With his latest Netflix special The Closer, Dave Chappelle is stirring controversy once again over jokes about transgender people that many are saying ring as transphobic.
Now, one of Netflix’s own creators is boycotting the streaming platform in response, reports CNN.
Jaclyn Moore, a writer and showrunner on the Netflix series Dear White People and the upcoming reboot of Queer as Folk, announced on Twitter this week that she’ll no longer be working with the company despite loving so many “brilliant people and executives who have been collaborative and fought for important art.”
Moore said that this was due to the company putting out and profiting from “blatantly and dangerously transphobic content.”
She went on to describe bits from the act, saying that Chappelle’s comments included misgendering a trans woman, wanting to tell a mother that her daughter looked like a man, platforming a hateful anti-trans ideology, and ending the special on a “but I had a trans friend” story.
Chappelle said that his latest special on Netflix will be his last for a while. Much of the act went on for long stretches about trans women and LGBTQ topics.
Other advocates of trans people have also openly condemned Chappelle and the latest special, including GLAAD, the LGBTQ media advocacy organization.
“Dave Chappelle’s brand has become synonymous with ridiculing trans people and other marginalized communities,” GLAAD tweeted this week. “Negative reviews and viewers loudly condemning his latest special is a message to the industry that audiences don’t support platforming anti-LGBTQ diatribes. We agree.”
Another Netflix employee, senior software engineer Terra Field, also tweeted that the Chappelle special is problematic due to its ridicule of the existence of trans people.
