As a non American, I must say that I found Chappelle's special to be way too much in the defensive, as if he was preparing for a cancellation that was sure as hell not going to happen. Why would trans people be mad, when he was basically dealing with his duel process on stage about the loss of a trans friend?
Then I saw Twitter. Wow.
I just don't understand how people can be that mad about something that _they've clearly not watched_. It's beyond me. Perhaps I lack some fundamental cultural context.
- someone gets offended from clips, or watches the whole thing but dislikes bits they feel can taken out of context
- they say it is hateful
- everyone who listens to them takes the judgement and runs with it. No need to subject yourself to hateful content when you already know it is
- the judgement spreads, and people wanting to feel important add their own (uninformed) thoughts, which are just exaggerations of the original
- enough people say it that it becomes a foregone conclusion, and anyone who speaks up in opposition obviously only does so because they are anti-X, bigoted and hateful themselves, and so their opinions dont matter
It is basically how all stereotypes spread, with an added hint of malice thrown on top to be extra divisive. In a world of things like "anti-racism" where you must parrot the orthodoxy loudly and often, this is the natural course of things.
Culturally, I think "celebrification" is to blame for the intensity. We have spent so long worshipping celebrities, and celebrity status, that social media gave us the added shot of each of us being our own mini-celebrities. Being liked and mentioned has become a form of self fulfillment for some people, and the easiest way to do that is parrot every bandwagon you can find.
The context is there is a playground game being played at scale. In order to be accepted in certain circles, one needs to discern who the thought leaders are, display the proper deference to them, and above all adhere to approved talking points. Chappelle is experiencing backlash for writing his own talking points.
I haven't seen the special because I don't think Chapelle is funny, so I don't know what he said, and I am not defending him.
However, there's a minority of folks who are engaged in this "outrage porn" to score points on social media. They need something to rail against every, single, day.
They don't care about what was actually said. If you take 90 mins to watch the special you might miss the wave of hate you're trying to ride.
It happens on the right and the left (which in the USA are really both pretty right).
> I just don't understand how people can be that mad about something that _they've clearly not watched_. It's beyond me. Perhaps I lack some fundamental cultural context.
There is a very simple explanation for this type of outrage: many religious people get offended when what they consider to be sacred gets criticised or denied. This is even more true for new converts who often fail to see the nuances in their religion and take religious dogma as absolute truth. Religious extremism is incompatible with rational discourse, as is proven time and time again - it does not matter whether the extremists follow a theistic religion like Islam or Christianity or a secular one like "Wokeness", the "new religion of the left" or whatever name you want to give it. Now add this this a faith without atonement or salvation and the seeds have been sown for a life of outrage.
It feels disingenuous to use this as the headline as it implies they were fired for organizing the walkout instead of for leaking internal data:
A Netflix spokesperson confirmed the employees’ dismissal. “We have let go of an employee for sharing confidential, commercially sensitive information outside the company,” they said.
At the same time, if they wanted to get rid of this person they would come up with an alternative justification like this. It's similar to how Terra Field (Netflix engineer) was suspended after her viral tweet about the Chapelle special, on the justification that she joined (without disrupting at all) a QBR zoom meeting, despite being invited to it by a higher up.
This is how art, comedy and free speech dies. You take the hyper-sensitive, outrage-addicted Twitter culture as measuring stick for what is appropriate.
Whilst Netflix did resist a full take-down, they still took a knee. Don't bow to the unreasonables, just publish and don't explain anything. And indeed, fire the anti-employees, whom sabotage your business.
You're offended? So what? Grow up. Meanwhile hit show "Squid Games" depicts hundreds of people executed, and there's nothing but love and praise.
this is so hyperbolic, people have been saying political correctness is killing comedy for decades and it’s fine - louis ck literally ejaculated in front of women without their consent and is still touring and doing comedy
none of which are at risk here… the comedian said whatever he wanted, was paid millions for his art which was viewed by millions… this is like the apex of success
This minor insult has led to a disproportionate amount of outrage. Which is a very strong signal to other comedians to only engage in jokes deemed "safe". That's a regression.
but that’s inconsequential, nothing comes from it other than more exposure - that’s the point i’m making, if anything this continues to show that there’s no such thing as bad press
this, Netflix should not explain their actions. And if they suspend someone they better follow through and just fire them, indecisiveness projects weakness.
I'm glad Reed Hastings fully supports this, he is a major donor to the DNC, they are fighting their own.
For instance, what we're discussing in this thread is comedy being used in a non-fictional context, which makes your implication that we should be more concerned about violence against fictional characters seem like a comparison between apples and a picture of an orange.
The reason no one is up in arms about people getting killed in Squid Game is that it isn't real. The trans community, meanwhile, does actually exist.
Personal attacks like that will get you banned on HN. Cliché flamewar comments, which this also is, aren't much better. Worse yet, you've repeatedly been posting flamewar comments to HN (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28868269).
Would you please review the site guidelines and stop posting like that? We're trying for a (very) different kind of discussion here.
The problem is, someone will always find offense at something especially once culture teaches them it gives them power over others.
Once you give in to the extreme end, you'll be giving in to more and more and more.
People tried canceling Weird AL bc he said "spastic" in Word Crimes, and that's supposedly ableist.
What's he to do? Tell you its only a joke so you can come back with your retort about "these types of people" for whom it's "always a joke"
Power has been given to the mobs and they keep moving the line and we're at their mercy of what is allowed and not allowed to not only be funny but be said at all
Even more maddening is that this little group of authoritarians spend so much time crying about fascism anytime someone is to the left or the right of the Democratic Party, without having a hard look in the mirror.
All these perpetually offended types weren't mad at Netflix when it peddled a movie that paid preteen girl actresses to twerk and grind on a floor for a film with "a message". But black man hurt fee fees by trying to find a middle ground no less, so let's bring out the tiki torches.
