Ricky Gervais Takes Aim at Transgender People in New Netflix Special

The streamer has yet again platformed a comedy special that specifically targets trans women

Photo courtesy of Netflix

BY Allie GregoryPublished May 24, 2022

Self-proclaimed comedian Ricky Gervais has dedicated his new Netflix special to attacking transgender people — specifically trans women — in a manner akin to the TERF queen herself, J.K. Rowling, and her megafan Dave Chappelle.

In the special, Gervais peddles the same bioessentialist garbage as his peers, honing in on trans people's reproductive organs as the defining factor of their gender expression and identity.

"Oh, women! Not all women, I mean the old-fashioned ones," Gervais states during the special, failing to deliver a joke. "The old-fashioned women, the ones with wombs. Those fucking dinosaurs. I love the new women. They're great, aren't they? The new ones we've been seeing lately. The ones with beards and cocks. They're as good as gold, I love them."

He continued, invoking the old-timey bathroom debate: "And now the old-fashioned ones say, 'Oh, they want to use our toilets.' 'Why shouldn't they use your toilets?' 'For ladies!' 'They are ladies — look at their pronouns! What about this person isn't a lady?' 'Well, his penis.' 'Her penis, you fucking bigot!' 'What if he rapes me?' 'What if she rapes you, you fucking TERF whore?'"

Later, Gervais discusses Kevin Hart's exit from the 2018 Oscars after homophobic tweets resurfaced online, again spinning a comedian's poor behaviour as the fault of trans activists.

"You can't predict what will be offensive in the future," Gervais said. "You don't know who the dominant mob will be. Like, the worst thing you can say today — get you cancelled on Twitter, death threats — is, 'Women don't have penises,' right? Now, no one saw that coming. You won't find a 10-year-old tweet saying, 'Women don't have penises.' You know why? We didn't think we fucking had to!"

Toward the end of the special, he dared to claim that he supports trans people in the same breath as demanding that all trans women undergo surgical transition to "meet [him] halfway":

Full disclosure: In real life of course I support trans rights. I support all human rights, and trans rights are human rights. Live your best life. Use your preferred pronouns. Be the gender that you feel you are. But meet me halfway, ladies. Lose the cock. That's all I'm saying.

As Netflix-backed comedians have demonstrated time and time again, it apparently needs to be reiterated that, as per the World Health Organization: "Gender refers to the characteristics of women, men, girls and boys that are socially constructed. This includes norms, behaviours and roles associated with being a woman, man, girl or boy, as well as relationships with each other. As a social construct, gender varies from society to society and can change over time."

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