{"id":5482,"date":"2018-07-07T01:44:51","date_gmt":"2018-07-07T01:44:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chloemaryland.net\/?p=1242"},"modified":"2018-07-07T01:44:51","modified_gmt":"2018-07-07T01:44:51","slug":"its-funny-right","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2018\/07\/07\/its-funny-right\/","title":{"rendered":"It\u2019s funny, right?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Dave Chappelle – Funny Or Die Oddball To by Anirudh Koul, on Flickr<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Should I write yet another note to PBS NewsHour? That particular evening show is one of my favorite sources of thoughtful news and reflection on the world around me, but they do occasionally stumble. This evening, they did more than stumble. They waved me aside, and relegated me and people like me to an insignificant footnote.<\/p>\n

I wasn\u2019t meant to be a footnote.<\/p>\n

When the NewsHour introduced their interview with the comedian Dave Chapelle, they did fleetingly acknowledge that he sometimes mocked transgender people. But having that footnote out of the way, Jeffrey Brown of PBS continued with his interview, with no further reference to this frequent practice by this stand-up comic. Why let this man\u2019s regular practice of humiliating transgender persons get in the way of the bigger story: a comedian\u2019s return to the spotlight? What\u2019s so important about gender identity anyway? After all, there is no human right to a gender identity.<\/p>\n

I would guess that even the term \u201cgender identity\u201d remains unfamiliar to many Americans, so speculating about a human right to one\u2019s authentic sense of self is arguably premature. To most people, we’re the sex we were assigned at birth, and the state \u2013 which has unquestioned authority in such matters \u2013 records the observable fact of our sex. That\u2019s it. Done. We are sexed and then society sets to work on making sure that we are appropriately gendered.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s all so obvious \u2013 except when it isn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

Short of incidents of hate-speech, intentional defamation, or libel, it appears that we also have no specific human right individually or as a group not to be humiliated or made the butt of humor due to who and what we are, even when who and what we are do not constitute choices. Freedom of expression prevails over the sensitivities and vulnerabilities of many marginalized persons, and those affected are supposed to shrug it off.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s no big deal \u2013 except when it is.<\/p>\n

Arguably there do remain some social constraints on abusing the dignity of other persons, which in America we used to call \u201cdecency\u201d. That concept may already be anachronistic for large numbers of my fellow citizens, who in 2015 not only tolerated watching then presidential candidate Donald Trump as he crudely mocked New York Times reporter Serge Kovaleski (who suffers from arthrogryposis), but then went on to vote this person into the highest position of power and trust in the nation. While most of us haven\u2019t forgotten Trump\u2019s appallingly insensitive portrayal of this person with disabilities, we\u2019ve waved it aside. After all, Trump is Trump; he makes it a common practice to assault the dignity of others by using demeaning nicknames, calling human beings \u201canimals\u201d, branding entire ethnicities (presumably just the males) as rapists, and so on. Sure, some of us get upset momentarily, then we let it go, with perhaps a whispered aside about the national \u201cerosion of values\u201d.<\/p>\n

So, making fun of some of us is apparently acceptable, or at least one would be forgiven if one reached this conclusion because PBS chose to feature a comic who makes transphobia an integral part of his act.\u00a0 What are we who are transgender supposed to do? Is there a human right to having one\u2019s dignity recognized and respected?<\/p>\n

In fact, yes.<\/span><\/p>\n

Every moral and legal concept of human rights is grounded on the very notion that human dignity is very important, and that it is universal. Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights begins with the sentence \u201cAll human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights\u201d. You cannot get more explicit than that – except that isn\u2019t what we experience, is it? Especially those of us who are transgender.<\/p>\n

To a very large extent, the bias, discrimination, humiliation, mockery, exclusion, stigmatization, and violence directed at transgender people has its roots in gross ignorance, coupled with fear of the unknown. Ignorance and fear we can work on, and many of us are trying to do just that. I recently published my own memoir, intended to bust some of the more pernicious stereotypes out there, but writing that book was emotionally draining and very hard to do. Still, I remain an idealist at heart, and I am moved by the notion that if only people knew what it is like, what we<\/span> are like, then\u2026<\/p>\n

I\u2019m willing to work that angle, to gradually raise the awareness and empathy of those around me, to help them begin to see the person behind \u2013 and integral to \u2013 the gender identity that the person declares. The gender identity that I declare. Still, my published memoir, and similar efforts by so many in my community (and by our stalwart friends and allies), pales in comparison to the normalization of transphobia by leading American comics. Dave Chapelle isn\u2019t alone in this; other blatantly transphobic comics include Lil Duval, Ricky Gervais, Louis C.K., and many more. It’s been this way for decades. Shouldn\u2019t we just brush it off? It really doesn\u2019t cause any harm, right?<\/p>\n

Wrong.<\/p>\n

Think about it. How would you like to be intentionally and consistently misgendered, referred to by a name that isn\u2019t yours (even if it might have been, once), or accused of \u201cdeceiving\u201d men into sexual intimacy (it doesn\u2019t matter even if you are entirely female in your mind, spirit, and embodiment now)? How would you like to be portrayed as someone unconscious – an “object” in the emergency room at the hospital – whom doctors and medics react to with undisguised disgust and revulsion? Good for a laugh, eh? And there is always that oldest gag of all, the \u201cman in a dress\u201d. Or being consistently referred to by the slur “tranny”. All of this demeans us, sets us apart, denies our humanity, and makes it \u201cOK\u201d to treat us as less than human.<\/p>\n

The consequences can be catastrophic.<\/p>\n

Note to Jeffrey Brown: transphobic comedy isn\u2019t ever funny, and those who make their living by targeting the dignity of transgender people do not warrant your warm smiles and gentle praise, or PBS NewsHour\u2019s time on the air. For a population with the highest known rates of attempted suicide, it\u2019s irresponsible to shine the celebrity spotlight on those who unapologetically persist in abusing the dignity of transgender persons.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re marginalized, yes, but we are not content to have our dignity waved aside as an inconvenience to a larger story. The universality of human dignity is the largest story of all \u2013 if only we chose to live those convictions.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n\n

This post was originally published on Blogs \u2013 Chloe Schwenke<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dave Chappelle \u2013 Funny Or Die Oddball To by Anirudh Koul, on Flickr \u00a0 Should I write yet another note to PBS NewsHour? That particular evening show is one of my favorite sources of thoughtful news and reflection on the world around me, but they do occasionally stumble. This evening, they did more than stumble. \u2026 Continue reading It\u2019s funny, right?<\/span> \u2192<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":499,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1582,49,1566,6,1583,1576,1401],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5482"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/499"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5482"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5482\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":96679,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5482\/revisions\/96679"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5482"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5482"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}