It's not a funny joke, but yes, that too falls in the range of comedy, distasteful and harsh at it is. It's dark comedy. Yet it seems to me you purposefully escalated it 10 levels above the supposed insult in the show.
I play a fair amount of games and pretty much every day I see in chat something like this: "I hope your mother dies of cancer".
This does nothing to me. It doesn't upset me. Because context matters. It's some anonymous kid cowardly saying the nastiest thing they can think of. Which in male to male dialogue means going for the holiest of holiest: their mother.
Who cares? Even if it would offend me...so what? What happens next? Nothing. You don't have a right to not be insulted.
Would you please not break the site guidelines just because someone else did? It's really dismaying to see an established user like you stooping to that level.
I just watched it. I don’t feel like I live in a real world anymore. This whole outrage is manufactured and there are so many resellers.
Dave spends the last 15 minutes of the show telling a heartbreaking story of how he made friends with a transgender woman, and invited her to open his show for him, she sucked but then when she was being herself during the show and afterwards backstage she had everyone howling with laughter because she was so naturally funny but she needed to work on her show to get that side out.
She defended Chapelle on Twitter and got dogpiled for it and killed herself (not 100% if there was a correlation but sure it didn’t help).
Dave got to the point that he didn’t like her or find her funny because she was transgender but because she was a person. She was another human. Not someone who hid behind a label or an identity, but someone who was a human going through the same shit we all go through.
That’s what identity politics and extreme politicalisation denies people, humanity. How people watched that show and got that he’s a transphobe from it just blows my mind.
I watched it as well. All nuance on the topic has been obliterated by the topic being absorbed into the larger culture war, but above anything it just wasn't funny.
On net, the people calling Chapelle out are more correct than his defenders. He really did spend an hour making unfunny jokes at trans people's expense. Was the whole thing as bad as many who didn't watch it are assuming based on a few cherry picked quotes? No, but it was still pretty bad.
Should Netflix remove it? I wouldn't say so, but I think much of the criticism is well deserved if lacking nuance.
Nothing illegal was said, so if you don’t like it, just don’t watch it, it’s really that simple. I get tired of the tyranny of the minority telling me what I’m allowed to do.
>if you don’t like it, just don’t watch it, it’s really that simple.
No, it's not that simple. I hate this term but Chapelle is by all means a THOUGHT LEADER, meaning he has a megaphone into the minds of huge swaths of the population esp with a platform like Netflix. Everyone must fight for the world they want to live in.
>I get tired of the tyranny of the minority telling me what I’m allowed to do
ehhh, I watched it and having a trans friend doesn’t give him a free pass just like the old “I have a black friend” doesn’t
I’ve already seen posts from anti-trans folks praising him, and “i’m team terf” memes. I don’t think the material was funny or provocative enough to warrant the validation it’s creating amongst bigots (even if they’re missing the point).
He seemingly saw this coming and seemed to be preemptively playing defense the entire special.
I’m not going to “cancel” him or whatever, but the whole thing seems lazy on multiple fronts. He intentionally stirred a very divisive pot so people would talk about him, and he tried to set himself up as the smart guy for “seeing” obvious backlash coming.
> He seemingly saw this coming and seemed to be preemptively playing defense the entire special.
Of course he did, the reaction he received was exactly the punchline he wanted out of the whole special. He basically dared people to try and cancel him, and when they dutifully fell in line and created the uproar he predicted would happen, it underscored his entire point about hurting LGBQT+ feelings generating much more societal outrage than committing violence against black folks.
This is really grasping at straws, there was a massive movement that essentially lasted all last summer to protest against police violence against black people. There have been multiple large demonstrations this year. I've seen nothing even approaching that scale for trans people. Maybe Dave is spending too much time online.
If his stance is "sometimes this (about me) gets more attention than that (about them)" then it's even more absurd. Especially considering that intersectional violence is particularly bad for black trans women.
well first you were saying there’s more outrage about trans people, and when presented with a contrary opinion you’re now singing a tune about the proportion of the outrage… come on, that’s not even what this is about
The message of the show was about the ridiculousness of disproportionate outrage and places an exclamation point on his message.
But yeah, two weeks and dozens of national news stories and demands to cancel and remove his show is probably just a few people “mad” at him for comparing trans genitalia to fake hamburger and not a living example of disproportionate outrage at all.
Don’t do this. Both sides have to stop with generalizations. And both sides have to stop using their handful of [x] friends to represent a non monolithic community. One’s experience doesn’t justify bigoted actions.
What's bigoted keeps changing and keeps finding or inventing exponentially smaller, to the point of statistical irrelevance, demographics to turn the entire world upside down over
Who can keep up any more? The rules change faster than slang and fashion.
But that's not good enough for people bc now you're expected to walk a linguistic minefield due to all the pedantic asshole on the internet who won't listen in good faith, then accuse you of speaking in bad faith
A good example is this thread. Chappelle was trying to use anecdotes to meet people halfway, and he did it in his language of comedy.
People accuse him of punching down... But comedy that concerns itself with punching up or lunching down is comedy + something else. Its not comedy. Just like atheism+. And so Chappell is coming from a different perspective and no one wants to see and listen to what he's trying to say.
Comedians say all kinds of fucked up shit to each other. That's their language. He extended the olive branch and for that.... There's firings and walkout and internet arguments.
Golden rule can't apply on the global stage when there's 20% of the left SEEKING offense wherever they can find it and constantly demanding others change on their behalf.
The Golden rule never took cry-bullies who cry foul for power games into consideration
Well, for the 80%, a good-faith attempt to treat them well covers a fair number of mistakes. For the 20%... they're not going to be happy, no matter what you do. They won't even be happy with your silence. For them, the rule is more like "So far as it depends on you, live at peace with all."
