Lil Duval, Charlemagne Tha God And Those Who Agree With Them
Lil Duval has been under heavy scrutiny since his appearance on The Breakfast Club where he suggested in the context of an ill-timed joke that he’d kill a trans woman if he discovered the root of her identity. The comedian hasn’t ducked the controversy and appears to have ramped up his stance in a recent interview.
Lil Duval sat down with TMZ Live and explained that while he doesn’t have a hate of transgender people or those who identify as gay, he still feels that a transgender woman not revealing everything would be deceitful. While he didn’t exactly repeat the violent words of “she dying” as he did on the radio program, Duval essentially said that the moment would make him snap into that dark space.
Host Charlemagne Tha God didn’t condone the violence. That’s good. He did say trans women who did not reveal their gender should go to jail. Sigh.
Education for Lil Duval
The Human Rights Campaign notes:
In 2016, advocates tracked at least 22 deaths of transgender people in the United States due to fatal violence, the most ever recorded. These victims were killed by acquaintances, partners and strangers, some of whom have been arrested and charged, while others have yet to be identified. Some of these cases involve clear anti-transgender bias. In others, the victim’s transgender status may have put them at risk in other ways, such as forcing them into homelessness.
While the details of these cases differ, it is clear that fatal violence disproportionately affects transgender women of color, and that the intersections of racism, sexism, homophobia and transphobia conspire to deprive them of employment, housing, healthcare and other necessities, barriers that make them vulnerable.
Sadly, 2017 has already seen at least 15 transgender people fatally shot or killed by other violent means.
The numbers reported from the Office for Victims of Crime are even more startling. From the 2011 Injustice at Every Turn: A Report of the National Transgender Discrimination Survey found that 12 percent of transgender youth report being sexually assaulted in K–12 settings by peers or educational staff; 13 percent of African-American transgender people surveyed were sexually assaulted in the workplace; and 22 percent of homeless transgender individuals were assaulted while staying in shelters.
Fifteen percent of transgender individuals report being sexually assaulted while in police custody or jail, which more than doubles (32 percent) for African-American transgender people. Five to nine percent of transgender survivors were sexually assaulted by police officers. Another 10 percent were assaulted by health care professionals.
According to the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs 2009 report on hate violence, 50 percent of people who died in violent hate crimes against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) people were transgender women; the other half were male, many of whom were gender non-conforming. Sexual assault and/or genital mutilation before or after their murders was a frequent occurrence.
In 2009, 17 percent of all reported violent hate crimes against LGBTQ people were directed against those who identified themselves as transgender, with most (11 percent of all hate crimes) identifying as transgender women. The remainder identified as transgender men, genderqueer, gender questioning, or intersex.
Hate crimes are more prevalent against people of color. In 2009, 53 percent of LGBTQ hate crime victims were people of color. Of the 22 anti-LGBTQ hate crime murders documented by NCAVP that year, 79 percent of the victims were people of color. As noted above, 50 percent (11 individuals) of the 2009 murders tracked were transgender women; of those, 9 were people of color (82 percent). Of the other 11 murders of gender non-conforming people, 5 (45 percent) were people of color.
Some studies indicate that between 20 and 35 percent of LGBTQ couples experience domestic violence. According to another, 50 percent of transgender people surveyed had been hit by a primary partner after coming out as transgender. LGBTQ youth report a 30 percent incidence of dating violence, compared to 9 percent for heterosexual students.
If Lil Duval, Charlemagne The God, or anyone else thinks it’s acceptable or understandable to become violent towards a transgender person for revealing themselves to be so or just because they are, they are transphobic bigots. There is no need to couch it by saying things like, “I have no problem with trans people.” They obviously do have a problem with them.
As far as boycotting the Breakfast Club, I’m for it though I doubt it will be effective. Similar to society at large, prejudice and discrimination against the LGBTQ community is rampant, and I don’t see enough people caring for long enough for it to have an effect. With that being said, a little negative publicity will usually make bigots reevaluate their thought process. Who knows? Maybe Lil Duval will look deeper into this issue.
