
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