Trans EMPLOYEES FINALLY Protest Dave Chapelle At Netflix....AND GUESS WHO GOT MAD????

Trans EMPLOYEES FINALLY Protest Dave Chapelle At Netflix....AND GUESS WHO GOT MAD????

Netflix employees staged a walkout yesterday in response to the company’s handling of a Dave Chappelle special that premiered on October 5. At the same time, Los Angeles-based trans activist Ashlee Marie Preston hosted a rally in solidarity with Netflix workers participating in the walkout. Netflix stars like Jonathan Van Ness of “Queer Eye” and Mason Alexander Park of “Cowboy Bebop” and “The Sandman” expressed their solidarity in a video made for the rally, alongside other Hollywood stars and trans advocates like Angelica Ross, Jameela Jamil, Kate Bornstein, Our Lady J, Sara Ramirez, Peppermint and Colton Haynes. “We value our trans colleagues and allies, and understand the deep hurt that’s been caused. We respect the decision of any employee who chooses to walk out, and recognize we have much more work to do both within Netflix and in our content,” a Netflix spokesperson said in a statement provided to TechCrunch. The exact turnouts of the employee walkout and solidarity rally are unclear, but there was enough hype around the event that Preston preemptively moved it to a location with more space. The employees who participated in the walkout want Netflix to “adopt measures to avoid future instances of platforming transphobia and hate speech,” they wrote in a letter. They want Netflix to address a list of demands in the categories of content investment, employee relations and safety, and harm reduction. When it comes to content, the group wants Netflix to increase its funding of trans and non-binary talent, bring employee resource groups into conversations about potentially harmful content, hire more trans and non-binary content executives and revise internal procedures around commissioning and releasing sensitive works. In terms of employee relations and safety, they want Netflix to recruit trans people, especially BIPOC, for leadership roles, allow employees to remove themselves from previous promotional content like allyship and diversity videos, and eliminate references and imagery of transphobic titles and talent in the workplace. For harm reduction, they want Netflix to acknowledge the company’s harm in platforming transphobic content, add a disclaimer before transphobic titles, boost promotion for trans-affirming titles on the platform and suggest trans-affirming content alongside those flagged as anti-trans. The demands do not include removing the controversial Dave Chappelle special from Netflix, which sparked backlash from some employees and Netflix subscribers concerned with the company’s platforming of transphobic speech.

Oshay Duke Jackson