And I think (or maybe hope) that it's a lot less than 20%. The problem is that much of the internet is a broadcast or oratorical medium, and those seeking offense will find you. They find offense everywhere. It must be a miserable way to live.
Did you watch it though.. its not about him having a trans friend? He states multiple times he's a feminist and relates to struggles people have in life.
He sides with JK Rowling. That doesn't make him bad.. that makes him sane!
They're asking for laws from compelled speech legislation (in Canada), to censorship legislation and also leveling death threats at their opposition when they make valid counterpoints (like J.K. Rowling, who received thousands of death threats from rabid trans activists).
It's not accurate to say they're asking to be treated like women. They're asking for expansive accommodations above what anyone else would receive.
Then there's the issue of trans activists lying about the safety of hormone blocker use in children, which is NOT reversible nor is it safe. There is an established link between the use of those products and irreversible bone density loss.
If you mention any of this, you get viciously attacked on a personal level.
People who are declaring themselves to be women are demanding they they treated like women, get all the privileges of women, and criminalize descent.
This is very different from your word games. Having a right to do something everyone else does, like buy a house, get credit in my name, etc is different from demanding I act out your identity under punishment of arrest.
If you are drowning, I am not obligated to save you, yet somehow I’m responsible for your feelings?
Some people saying yes and some people saying no is literally what a “sides” thing is.
He said that he's on "team TERF" and compared being trans to wearing black face. It's not "manufactured", there are a lot of people upset that he's punching down against a vulnerable community.
This is, I think, the key detail. Everything else is subjective enough that it's easy for people inclined to dismiss the whole thing to make a reason up. There's really no way to misunderstand those things. He's declared an allegiance with people who spend all their time on Twitter and forums dehumanizing trans people, often using the same insinuation that being a woman is the same as doing blackface. Maybe he's ignorant of what he's really saying, but that's not an excuse.
Not agreeing that you belong to a biologically defined community that has a unique set of issues is about as far from from dehumanizing as it gets.
By this argument, blacks are dehumanizing by not accepting whites who want to be black, even though any biologist can tell you “race” doesn’t exist in any meaningful way. In fact the left successfully used this argument to defeat the popularity of far-right white supremacy groups.
> Furthermore pretty much everybody in every non-western country is a TERF.
Many non-western nations traditionally had third gender (Hijras in India, Kathoey in Thailand, many Native American Two-Spirit Identities). When these places were colonized these identities were used as a justification, and generally punished harshly. The argument that "only people in western nations tolerate this", is bad-faith, and doesn't recognize that anti-trans hostility in a lot of the non-western world was largely created by the colonial overlords this argument is meant to rebuke.
I've been excited to see a growing movement by indigenous people to reclaim their ancient understandings of identity in general, and gender in particular now that colonizers have lost the energy they had for suppression in past decades and centuries. A lot of it is just gone, but the nice thing about a living culture is it can rebuild and recover and build new concepts in the gaps.
>Furthermore pretty much everybody in every non-western country is a TERF.
I don't think you know a lot of the meanings of words you're using. Firstly "TERF" ideology is pretty new and not the "traditional position of gender debates." It branched off of recent feminist movements. Most of non-western countries are not TERFs, probably not even feminist by most current definitions, and definitely not radical.
The definition being used is in the first sentence of my post. Yes perhaps it's non standard, but "TERF" is a pejorative invented by pro-trans activists.
Oh, OK, sounds like you know more about it than me. I'm just talking about the position of retaining a concept of women meaning humans with two X chromosomes who can bear children, and being a feminist meaning recognizing that the group thus-defined has been severely mistreated by men over the centuries and to the present day. I honestly can't really believe that any of this needs explaining, it's just surreal.
Yes! Exactly that's the point. Biology's complicated, of course there are edge cases. That in no way alters the fact that the core concept is that a woman is an XX human.
Re infertility, don't be silly. Yes I didn't word it perfectly, I meant "XX, i.e. the sex that bears children in mammals". Do you know what anisogamy means? This stuff wasn't complicated 20 years ago and funnily enough the science hasn't changed.
Can you post a link to what you’re referring to? I don’t think I was aware that there were fertile XY females in humans.
But in any case, the point is that biology is messy and always has rare exceptions. As an engineer I’m sure you appreciate the value of simple definitions that capture 99% of the diversity accurately.
I found one paper describing one case. Is that what you're referring to? If so I'm guessing you haven't had much exposure to biology -- definitions always have counter examples in biology. The important thing is to have simple definitions that get at the core conceptual structure. "Females are XX humans; males are XY humans" is one such definition, questioned only by a small contingent of non scientific social activists in western countries in the last decade or so.
> Furthermore pretty much everybody in every non-western country is a TERF.
Not everyone outside the West is a feminist, much less a radical feminist, trans-exclusionary or not.
(Though, to be fair, most people accused of being “TERFs” are at most moderate bourgeois feminists rather than radical feminists, but still even that is pretty unusual in lots of non-Western countries.)
No, you must surely can see that these are not symmetric: no-one questions whether gayness exists, and no-one questions whether people exist who identify with a gender that's not their birth sex. But there's HUGE disagreement across the world about whether to use the word "woman" for a person born male who identifies as female. Even if you are very clear where you personally stand on that question, you surely see that vast numbers of people across the world believe the answer is "no"?
There's no analogous question regarding homosexuality.
Going with that comparison, it's like having an especially vicious rage towards feminist women who are homophobic, despite almost everybody else also being homophobic.
Transphobia is contradictory to any definition of feminism rooted in the actual history of feminism. TERF ideology depends on the belief that trans women are confused men, trans men are confused lesbians, and nonbinary people are just confused.
Well, I've been hanging around feminist women for some decades and my perception of events is that a significant proprtion of women who used to just be called feminists now get dragged for being TERFs.
