Charlamagne Tha God is speaking out about violence against transgender women after comedian Lil Duval said he’d kill a woman if he found out she was transgender.
“This might sound messed up, but I don’t care,” Duval said during an interview with The Breakfast Club, “she’s dying… You manipulated me to believe in this thing. If one did that to me, and they didn’t tell me, I’mma be so mad I’d probably going to want to kill them.”
Various activists have called out Duval for his transphobic comments, as well as the hosts of the morning radio show, whose laughter was seen as co-signing and perpetuating Lil Duval’s beliefs.
Writer and activist Janet Mock, who had recently appeared on The Breakfast Club, wrote for Allure, “It’s this deplorable rhetoric that leads many cis men, desperately clutching their heterosexuality, to yell at, kick, spit on, shoot, burn, stone, and kill trans women of color.”
Now, Charlamagne Tha God is condemning violence against transgender women following a #BreakfastClubBoycott trend on Twitter.
“We don’t condone those kind of hate crimes at all,” the statement reads reported by Paper. “Not even a little bit. And one thing… another thing I learned this week is that fifteen transgender women have been murdered in 2017 and thirteen of them have been women of color, that that number could be higher, but I do know the majority of them have been women of color. I think one, a transgender woman, got killed this week in Atlanta, if I’m not mistaken. Her name was TeeTee Dangerfield actually, so rest in peace to her. The Breakfast Club will continue to do what it always does and that [is] provide a platform for the voiceless.”
And, while Charlamagne is condemning Lil Duval’s statements, the comedian is standing by them. He told TMZ, “When you take away somebody’s power of choice, it should be criminal … I don’t got no problem with transgender, I ain’t got no problem with gay people. I got a problem with somebody trying to take something from me … That’s psychological damage.”
Some people just enjoy being ignorant.