Dave Chappelle rejects accusations of transphobia after ‘man-pussy’ comments about Caitlyn Jenner

Comedian Dave Chappelle has denied he is transphobic after a number of his remarks were condemned.

“I wouldn’t consider myself that because I’m not even sure what the term means,” he told the Washington Blade. “Do I discriminate against somebody because they’re trans? I would like to think absolutely not.”

Chappelle’s comments came after he joked about Caitlyn Jenner in his Netflix special, talking about the prospect of her appearing nude in Sports Illustrated.

“Fuck, man,” he said during the set, “I just want to read some stats, like why are you cramming man-pussy in the middle of the sports page like that?”

Adding insult to injury, Chappelle remarked: “If I was in ISIS in the trenches fighting against the United States and all of the sudden I see a man with a beard and big D-cup titties just rushing my foxhole and shit, I’d be horrified.”

This is not the first time Chappelle has been criticised for his jokes about LGBT folks.

Transgender activist Monica Roberts has previously urged Chappelle to revise his views and exercise some restraint in his jokes about trans people. She noted that he “persists in telling those hurtful jokes when black trans women have asked him not to because those jokes lead to violence and murders aimed at us.”

Chappelle has cited his condemnation of anti-trans bathroom bills as evidence of his support for trans issues. He is on record saying: “If you need to show your birth certificate to take a dump at a Wal-Mart in North Carolina, that’s insane. You could say whatever you want about someone’s lifestyle, but denying them access to a restroom is a denial of their humanity. We all need to use the fucking bathroom. No one’s going to go through the pains that transgender people go through so that they can be in another bathroom and look at naked women. What the fuck are you talking about? These types of things make no sense.”

He added that anti-trans bathroom bills are “absurd” and “mean-spirited”.

Roberts responded to Chappelle, saying: “Being transgender is not a ‘lifestyle’; it’s the essence of who we are as people. And some transgender people are unapologetically black and catching hell for being both.”

Chappelle explained: “It’s not something that I’m going to say I clearly understand this, that and the other. I’m learning like the rest of the population is and now they have a platform.”

He added that “this is news to many of us.”

Reverend Merrick Moise, a trans man from Baltimore, said that Chappelle is unlikely to have a “virulent anti-trans stance” but “failed to grasp the hurtful nature” of his set. Moise recommended “more education and conversation with black trans people to understand the gravity of his jokes made in poor taste.”

Chappelle was most heavily criticized for assuming there were no trans people of colour behind the criticisms against him.

“The only reason all of us are talking about transgenders is because white men want to do it. If it was just blacks and Mexicans like: ‘Hey, y’all, we feel like girls inside,’ they’d be like, ‘Shut up, nigger, no one asked how you felt,” he told the crowd.

For the record, 16 trans black women were killed in the United States the same year as Chappelle’s special, The Age of Spin, was filmed.