For years now, Dave Chappelle has devoted his stand-up act to criticizing, mocking and dehumanizing transgender people. He’s committed to punching down on several marginalized communities, but his favorite topic is absolutely his hatred of transgender people and trans rights. In 2021, he declared himself “Team TERF” and he declared that he would not bend to anybody’s demands. “Demands” like “can you stop being so f–king transphobic, it’s not funny and you’re really gross.” Well, Chappelle has a new Netflix special called The Dreamer and guess what, it’s the same old disgusting material. Even Variety called him out:

Maybe it’s time for Dave Chappelle to try some new material. The comedian’s newest special, “The Dreamer,” debuted on Netflix on Dec. 31, and largely focuses on his early years in entertainment and how he manifested his success. But he floods the first 12 minutes of the set revisiting his favorite target in recent years: Transgender people.

Chappelle opens the special by telling a story about visiting Jim Carrey while he was shooting the 1999 film “Man on the Moon,” where the actor famously went method on set while portraying comedian Andy Kaufman. Dave recalls being “very disappointed” that he spent the day speaking to Carrey pretending to be Kaufman, ending by saying, “That’s how trans people make me feel.”

He then addressed the controversy surrounding his anti-trans material, saying, “If you guys came here to this show tonight thinking that I’m going to make fun of those people again, you’ve come to the wrong show. I’m not f–king with those people anymore. It wasn’t worth the trouble. I ain’t saying sh-t about them. Maybe three or four times tonight, but that’s it. I’m tired of talking about them. And you want to know why I’m tired of talking about them? Because these people acted like I needed them to be funny. Well, that’s ridiculous. I don’t need you. I got a whole new angle coming. You guys will never see this sh-t coming. I ain’t doing trans jokes no more.”

He then said he was going to transition to joking about “handicapped” people instead because “they’re not as organized as the gays. And I love punching down.”

A few minutes later, Chappelle revisited the topic, saying, “To be honest with you, I’ve been trying to repair my relationship with the transgender community cause I don’t want them to think that I don’t like them. You know how I’ve been repairing it? I wrote a play. I did. Cause I know that gays love plays. It’s a very sad play, but it’s moving. It’s about a Black transgender woman whose pronoun is, sadly, n***a. It’s a tear-jerker. At the end of the play she dies of loneliness cause white liberals don’t know how to speak to her. It’s sad.”

Later in the special, Chappelle addressed when he was attacked onstage at the Hollywood Bowl in 2022 by an assailant with a replica gun that could discharge a knife blade. Chappelle recalled trying to diffuse tension after the incident with a joke, telling the audience, “It was a trans man!” But he said it didn’t go over well, given the audience’s response of, “‘Boo. It’s L.A., we like trans people.’” Chappelle also said the attacker “had a knife that identified as a gun” and “I triggered them because I had done LBGTQ [sic] jokes and it turns out this fella was a ‘B.’” He also joked that, knowing the attacker was bisexual, he “could have been raped.”

[From Variety]

He also made a grotesque “joke” about wanting to go to a women’s prison if he’s ever sent to jail and it’s not even worth repeating. In years past, I’ve wondered if Chappelle really is this out of touch and maybe that’s the larger issue – he lost his ability to keep his finger on the pulse of American culture. But at this point, the dude just loves being a bigot. He thinks hatred is funny and edgy. He thinks this is okay because his buddy Elon Musk laughs at his jokes.

Screencaps courtesy of Netflix.