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Does Ricky Gervais Hate Trans People Or Not?

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A recent dust-up over tweets the British comedian made about transgender people has mainly left us confused.

Last month, Ricky Gervais tweeted about trans people a whole bunch, and by the end of it all, he’d contradicted himself multiple times, frustrating both the UK’s ascendant TERF movement and LGBTQ people everywhere. Can we make heads or tails of it all? We’ll certainly give it a shot.

This whole thing started with the controversy over JK Rowling’s tweet in support of Maya Forstater. We’ve covered this in detail elsewhere, but the basic upshot is that the Harry Potter author took to twitter to defend a British feminist who lost her research-foundation job over the fact that she insisted on making a point, Ben Shapiro-style, of misgendering trans people. Rowling tweeted support for Forstater by using anti-trans phrasing like “sex is real.” It really bummed a lot of LGBTQ Harry Potter fans out.

Ricky Gervais didn’t get involved until a satirical twitter account known as “Jarvis Dupont” tweeted out an article he had written about the JK Rowling incident, with the caption, “J.K. Rowling is a TERF! Speaking as a trans woman, the thought that I will no longer be welcome in a fictional school for wizards has destroyed me.”

Now, before we go on, Jarvis Dupont requires a bit of unpacking as well. This account is an attempt to mock the type of people referred to as “SJWs” in right-wing discourse; Gervais described Dupont in an interview with the Hollywood Reporter as “a spoof Twitter account, and the joke is that he’s so woke that he’s actually gone full circle and does terrible things.” This isn’t exactly it, but it’s close.

The article Dupont was promoting in the tweet Gervais responded to was published by The Spectator, a conservative British magazine, and is the sort of ham-fisted satire that wouldn’t fool anyone (The Onion, this ain’t), but demonstrates through the very on-the-nose-ness of its satire (“I don’t want to live in an intolerant world where men cannot legally force women to change their views on biological reality in the name of intersectional feminism”) that it is written by someone who, underneath all the “jokes,” sincerely holds some really TERF-y views.

In response to Dupont’s tweet of this article, Gervais decided to get in on the fun by responding with a tweet written in imitation of Dupont’s satirical tone. “Those awful biological women can never understand what it must be like for you becoming a lovely lady so late in life,” Gervais tweeted. “They take their girly privileges for granted. Winning at female sports and having their own toilets. Well, enough is enough.”

The problem he immediately ran into was that the very clumsiness of Dupont’s satirical approach, when Gervais himself attempted it, was read as sincerity. And it didn’t help when Gervais responded to another twitter user saying, “Kindness is magic. Try to remember that,” which seems to have been a very gentle chide against Gervais saying something that would hurt people, with the reply: “Exactly. We need to protect the rights of women. Not erode them because some men have found a new cunning way to dominate and demonise an entire sex.”

And if that first tweet was hard to read as a joke, this one seems all but impossible to read as such. Instead, it seems like Gervais jumping on the same TERF bandwagon that has been running roughshod over dialogue around transgender issues throughout the UK. However — plot twist! Gervais then immediately responded to someone asking, “Can you clarify if you think the trans women are men or that there is another group of people that are men and up to no good?” by saying, “I think trans women are women. I wasn’t talking about trans people.”

Gervais went on to say things like, “No, I’m not telling you I don’t believe people can be trans. Or that trans people shouldn’t be respected etc.” All of which, in addition to getting him a whole lot of grief from actual TERFs (who tweeted things like “Sellout” and “Bigger back flip in history dude! Sad Ricky. Very sad”), left him with a series of confusing and contradictory tweets that were impossible to reconcile without knowing what sort of tone he intended them to have.

Gervais tried to clarify in an interview with the Hollywood Reporter. When asked, “How do you respond when people keep bringing up comments that you’ve made and implying that you are transphobic?” He responded, “I just say I’m not. And there’s nothing else you can say, you know? Yeah, I’m not.”

Gervais then fell back on the old “it’s better to let people say terrible things than to abridge free speech in even the slightest way” chestnut — a favorite of conservatives and alt-right types — saying, “I think offense is the collateral damage of free speech, and it’s no reason not to have free speech. That’s what I’d say — it’s the lesser of two evils. Having free speech and some people getting upset by it is the lesser of two evils because not having free speech is horrendous.”

But of course, his clarification also made it difficult to understand his original tweets. That first one was clearly a joke, regardless of how badly constructed or easy to misinterpret it was. The second one, which included the line “We need to protect the rights of women. Not erode them because some men have found a new cunning way to dominate and demonise an entire sex,” is a bit harder to interpret. And later on, when he was clearly trying to explain himself in all seriousness, he said, “I wasn’t talking about trans people.”