My feminists can beat up your feminists. Seriously, what is this, third grade? Yes, some people latch on to movements without really understanding them. Not everyone reads theory. It's inevitable with movements that try to be inclusive, and preferable to the alternative. They can still call themselves feminists, and I can call them bad feminists.
I promise more cis women have attacked trans women than the reverse. Sometimes they even go after women they assume are trans! A weird side-effect of the new wave of transphobia is that even people who consider themselves cis but present in a non-conforming way are being attacked in bathrooms. And not by trans women.
Well that sounds bad if true. I have never heard of this happening and the only violence I'm aware of in my circles has been in the other direction (there is an actual criminal conviction involved).
I wouldn't use the word "confused" because it sounds derogatory. But substitute that with "trans women are men who feel that they are female", and that's a perfectly reasonable point of view isn't it? You may not like it very much, but you surely agree that it's understandable and not malicious or cruel? It is after all the position of the vast majority of people on the planet, and that of most people in the usa and western europe, except for a left-leaning contingent under the age of 40. (That statement is approximate of course)
Sounds like the TERFs have a very reasonable position that doesn't involve the rest of society changing the definitions of words based on extremely questionable socially and politically motivated soft sciences.
The difference being that pro-gay activists are not doing any of the bad and absurd things that pro-trans activists are doing: attacking freedom of speech, denying the biological basis of sex in the ape species Homo sapiens, ending people's careers who disagree with them, attacking feminism, damaging pro-gay movements, canceling people, etc. You don't get to assume that people aren't angry about the behavior of pro-trans activists or are too scared to say so publicly: they have behaved awfully in recent years.
The same people will claim bi people are damaging the pro-gay movement, so I don't put much stock in their views. Gatekeeping is absurd when the people it keeps out just want to live their lives.
Also? There are trans women who say I'm a trans woman who hides behind nonbinary to avoid the difficulty of transitioning. That position is just as harmful and ignorant, and I still fully support binary trans people. That some people are butts is not an excuse to dismiss an entire group of humans.
this is basically the “angry black man” defense - just because some people aren’t protesting in a way you approve of doesn’t mean it’s ok to hate the group indiscriminately
I hope this doesn't need saying, but it's the activists I am criticizing -- the majority of whom are not trans. I have no criticisms whatsoever of anyone on the basis of their gender identity or sexuality.
But yes, if the activist community fails to disassociate itself from / speak out against radicals who are harming people, then that activist community is going to receive criticism.
it’s not a singular community, there’s no spokesperson - this is like trying to hold “anonymous” accountable… it’s the same old rhetoric people have been using to discredit all activists
That'd also go for TERFs (or GC people or whatever), right?
I sort of agree, in that the groups are composed of individuals and it's not entirely fair to hold them responsible for things they didn't personally do. I also think if you see a political community as having some sort of problematic culture it's reasonable to say so.
> [...] but framing it as a debate does very little to conceal the violence. Netflix platformed violence [...]
Comedic irreverence is not violence. You're only making others to not take you seriously when you say that speech can be violence. Some speech can lead to it, but it's most certainly not violence.
I'm not talking about people who don't want you to live. I'm talking about people somewhere near JK Rowling in the debate; I'm talking about the majority of people who simply don't accept all aspects of the new language relating to gender that a small but vocal minority are attempting to force on them.
I see nothing in the guidelines against calling out a lie. I don't see how any sensible rules of discussion could possibly ban that. Why are you coming after me instead of the poster I replied to who is making false accusations?
"Lie" implies intent to deceive, which is something quite other than a factual correction, and throwing "you" in there makes it an outright personal attack. That's not acceptable here.
If another comment is wrong or you feel that it is, it's enough to patiently and respectfully provide correct information. Your comment was obviously a flamewar move, and we don't want that in HN threads.
There are two paths you can take when you think someone is off-base:
1: ask questions to try and understand where they're coming from. A lot of times they're entirely on-base and can provide additional context to help understand their view even if you still don't agree. Coming from a different perspective is not the same as lying.
2: attack them, such as by calling them a liar
HN's guidelines favor the former. The latter is great TV, but doesn't lead to good discussion.
Not if you understand what they mean by violence. I assume they mean the kind of violence that goes with stochastic terrorism. Dave Chapelle doesn't have to intend for his words to cause harm to cause harm. Netflix doesn't have to intend it.
You don't have to agree that stochastic terrorism is real, but calling someone a liar because you don't understand the model of violence they're referring to doesn't make them a liar. It just means you lacked context. And now you don't.
Every dude who murders a trans woman bases his fear and rage on the exact same ignorance Netflix spreads through the chain of stand-up shows I did watch that meant I didn't need to bother with this one to know the deal.
Not at all. If someone says "I have two peer-reviewed manuscripts ready for publication: one proving fermat's last theorem in 10 lines and one proving that P=NP in 5 lines" then it is fine to say "You are lying". If the person is using non-standard definitions of "peer-reviewed" or "proving", then that is their decision one consequence of which is that they should expect to be called a liar.
In any case "they do not want me to live" is clearly a lie -- or are you going to introduce me to some new bending of language under which "they do not want me to live" does not mean "they want me to die"? Perhaps it means "they do not want me to live in the way that I want to live"? If so, as I said above, a risk of using language in such an extremely non-standard fashion is clearly that people will entirely reasonably mistake your statements for lying. Any attempt you make to tell me to do more research into what people mean by their words is just devaluing language and damaging communication: there has to be some rough consensus on semantics! That's what a language is!
That's very nearly the opposite of how HN works - it's spelled out in the guidelines and you can find dozens of moderator comments about it. There isn't really an intricate talmudic debate to be had about it.
Yes I am aware of this tactic. Take a word that is a very severe accusation like "violence" and redefine it to mean something that is so much less severe that 99.9% of people would not consider it remotely the same thing. Then accuse someone using the word, knowing very well that 99.9% of people will take it to mean a very severe accusation, and when called out on it, hide behind the alternate definition that you made up so it's "true." That is not a good faith argument, and I should not be expected to treat it as such.
