Culture

John Cleese Spent The Weekend Making “Jokes” About Trans People On Twitter

"I can’t imagine having a platform as huge as JK Rowling, Gina Carano, John Cleese or Dave Chappelle and using it hurt some of the most vulnerable populations on earth. It’s sadistic."

by Merryana Salem  23 November 2020

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Yesterday, John Cleese responded to a series of tweets questioning why he had signed a petition in defence of JK Rowling’s transphobic comments.

The 81-year-old British comedian spent much of his Sunday afternoon on Twitter degrading and belittling trans folk, and attempting to palm it off as comedy. For variety, he also joked about Dolly Parton’s body, claimed that “wokery” is ruining comedy, and said that he excludes all “wokes” from his sympathy he feels for the “third world”.

Cleese unleashed his tweets after a fan questioned his co-signing of an open letter JK Rowling wrote. In the letter, Rowling claims that free speech is being threatened by cancel culture as it weakens the “norms of open debate and tolerance” after people called her out for being transphobic.

The fan tweeted “do tell..?” with a screenshot of Cleese’s tweet, after Cleese tweeted about people not liking to admit when they are wrong.

The response was quick, still ongoing, and included responses from notable trans figures like Jonathan Van Ness, and Ina Fried, calling out Cleese’s transphobia for what it so clearly is.

— Content Warning: This article discusses transphobia

His comments are not worth repeating here. But there is a question in Cleese’s “solidarity” with Rowling’s transphobia. Where does it come from?

For starters, a recent study revealed half of British trans folk in the UK fear anti-trans violence in public. Trans politics and mainstream feminism in the UK is largely influenced by the “gender critical” movement, which rose in strength as a reaction to the 2004 Gender Recognition Act. The act at first glance may sound progressive in that it allows trans folk to change their assigned sex on their birth certificates, but actually involves an invasive investigation by an anonymous board who ultimately have the final say on whether the certificate is changed.

In 2017, the government announced an inquiry into a reform to the act that would allow trans folk to simply sign a legal declaration that would allow them to change their assigned gender if they pledged to live their lives as the gender they declared. But the reform was shelved, after many in the gender-critical movement claimed it would allow criminals to invade women’s spaces.

Like in Australia, the Murdoch media has substantial influence, which means headlines like this one appear on the cover of  UK’s biggest newspapers. But transphobia in the UK is rampant on both the right and left of politics. While each side’s transphobia brands itself differently, I cannot stress enough, it is still transphobia.

To quote trans author and journalist, Juliet Jacques in the New York Times:

“There are two main types of British transphobia. One, employed most frequently but not exclusively by right-wing men, rejects outright the idea that gender might not be determined only by biological traits identifiable at birth…The other type, from a so-called radical feminist tradition, argues that trans women’s requests for gender recognition are incompatible with cis women’s rights to single-sex spaces…It is this second strain that is often expressed on the British left.”

In this spectrum, we can see precisely where Rowling and Cleese sit. Rowling’s claims sit squarely within Jacques’ explanation of the left’s type of transphobia and Cleese within the first.

It’s worth noting Australians can’t exactly wash their hands of Britain’s transphobia, especially after you read what an Australian Academic said in the British parliament in 2018. Not to mention our own history of anti-trans rights in this country, particularly against trans women of colour.

As a cis person, it’s not my place to speak for the trans community, but to in times such as these uplift the voices of trans folk in the UK like Juliet Jacques, Christine Burns, Munroe Bergdorf and Shonalika Tilak.

It is essential to recognise that transphobia is not just these instances of rich white celebrities tweeting transphobic jokes and essays from their mansions, its a system built from the ground up with Cleese and Rowling tweeting at the top and trans folk at the bottom, and everything in between working to keep them there.

Here are some Australian organisations to support trans folks.