So then we must ask: who was Gervais talking about? Was he saying that transgender women are perfectly valid and cool by him, but there was some OTHER menace to the rights of women? And that that menace involved men, actual men, using transgender identities as a means to disenfranchise women? Presumably both cis and trans women, since he claims to regard trans women as women?

This is an awfully fine line to parse, and frankly, it seems like bullshit. A 2018 study from the Williams Institute found no correlation between allowing transgender people to use the bathrooms corresponding with their gender and reports of attacks and other crimes in public bathrooms. Trans people aren’t doing anything in public bathrooms other than what cis people do in public bathrooms, and there’s no evidence to suggest that nefarious cis men are attempting to enter women’s bathrooms at all.

That hasn’t stopped a lot of anti-trans forces, including many UK-based TERFs, from claiming that giving trans people legal rights creates an imminent threat of exactly this. And if there’s any coherent way to understand Gervais’ latest tweets about transgender people, it’s that he believes both sides. He simultaneously believes that trans women are women, that their identities are valid, and that allowing them legal rights will inspire many nefarious men posing as trans women for evil purposes to attack and harm women.

While I suppose that makes Gervais less of an enemy to trans people than JK Rowling, it ultimately doesn’t make much difference if the end result is a position along the lines of, “I respect and believe in you and your identity, but giving you legal rights would just be too dangerous for society as a whole.” At that point, you may as well be a full-on TERF — it amounts to the same thing.

In the end, the best we can probably hope for is that this whole kerfuffle will be enough to keep Gervais from mentioning trans people at all for a while. God knows we don’t need his input.

Top Photo: Gervais holding 2019 Golden Globes, via YouTube

Federal Judge Overturns ObamaCare’s Transgender Protections, Because Jesus

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The same judge who ruled the Affordable Care Act unconstitutional has now ruled that religious freedom is more important than transgender people receiving medically necessary health care.

A U.S. District Court judge in Texas has overturned the protections written into ObamaCare for transgender people, ruling they violate the religious rights of healthcare providers who hold religious beliefs that oppose the existence of transgender people.

On Tuesday Judge Reed O’Connor, appointed by President George W. Bush, “vacated an Obama-era regulation that prohibited providers and insurers who receive federal money from denying treatment or coverage to anyone based on sex, gender identity, or termination of pregnancy,” The Hill reports.

That regulation also mandated healthcare providers perform medically necessary services for transgender patients.

O’Connor is known as the same federal judge who ruled the entire Affordable Care Act unconstitutional last year. According to The Hill, his ruling in this case is likely to be appealed.

The Trump administration is supporting a large group of Republican state attorneys general working to strip protections from people with pre-existing conditions, and ultimately, have ObamaCare voided by the courts.

Written by David Badash, The New Civil Rights Movement. Image via NCRM

Trump DOJ Tells Supreme Court It Is Legal To Fire Transgender Workers

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The legal brief filed by Trump’s Department of Justice is the most overt step his administration has taken thus far to legalize anti-trans discrimination in the workplace.

Last Friday, the Trump administration informed the U.S. Supreme Court it is the opinion of the Dept. of Justice that it is legal under federal law for employers to fire transgender workers merely for being transgender.

The DOJ’s brief states Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex, does not apply to transgender workers.

In reporting the development Buzzfeed calls it one of the Trump administration’s “most agressive steps yet to legalize anti-transgender discrimination.”

Friday’s move comes just days after the DOJ attempted to strong-arm the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission into telling the Supreme Court discrimination on the basis of gender identity is not sex discrimination. To do so would have contradicted up to eight years of EEOC findings and rulings.

Written by David Badash, The New Civil Rights Movement. Image via NCRM

New HUD Policy Proposal Would Let Homeless Shelters Refuse Access To Trans People

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This callous move affects a population significantly more likely to experience homelessness than the general population.

On Wednesday, Trump’s Department of Housing And Urban Development (HUD) released a proposal for a revised rule that would pave the way for homeless shelters to refuse accomodation to homeless people on the basis of gender identity. The proposed rule would rescind the Obama-era Equal Access Rule, which provided accomodation in accordance with a person’s gender identity.

The new rule allows homeless shelters to consider “the individual’s sex as reflected in official government documents,” as well as “privacy, safety, practical concerns” and “religious beliefs.” This list contains more than one possible opportunity for a shelter to refuse accomodation to a transgender person. For one thing, many transgender people struggle to have their government documents reflect their gender identity, as fees and legal processes often act as roadblocks, especially for lower-income trans people more likely to need the help of a homeless shelter in the first place. Some states require expensive surgeries before they will change an individual’s gender markers on birth certificates and other government documents. And some states won’t allow gender marker changes for any reason.