> Every dude who murders a trans woman bases his fear and rage on the exact same ignorance Netflix spreads through the chain of stand-up shows I did watch that meant I didn't need to bother with this one to know the deal.
And this is an opinion that I disagree with, but it least is stated in a way that isn't deceptive.
I disagree with your moderation here dang. The poster simply made the claim that two statements made were deliberately factually untrue (aka a "lie"). The poster did not say "You are a lier"; the attack was on the untrue statements not on a generalization about the person behind the statements. Is it simply that you would prefer the phrase "untrue statement" instead of "lie", and "you are making untrue statements" instead of "you are lying"?
"Lie" implies intent to deceive, which is something quite other than a factual correction, and throwing "you" in there makes it an outright personal attack. That's not acceptable here.
Even doctors who perform transgender surgeries have publicly stated concerns about the end results of those operations, most publicly the doctor who performed surgery on the reality star Jazz Jennings.
In fact, he warned against the use of the surgeries at all because of the questionable results. [1]
There's thousands of pieces of anecdotes in various trans subreddits focused around surgeries, but I won't link them because they're very disturbing. They're easy to find if you wish.
> In fact, he warned against the use of the surgeries at all because of the questionable results.
No. She said blocking puberty at the 1st visible signs had drawbacks for vaginoplasty later.[1] This isn't news to people in the field. Not blocking puberty has drawbacks too. Doctors, patients, and parents have to weigh the pros and cons.
The ethics of using risky dangerous drugs on children (who grow out of GD over 50% of the time) is pretty clear cut to me.
You risk permanent bone damage for the minority of cases where it has some advantages? The "advantages" are apparently easier transgender surgery, which in its current form is essentially a disaster. The operation is brutal and the results are rarely good. The majority of the time there are serious, life-changing consequences. All this risk for something that I think even transgender people would agree isn't there yet in terms of utility nor aesthetics.
After all that, the suicidality of transgender people post-operation is virtually the same as pre-operation.
For those reasons, I find it extremely hard to support the use of risky drugs and a very rocky pathway for children who have GD. The fact transgender people tend to ignore these risks, paper over them and encourage questioning people onto this path isn't a good look.
The drugs are dangerous, irreversible and have a very questionable upside. Full stop.
Almost certainly your desistance statistic comes from studies including children who didn't meet the criteria for gender dysphoria.[1]
Puberty blockers have been prescribed for early onset puberty for over 30 years. Their primary effects reverse naturally after treatment stops. Studies found they affect bone density temporarily when used for early onset puberty. And not dangerously. Trans patients tend to take them longer though. At least 1 study found their bones don't recover as quickly. It wasn't set up to prove or disprove a permanent residual effect.[2] But even during treatment the effect doesn't reach dangerous levels for most patients. And the risk is easy to mitigate with monitoring, supplements, and exercise.
The advantages of puberty blockers are avoiding various surgeries and their risks, better results in some ways, and avoiding a distressing transformation the patient isn't allowed to do anything else about. That distress breaks some people.
"After adjustment for sociodemographic factors and exposure to other types of gender-affirming care, undergoing 1 or more types of gender-affirming surgery was associated with lower past-month psychological distress (adjusted odds ratio [aOR], 0.58; 95% CI, 0.50-0.67; P < .001), past-year smoking (aOR, 0.65; 95% CI, 0.57-0.75; P < .001), and past-year suicidal ideation (aOR, 0.56; 95% CI, 0.50-0.64; P < .001)."[3]
Trans people would like better surgical options of course. You don't speak for them in calling present surgeries a disaster.
What does any of this have to do with Dave Chappelle making jokes at trans people's expense?
>Their primary effects reverse naturally after treatment stops
Absolute fabrication, and a dangerous one at that. Bone density loss is permanent, and there are numerous documented cases of fracturing, broken bones and otherwise -- including from pro-transgender clinics. [1]
This is what I mean when I criticize the community for papering over serious dangers. Your words are reckless and dangerous.
>That distress breaks some people
Given the suicidality evidence, there's precisely zero proof that transgender surgeries benefit people at all, considering the rate of suicide post-operation is substantially higher than a normal person, and virtually unchanged from pre-operation.
This means that those surgeries offer no benefits for suicidal behavior whatsoever. The other "benefits" appear to be subjective? How are they "not broken" if they're dead from suicide? Serious question, because nobody ever seems to be able to tell me why these surgeries are a benefit given the grim statistics.
>You don't speak for them in calling present surgeries a disaster.
I never put words in their mouths, I simply read the mountains of evidence in their own communities, and from their own advocacy groups. [2]
Have you seen the results first hand enough to say that I'm wrong? Some of these surgeries are legitimately disasters. I mean permanent damage and zero functional use, with lifelong ramifications (daily upkeep, multiple corrective surgeries, serious problems with basic functions etc).
>What does any of this have to do with Dave Chappelle making jokes at trans people's expense?
If you watched his show, you would've noted that he was making jokes about them because they cannot take a joke like most people can. They cannot even take reasonable debate.
J.K. Rowling posts an opinion they don't like and thousands of them bombard her with death threats, hateful vitriol and otherwise.
Why can't they take a joke? Gay people can take a joke. Black people can take a joke. White people can take a joke. That's his point.
Most of the points you're making have been robustly debunked by actual science, which is I guess why you're not quoting anything from a credible source.
Your bone density argument is particularly stupid, and you don't appear to realise that you're waving a big red flag. Anyone with any knowledge about this knows the study you're referring to (but that you haven't read and haven't linked to), and knows the more recent studies that overturn those results (and you don't even know those studies exist, because you're getting your information from very selective sources).
