Lil Duval’s transphobic comments on The Breakfast Club have led to a call to boycott the morning show, now Duval is doubling down on his comments after writer and transgender activist Janet Mock shared a poignant response to the comedian’s remarks.
Mock, who appeared on The Breakfast Club a week before Duval’s interview, spent time educating the show’s hosts on transgender issues. Responding to Duval’s remarks, Mock wrote in 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.”
“Until cis people — especially heteronormative men — are able to interrogate their own toxic masculinity and realize their own gender performance is literally killing trans women, cis men will continue to persecute trans women and blame them for their own deaths. If you think trans women should disclose and ‘be honest,’ then why don’t you work on making the damn world safe for us to exist in the first place?”
Duval, however, is defending his remarks. He told TMZ, “I said that because (the hosts) were saying, taking away someone’s power of choice, and that’s what you did.”
“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.”
During Duval’s appearance on The Breakfast Club, the comedian stated that if he were dating a woman who later revealed that she was transgender “she’s dying.”
“There should be some kind of repercussions if you do that to somebody,” he said. “If one did that to me and they didn’t tell me, I’m going to be so mad I’m probably going to want to kill them. I can say what I want and do what I want, and people understand where I’m coming from. They know I’m not coming from a place of malice.”
Numerous people have spoken out about Duval’s remarks including actress Laverne Cox and activists Raquel Willis, Leslie Mac and April Reign.
“Duval purposefully misgendered me (as the hosts laugh, thereby cosigning) in an attempt to put me in my place and erase my womanhood,” Mock said in her Allure piece.
“Their fragile masculinity would not allow them to recognize a simple truth: I am an accomplished, beautiful black trans woman. Your willful ignorance will not stop me from being exactly who I am. My sisters and I are here and we exist, and you will not diminish our light and our brilliance.”