Then, too, there is the ever-present spectre of “religious freedom” as a license to discriminate. With many homeless shelters run by religious organizations, this proposal opens the door for such shelters to bar all transgender individuals, or to force them to take shelter based on their birth sex — a situation which puts trans women in particular at high risk.

This move by HUD comes only one day after HUD Secretary Ben Carson told Congress that he had no plans to change the Equal Access Rule. In answer to a question from Virginia Democratic Congresswoman Jennifer Wexton, Carson said, “I’m not currently anticipating changing the rule.”

In response to the proposal released the following day, Wexton tweeted in reference to Carson, “He either lied to Congress or has no idea what policies his agency is pursuing. Either way, it’s unacceptable.” On Thursday, Wexton introduced a bill that would block HUD from implementing the rule.

The 2015 US Transgender Survey by the National Center For Trans Equality (NCTE) stated that 30 percent of respondents had experienced homelessness at some point in their lifetimes, while 70 percent of respondents who had stayed in homeless shelters reported harassment, physical or sexual assault, or being kicked out as a consequence of their transgender status.

On Wednesday, NCTE Director Mara Keisling released a statement condemning the rule. “This is a heartless attack on some of the most vulnerable people in our society,” Keisling stated. “The programs impacted by this rule are life-saving for transgender people, particularly youth rejected by their families, and a lack of stable housing fuels the violence and abuse that takes the lives of many transgender people of color across the country. Secretary Carson’s actions are contrary to the mission of his Department and yet another example of tragic cruelty of this administration.”

Virginia National Guard States Intent To Comply With Trans Military Ban

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Virginia’s National Guard not only said they’d enforce the trans military ban in the Commonwealth, but also backed the deceptive anti-LGBTQ reasoning for the ban given by the Trump administration.

On Tuesday, Major General Timothy P. Williams, the Adjutant General of Virginia’s National Guard, told ThinkProgress that the Virginia National Guard would comply with the transgender military ban instituted by the Trump administration earlier this year. This decision might seem unsurprising, but with five different states so far — California, Washington, Oregon, New Mexico, and Nevada — publicly announcing that their state National Guards would not comply with the ban, it was a question that needed to be asked.

What is more important is the way the answer to ThinkProgress’s question was phrased by Major General Williams. “The new DOD policy doesn’t ban transgender individuals from service, and transgender members may continue to serve,” Williams wrote. “The DOD policy states that anyone who meets military standards without special accomodations can and should be able to serve, and this includes transgender persons.”

So what does this statement actually mean? To understand its doublespeak nature, one must fully understand the phrase “without special accomodations.” In April, when the ban was officially instituted, Pentagon spokesperson Lt. Col. Carla Gleason told The Washington Blade that currently-serving transgender members of the military will not be discharged, saying, “Transgender members currently serving will be able to continue serving so we do not anticipate any discharges.”

However, according to the Blade, the policy does state that service members who have been diagnosed with gender dysphoria or prescribed transition-related care in the future will be discharged. It also, according to the Blade, refuses enlistment for any individual with a history of gender dysphoria, unless they are willing to serve in the sex they were assigned at birth. People who have already transitioned are banned outright.

Clearly, the statement that transgender persons can still serve is deceptive. Major General Williams’s phrase, “special accomodations,” encompasses everything from future surgery to hormone replacement therapy to psychological treatment, as well as many other aspects of the transgender experience. Saying that transgender people aren’t banned from military service because they do have the right to serve in the sex they were assigned at birth is no different from anti-marriage equality activists in years past telling us that gay people aren’t prohibited from getting married on the basis that a gay man can marry a woman anytime he wishes. It’s technically true, but it’s a statement made in bad faith by someone who’s actively trying to miss the point.

On the same day that Williams confirmed Virginia’s intent to comply with the trans military ban, the Fairfax County Democratic Committee released a statement calling on Governor Northam to intervene and allow transgender troops to serve in Virginia’s National Guard. “A 2016 study by the RAND Corporation found that allowing transgender Americans to serve openly in the Armed Forces would ‘have minimal impact on readiness and health care costs’ and ‘little or no impact on unit cohesion, operational effectiveness or readiness’,” they stated, also mentioning that thousands of transgender troops currently serve in the US Armed Forces without negative impact on the military as a whole, and that everyone from the American Medical Association to the five military Chiefs Of Staff in the president’s cabinet oppose the ban.

Governor Northam has in the past voiced his opposition to the trans military ban via Twitter, tweeting in response to President Trump, “Anyone who wants to serve our country in the military should be welcomed. They’re patriots and should be treated as such.” However, he has not yet responded to requests for comment on the Virginia National Guard’s decision. And in the meantime, transgender Virginians hoping to serve in their country’s military meet with yet another roadblock.

Image via Virginia National Guard/Facebook