Correlation isn't causation, and that's important for PBs and bone density because we know trans teens can have lower bone density even when they've never had PBs.
Netflix made the right move. Companies should not tolerate intolerant people. Sowell put it well: Most people on the left are not opposed to freedom. They are just in favor of all sorts of things that are incompatible with freedom. Freedom ultimately means the right of other people to do things that you do not approve of." Maybe those dynamite activists can learn a lesson about freedom and responsibility.
I've not seen the show, but I bet if it wasn't such a money-maker for Netflix it would have been taken down without a second thought - as in it wouldn't be worth Netflix's time to try and defend themselves from the trans-activists.
He specifically said in the show "Trans women are women" (or the double negative version which is "I am not saying that to say, that trans women aren’t women")
He also used the term "man with a vagina" during a genuine heartfelt admonition of the cruelty of bathroom bills. (Which would also be correctly gendering transmen)
So yes, he did end the show with a deliberate misgendering of his trans friend for a joke. And that to me is problematic for sure. But on balance this fits with the rest of his style of humor - he calls women bitches in the show too. Does that mean he is sexist? Or is it an artistic choice. I know people that despise him just for that even before we get to any of his positions on trans people.
But i think fundamentally, on balance, he is pro trans rights, and he recognizes trans people's brain gender.
Should he have said "I'm team TERF?" fuck no. Should he have said that he supports JKR? No. Now all the people who do NOT agree with all of the above points are leaping to support him - and they haven't seen the show any more than his critics.
But i do think he had some valid points. JKR was wrong. Unquestionably. But the reaction she got was much more extreme than the points she made. People treat her as if she was calling for the genocide of trans people.
I feel like the title is a bit misleading. The article doesn't much talk about the planned walk out, instead it focuses on the aforementioned employee being fired on suspicion of leaking internal metrics about a show that is apparently controversial (which I have never seen so I don't have any opinion or reference) and about other employees.
I'll confess I don't know anything about anything- I certainly don't have any insight into what evidence Netflix has to support the assertion that this employee was the leak; I doubt we'll ever see it.
I guess I'm just grousing about the title implying the employee was fired for organizing the walkout, yet the article doesn't expound upon the employee referenced by the title, the titular planned walkout, or the evidence for or against the title's implication. Instead, it mentions a show, some private metrics that were leaked to Bloomberg, 3 employees (at least one of whom is a trans software engineer) who were suspended for attending a high-level meeting they weren't allowed to listen in on and then reinstated after public pressure. So why imply that Netflix would fire an employee (who happens to be both black and pregnant) for organizing a walkout in the name of activism that hasn't even taken place yet in order to protest the show referenced by the leaked metrics if the only time they're going to bother even asserting the title's implication is when quoting an employee about discrimination?
Is discrimination the reason she was fired? Is it retaliation for a walkout that has yet to take place? Is there a smoking gun indicating that she was the one leaking private company data? I honestly don't have a clue and we probably won't ever know for sure. But for once I'd like to read an article where the experience at least begins in good faith instead of implying a conclusion without ever actually going into detail about it.
[/rant]
If you run a fast food joint and someone leaves during a shift without clearing it first, they are likely to be fired. If they distract the cashier, fry cook and grill and they end up leaving it is likely all of them will be put on "no rehire". It is your right to freely protest, but your company isn't obligated to keep you.
Customers have more power than employees. If you don't like what Netflix is doing, stop paying them.
The leak involved information on the calculated ROI of Chapelle's last special.
This is more akin to a vegan employee leaking how much McDonalds pays for beef, revealing that it is a loss leader. That jeopardizes the relationship and puts the beef company in a difficult position when negotiating with other companies. The vegan feels justified because meat is murder and causes unnecessary suffering.
It's interesting that Netflix may be putting subjective artistic quality ahead of profit. How will investors interpret that?
Some of those eyeballs will start a Netflix subscription just to see it, or continue to subscribe, or rethink about cancelling...
Streaming services like Netflix survive by having content people want to see. How many of us cancel HBO or whatever once the show we're watching is off-season? That's a lot of money to miss out on... making things like Chapelle's special worth while, even if it costs a ton up front.
In a weird way, all this hullabaloo surrounding this particular special is actually increasing it's awareness and therefore viewership. These employees are defeating themselves, really...
I think a more apt analogy would be a fast food employee believing that the burger patties were harmful, and in response deciding to leak the purchase order for burger patties and buns.
The employee may unaware that a rival burger chain could use that information to renegotiate with the supplier. This would potentially hurt the relationship between the employer and the supplier.
Except in reality their coworkers weren't farting on every burger, they were just giggling over non-PC jokes, and the camera system confirmed that there was no farting.
Sadly, the employee that leaked/whistleblew is suffering from a mental illness, and they delusionally thought their coworkers were farting on the burgers.
I wrote up a whole reply but yours was flagged and then unflagged and my comment was lost...
Anyway, just be aware you have allies. I've just given up participating on HN when these topics come up since it's gotten so utterly polarized and hyperbolic. I typically just flag the article and move on. I assume there's a pretty large silent audience of folks like myself who are simply exhausted by the whole thing and are done being exposed to the negativity and borderline conspiracy theories floating around here. I come to HN for cool tech stories, not to be exposed to even more American political food fights.
Of course, despite that, here I am... but, hey, I never said I had self-control...
"The context is there is a playground game being played at scale. In order to be accepted in certain circles, one needs to discern who the thought leaders are, display the proper deference to them, and above all adhere to approved talking points. "
I could probably find half a dozen comments in this thread alone expressing similar sentiments.
> Because unoriginal political flamebait is off-topic for this site. From the site guidelines:
Whilst I agree with you here, when the topic occurs within a tech company I think it is relevant. Basically it's very difficult to separate the tech from the politics in the current climate.
