The Obvious Thing Millionaire Comedians are Missing about Trans People
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Last night, Chris Rock broadcast his new special Selective Outrage live on Netflix and loudly joined the pantheon of Millionaire Comedians Who Have Opinions on Caitlyn Jenner. He spent some time musing about how he’d feel if his own father came out as trans, and he got in some sly anti-trans digs later (he’s rich but “identifies” as poor, etc.). This was all in the context of railing against “woke-ism” and other cranky-old-man-talk-radio premises that feel as fresh as a gas station hot dog.
The bulk of his special felt perfunctory, perhaps because it was simply laying the groundwork for what he really wanted to talk about: getting slapped at the Oscars by Will Smith.
But I don’t really want to talk about that. I have a question for all these millionaire comedians who somehow can’t resist sharing their hot takes on trans people.
My question is: why do these marquis-named comedians feel the need to have a take on trans issues in the first place? You know, you don’t have to talk about it on stage, fellas. You can talk about anything you like! But they keep talking about it. I think it’s because they think that being trans is ultimately silly. A guy wants to wear a dress and change his pronouns? Fine, but don’t forget: that guy is silly! (In this worldview, trans men don’t exist, because anyone born with a vagina is not a full person.) Caitlyn Jenner is silly, they’re all silly, we know the real truth about them, but the silliness now for some reason has consequences, and if they acknowledge the silliness or slip up with the pronouns, they’ll be criticized in a way that hurts their feelings and possibly keeps them from making even more millions. So they think: this silliness is ripe for some skewerin’! And they, the Truth Tellers, are the ones to do it.
It must be quite a thing to be celebrated as a Truth Teller. It must be quite a heady experience to make millions of dollars off your thoughts.
But this is the part that knocks me out: for a profession that prides itself on keen observational skills, a lot of these professionals are missing the blatant, obvious, couldn’t-be-any-plainer facts about this moment in history. It’s this giant tree in the forest, and they keep crashing straight into it.
The facts are these: in 2023, Tennessee outlawed drag shows. The Iowa Legislature has proposed more than 20 anti-LGBTQ laws just this season. There’s the horror show that is metastasizing in Florida. There are bathroom bills, and bills making gender-affirming care illegal, and bills that strip parents of trans kids of their rights. All over the country, trans youth — and adults! — are being targeted for persecution and discrimination. Just this week, a speaker at CPAC said that “transgenderism should be eradicated from public life.”
Eradicated.
That’s what’s going on. That’s the context.
And in that context, it doesn’t matter how you feel about pronouns. It doesn’t matter how you feel about trans people. A better question is: how do you feel about freedom? How do you feel about a group of lawmakers denying care that the overwhelming majority of doctors say is life-saving? How do you feel about liberty? Seems like you’re for it — for you. Isn’t that your whole thing, freedom? Isn’t that what you want for yourself?
Don’t you think maybe you could talk about that? Like maybe that might be the more relevant topic here?
In Chris Rock’s new special, he starts the hour by suggesting words don’t hurt, violence hurts. Which: good point! Let’s talk about violence — how it’s stoked, how it grows, how it makes weak people feel momentarily strong. Perhaps you have some life experience you could draw from, Chris. Maybe you know about that first-hand.
But he clearly doesn’t believe his own premise. Chris Rock demonstrably believes in the power of words. That’s why he spends the last ten minutes of that same special getting revenge on Will and Jada. He fights with his words, he always has, and it’s made him a millionaire. Just look at the names of his specials: Bring the Pain. Bigger and Blacker. Kill the Messenger. This guy loves to feel powerful through his words!
And who can blame him? It feels great to feel powerful. It’s a much better feeling than its opposite.
In his special, Rock makes a point to say he has no hate for trans folks, and he ascribes his open mindedness to the fact that he’s an artist, so he works with all different kinds of people. He compares his views to his truck-driving brother, who he then impersonates. It’s a neat way to give voice to bigotry while retaining plausible deniability for yourself — it’s not Chris who feels this way, it’s his brother!
Let’s take Rock at his word, that he truly harbors no hate for trans folks. If he’s going to bother to bring up the subject, it would have been great — courageous, even — to use his extraordinary rhetorical gifts to tell the truth — the real, observable truth — about this moment. But he can’t ever shake his gender essentialism and his weird hang-ups about women, even as he tries to give lip service to trans people’s humanity. He makes a joke about preferring the company of trans women because they know about football plays. (Sigh.) But even that half-hearted gesture gets drowned out by the volume of anti-trans sentiment sprinkled throughout the hour.
There are currently trans children — Black trans children, white trans children, rich and poor trans children, trans children with evangelical parents — who are afraid for their lives.
It sure would be great if somebody — somebody with keen observational skills, somebody who knew how to bring the pain — would give a shit. Or, if that’s not possible, to at least shut the fuck up about it.
