“This transphobic, homophobic rhetoric is not funny and does not deserve a platform.”
–A Care2 petition demanding that iHeartRadio drop the show The Breakfast Club after hosts Charlamagne tha God, DJ Envy and Angela Yee allegedly laughed at a joke by comedian Lil Duval that he would kill a woman he had been dating if he found out she was transgender.
“I don’t care. She dying. You manipulated me into believing this thing…In my mind I’m gay now,” Lil Duval said of the hypothetical situation when he appeared on the show last Friday. He also referred to transwomen as “boys.”
Audio shows the hosts then interjected and tried to explain that he couldn’t threaten to kill transgender people, with Charlamagne tha God saying it would be a “hate crime,” though he also opined that transgender women should tell men about their gender identity before becoming romantically involved or face legal consequences for not doing so.
The Care2 petition claims that the show has a “long history of peddling ignorant, homophobic, transphobic, sexist content.”
Pointing to the rising numbers of anti-transgender killings over the past few years, the petition also notes that Lil Duval’s comments come the same week that Dwanya Hickerson pled guilty to stabbing and killing Mississippi nurse Dee Whigham last summer. Whigham, then 25, was found in a hotel with 115 stab wounds, the majority covering her face. Her throat was also slashed three times.
“Transwomen like myself face the threat of violence every single day we step out into the public, just as a consequence for living our truth,” Sarah Rose, Care2’s LGBTQ Issues Advocate and the author of the petition, said in a statement. “The Breakfast Club’s dialogue is another unfortunate and sick example of humor made at the expense of a subjugated, derided minority that our media is all too happy to applaud. My hope is that this Care2 petition sends a clear message: advertisers and businesses should not stand for advocating violence and hate crimes.”
Following the airing of its show with Lil Duval, the hashtag #BoycottBreakfastClub started trending on Twitter and social media.
On its Monday show, the cast defended their actions, saying that they had chastised Lil Duval for his comments, and that they should not be held responsible for his comments.
“I think it’s clear, if you listen to the whole entire interview, you can hear that none of us were like, ‘Yes, Lil Duval, that’s what you should do,'” Yee said.
“We condemned it!” interjected Charlamagne.
“I understand the hurt for that community, with things that have been happening, so I’m not going to take away from how they feel about it. But I just want to make sure it’s expressed that we have never, in any way — we didn’t say those comments, and we didn’t agree with them,” added Yee.
The hosts and several of their callers also said that the show has been very LGBTQ-friendly over its run, and has even hosted transgender guests like author Janet Mock.
North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, one of three candidates seeking the Republican nomination for governor this year, said that transgender people who refuse to use the bathroom matching their assigned sex at birth should be forced to urinate or defecate on public street corners.
Robinson, known for his anti-gay diatribes and outspoken opposition to LGBTQ visibility and civil rights, made the comments during a recent speech at a campaign event in Cary, North Carolina.
Like many other Republican candidates for office, Robinson has focused intently on culture-war issues, including transgender rights, to rally social conservatives around his campaign.
President Joe Biden offered words of support during his State of the Union address on Thursday, March 7, telling transgender Americans -- many of whom feel increasingly under attack by efforts to restrict visible expressions of identity or gender-nonconformity -- "I have your back."
In a speech characterized by many pundits as "fiery," "energetic," "impassioned," and combative, Biden verbally parried with some Republican members of Congress who sought to heckle or "troll" him, especially on the issue of immigration and border security, as reported by CNN.
The president also denounced book-banning -- which conservatives have espoused, ostensibly in order to protect children from sexually-tinged or LGBTQ content -- as attempts to erase history.
The company that makes Doritos is facing calls for a boycott after the brand aligned with a transgender influencer with a history of problematic social media posts.
Doritos partnered with Samantha Hudson, a transgender singer, actor, and political activist from Spain with 370,000 Instagram followers, for a social media campaign promoting the brand, releasing an Instagram video on Sunday.
But the campaign was soon interrupted after conservative and anti-LGBTQ online activists unearthed social media posts that the now-24-year-old Hudson had written as a 15-year-old or 16-year-old back in 2015.
These are challenging times for news organizations. And yet it’s crucial we stay active and provide vital resources and information to both our local readers and the world. So won’t you please take a moment and consider supporting Metro Weekly with a membership? For as little as $5 a month, you can help ensure Metro Weekly magazine and MetroWeekly.com remain free, viable resources as we provide the best, most diverse, culturally-resonant LGBTQ coverage in both the D.C. region and around the world. Memberships come with exclusive perks and discounts, your own personal digital delivery of each week’s magazine (and an archive), access to our Member's Lounge when it launches this fall, and exclusive members-only items like Metro Weekly Membership Mugs and Tote Bags! Check out all our membership levels here and please join us today!
“This transphobic, homophobic rhetoric is not funny and does not deserve a platform.”
–A Care2 petition demanding that iHeartRadio drop the show The Breakfast Club after hosts Charlamagne tha God, DJ Envy and Angela Yee allegedly laughed at a joke by comedian Lil Duval that he would kill a woman he had been dating if he found out she was transgender.
“I don’t care. She dying. You manipulated me into believing this thing…In my mind I’m gay now,” Lil Duval said of the hypothetical situation when he appeared on the show last Friday. He also referred to transwomen as “boys.”
Audio shows the hosts then interjected and tried to explain that he couldn’t threaten to kill transgender people, with Charlamagne tha God saying it would be a “hate crime,” though he also opined that transgender women should tell men about their gender identity before becoming romantically involved or face legal consequences for not doing so.
The Care2 petition claims that the show has a “long history of peddling ignorant, homophobic, transphobic, sexist content.”
Pointing to the rising numbers of anti-transgender killings over the past few years, the petition also notes that Lil Duval’s comments come the same week that Dwanya Hickerson pled guilty to stabbing and killing Mississippi nurse Dee Whigham last summer. Whigham, then 25, was found in a hotel with 115 stab wounds, the majority covering her face. Her throat was also slashed three times.
“Transwomen like myself face the threat of violence every single day we step out into the public, just as a consequence for living our truth,” Sarah Rose, Care2’s LGBTQ Issues Advocate and the author of the petition, said in a statement. “The Breakfast Club’s dialogue is another unfortunate and sick example of humor made at the expense of a subjugated, derided minority that our media is all too happy to applaud. My hope is that this Care2 petition sends a clear message: advertisers and businesses should not stand for advocating violence and hate crimes.”
Following the airing of its show with Lil Duval, the hashtag #BoycottBreakfastClub started trending on Twitter and social media.
On its Monday show, the cast defended their actions, saying that they had chastised Lil Duval for his comments, and that they should not be held responsible for his comments.
“I think it’s clear, if you listen to the whole entire interview, you can hear that none of us were like, ‘Yes, Lil Duval, that’s what you should do,'” Yee said.
“We condemned it!” interjected Charlamagne.
“I understand the hurt for that community, with things that have been happening, so I’m not going to take away from how they feel about it. But I just want to make sure it’s expressed that we have never, in any way — we didn’t say those comments, and we didn’t agree with them,” added Yee.
The hosts and several of their callers also said that the show has been very LGBTQ-friendly over its run, and has even hosted transgender guests like author Janet Mock.
Subscribe to Metro Weekly's Free Email Updates