> A very common sentiment I see around here and elsewhere is imagining some secret, organized sjw cabal
When employees and students are being asked to complete "check your thinking" training, it's hard not to think there's a organised cabal pulling all the strings :)
> I'm not going to explain this to you all, but yeah, the language used by Chappelle has specific and very serious consequences for people like me.
I watched his latest special and perhaps I didn't catch it but could you give examples about the specific language he used? I'd like go back and watch again.
I seem to be in net positive point territory being critical of Netflix in numerous comments. I used to get flag killed and rate limited for that kind of thing! A too small improvement, but an improvement nonetheless.
Fun fact: The parent's comment was briefly flag killed. No idea how it came back, but... just goes to show, things haven't changed as much as you might think.
I can't bring myself to watch it. All I know is a quote from it where Chapelle describes himself as being on "Team TERF". Having spent months subjecting myself to abuse from TERFs in an attempt to empathize with them, I'm too scarred to expose myself to more of that.
So you might be right. Maybe Chapelle was taken out of context. I doubt it, given what I've read, but I can't say for sure since I haven't watched it.
But suppose it is homophobic, or transphobic. I'm actually okay with Netflix hosting it if so, but I don't want there to be double standards. Would Netflix host a racist stand-up routine? Perhaps one where the comedian says they're on "Team White Power" instead of "Team TERF?" Of course not! That's what grinds my gears - transphobia is edgy, apparently, not hateful like racism.
And if Netflix is really committed to diversity of perspectives, why did they no-platform the Saudi Arabia documentary?
I have sufficient resolution on it from people who did watch it and had a wide range of takes on it from "it's not transphobic, don't be a dumbass" to "it wasn't exactly transphobic, but it wasn't good and I understand why people consider the bad jokes transphobic" without subjecting myself to it.
Netflix's reaction is really the main subject of my comment. The way to interpret the show is just not relevant anymore. Netflix made it about Netflix.
More importantly than any of your associates, I have two important data points:
I watched it and it was definitely not transphobic.
Dave's trans female friend that committed suicide, her family supports Dave and says they believe it's not transphobic.
Every single criticism I've seen has been general. None of them, except the ones which take stuff out of context, have specific gripes. That's how you know this is about shutting down debate they don't want to hear.
You'll understand if I weigh the accounts of trans people who watched it over what you, Dave Chapelle, and the family of a trans person who can't speak for herself said.
You really gotta wonder how Dave would feel if a white person tried to explain to him how a joke he saw as racist wasn't actually racist, and besides, my black friend said it's fine...
There must be some analog to "mansplaining" that fits, here. "Transplaining"? Hmm...
My main point stands: criticism of his special is too vague. It's almost as if many of the critics never watched the whole thing, having formed an opinion about it early on and stopped watching. I watched the entire thing and it is a single piece. There are no standalone jokes in that special. Every single word is in support of the last words he speaks.
I even watched the special a second time to be sure I hadn't been bamboozled by Dave's wit and charm. I felt even more sure after the 2nd viewing that it's not transphobic.
I am not discussing or interested in this hypothetical person who hasn't watched it but is still commenting as though they did.
To reiterate:
>> "You'll understand if I weigh the accounts of trans people who watched it over what you, Dave Chapelle, and the family of a trans person who can't speak for herself said."
> I have sufficient resolution on it from people who did watch it
Never trust other people's opinions on matters like this.
Other people trust other people trust other people and you get mountains of wrong. Forming an opinion-based purely on other people's opinions is just a form of prejudice.
Do you believe Netflix ought to reject popular comedians, if they tell jokes that some people could interpret as racist, homophobic, transphobic, islamophobic, antisemitic, ableist, or misogynistic? Do you have any favorite comedians yourself who wouldn’t be affected? Would you mind if I scan their body of work just to make sure they aren’t harming any vulnerable communities?
They wouldn't be my favorite comedian if they dumped on critics, doubled down on the subject of the criticism, and didn't speak out on the firing of people who took issue with it after complaining about "cancel culture."
25 million for 10 million views in first few days. Is that too little? I have nothing to compare it to but it seems like this controversy is only going to lead to more views.
I don't understand why some people think it's okay to offend some groups and not others. Religious people may be deeply and sincerely offended by bad language, jokes about promiscuity, or jokes about religion. Should comedians be banned from discussing those topics because they might offend the religious? Trump supporters might be offended by jokes about Trump, Biden supporters, Biden. Are those beyond the pale?
It seems to me like some people have decided that the various 2SLGBTQQIA+ folks must not ever be offended but it's perfectly fine to offend some other groups. That doesn't make sense to me. If causing offense is wrong it should be equally wrong to offend anyone. Or, if it's okay to be offensive then it should be okay to offend anyone.
In this case the irony lies in one of Chappelle's jokes from his special...murder a man and no one cares (Jaylin Craig), but have a joke that offends a gay person and you will be a target for cancellation.
I agree with the sentiment but you're conflating what someone believes with who they are, ie, something someone can change vs something they can't.
I don't really think anything should be off limits and off color jokes are an important art form to feel out emotions but I also think there's a clear difference in your examples.
Many jokes about people are grounded in aspects of a person which they can’t change. And even things they can in theory—can they really? Being obese isn’t just a choice.
And of course nobody can change the past.
Making jokes about aspects of transgenderism should be seen as a sign of cultural acceptance, not rejection.
I don't think there's a difference. Most people are the religion they are born into. There's no choice about that. Similarly, you have no choice about the religion or political alignment of your family.
As a general rule, punching up is more acceptable (and funnier!) than punching down. Making fun of the groups that are traditionally dominant in our society (certain religions, political leaders etc) is more compelling comedy than mocking those that have been traditionally victimized and oppressed.
The whole movement of correcting social wrongs is made by barking at a social hegemons. And now we come full circle as people seem to believe there are general rules again, except they are the opposite of the rules that started to be barked at.
With a caveat: it's not possible to agree that we have come full circle. The previous hegemon canonized the ones in the "down" direction. And so we get to you, babbling about everyone agrees that it's better not to attack the "down" people.
A black woman came up with and wrote the foundational paper on intersectionality. Your comment is based on incorrect assumptions. A person can be both black and gay and experience a different kind of life based on that intersection. Black and native trans women suffer more by every metric than just about any other group of trans people.
Not by virtue of its blackness, indigenous or sex status, but only in relation to other people. If other people were to praise blackness, indigenousness and being non-man, it would not suffer, but thrive.
Yes, things would be different in a completely different culture other than the one we're discussing. That's why I weigh claims of oppression from Copts higher than I do from Baptists.
Now we discuss "claims of oppression by identities", yet before it was just "identities". Before identity was enough, when called out you switch to specific oppression. Almost as if you didn't care either way: before there were no individual experiences, now it's relevant. It really is a disease...
Depends on who is in the ring. But doing it to them as a group, I'd call that punching down in most cases.
A lot of the late night comedians keep their jokes focused on the politician and his TV cronies. Any jokes targeting supporters have always been about a specific person because of something they've done or said, rather strictly based on their politics. Ex: Colbert's Seditionists Roundup. Or will say, "supports are of the former president claim..." then offer a direct quote, usually using a clip of the person in question making whatever statement is the butt of the joke.
When they were in power it was punching up. Now I think it's just punching sideways or up depending on who's doing the punching, unless they're celebrities or Orangemanbad himself, in which case up.
It's almost impossible to punch down on Trump supporters because they overwhelmingly represent a movement by which the privileged classes are attempting to maintain their privilege and power, and because they're constantly punching down with their mockery and disdain for marginalized classes and their issues.
I wouldn't call Trump supporters privileged classes. Aren't they mostly blue collar workers? Not the political, cultural, financial elites and high earning immensely privileged urbanites?
The sources I've seen claim most of Trump's support comes from Americans making above median income, but privilege is intersectional, and the forms of privilege you listed don't overlap perfectly. In general, by privileged I meant taking the side of the status quo, IE (mostly) white, cisnormative (supporting exclusively heterosexual marriage and believing only two biologically-derived genders exist,) culturally Christian and conservative, which in the US is always the more politically and culturally defensible position.
Of course, not all of these apply to all Trump supporters (his gain among Latino and Black voters in the last election being a counterexample) but I seriously doubt none apply to any.
To quote MLK, 'A riot is the language of the unheard,', short of a riot, this 'cancel culture' seems to be an effective tool to effect change by directly pulling on economic levers. The fact that people are complaining about how effective it is, seems to reinforce how effective it is.
It’s certainly effective, but so is a thermonuclear bomb. The question is whether the outcome, fully accounted, is the desired one. It’s accelerating cultural polarisation, perhaps one of the most caustic and dangerous forces in modern society.
It is not about "offend" some group, it is about deny their humanity. All persecution that ever happened in history always started with campaigns of dehumanisation, so now weary groups fight tooth and nail against all kinds of dehumanising rethoric. The problem is that the line between edgy humour and dehumanising propaganda is fuzzy at times.
I understand the sentiment, but I think additional sensitivity may be merited where the group being offended is disadvantaged or subject to persecution.
To put it another way, it's been said that comedians should punch "up" (i.e. make fun of those in power) and not punch "down."
A good angle I read (but can't cite, unfortunately) is that some comedians punch up until the only people left to punch are the ones paying their salary, so they punch down at whoever it's still socially acceptable to make fun of. And then they keep doing it until it's no longer acceptable and start making their critics the whole focus of their routine. We used to call comedians who attacked critics hacks. Now they get Netflix specials.
I could not get married in the US until less than a decade ago. I can legally be fired in roughly half of the member states of our union based on my identity. I can be legally denied healthcare treatment. This isn't even getting into discrimination with random individuals, which can and does happen in the west. Unfortunately "we don't stone our queers" is not something you get a golden sticker for.
I get it's very en vogue to say marginalized communities secretly control society (Jewish marxist globalists etc) but don't you think we'd have secured equal treatment under the law first? If society is suddenly caving to any and all of my capricious whims I certainly didn't get the memo
> I can legally be fired in roughly half of the member states of our union based on my identity.
What? Where? And how? "At will" is one thing, but being fired purely because of how you identify? What?
> I can be legally denied healthcare treatment.
Wait, what? Are you talking about about all healthcare, specific procedures, or what? As far as I know, an ER can't refuse to provide healthcare treatment so you must be referring to specific things and not the general umbrella of "healthcare".
Legitimate, sincere questions- I honestly don't know anything about anything.
> If you really didn't know this, you might seriously consider whether you have anything to add to this discussion.
Two things here:
1) Being snarky with someone asking a sincere question is a wonderful way to alienate them and leave a bad taste in their mouth regarding the topic at hand.
2) The parent said they "can be fired", not "until over a year ago, I could have been fired". They were asserting that this is the current state of affairs, which it isn't, so I asked a sincere question about it. If asking questions to clarify a statement doesn't "add to the discussion", clearly I was taught how to have a conversation incorrectly. But I, and most rational people, don't think that's accurate. So, y'know, maybe take your own advice and consider what your comment brings to the table instead of trying to dunk on people.
As for healthcare, I appreciate the link. It confirms what I was wondering, which is that the parent's comment only applies to specific, specialty services and not the general umbrella of "healthcare".
You have the same rights as every biological man or woman that was born in us (depending on your sex). You already have equal treatment. You want to extend, change and bend the law because the outcomes with current system doesn't suit you
Then I saw Twitter. Wow.
I just don't understand how people can be that mad about something that _they've clearly not watched_. It's beyond me. Perhaps I lack some fundamental cultural context.