MINNEAPOLIS (FOX 9) – Minneapolis Metropolis Council President Andrea Jenkins has a message for comic Dave Chappelle, whose present on the First Avenue in downtown Minneapolis was moved to a brand new venue Wednesday after a public backlash. 

Jenkins has adopted the problem carefully. An artist and performer herself, she grew to become the primary Black overtly transgender girl elected to public workplace in america when she joined the Metropolis Council in 2018, and have become the council president this 12 months. 

She desires Chappelle to know that she admires his work, however in her view, the skepticism he has voiced about trans id has penalties. She factors to the pattern of states passing legal guidelines concentrating on trans youth, corresponding to bans on trans participation in youth sports activities or legal guidelines stopping them from utilizing loos reflective of their gender id or accessing gender-affirming healthcare. The ACLU has collected information indicating that 2022 is already a record-setting 12 months for legal guidelines concentrating on LGBTQ rights, with most of these legal guidelines concentrating on trans youth. 

 “The true-world penalties are that it is okay to criminalize, villainize, traumatize transgender, gender non-conforming, gender-creative folks. That our lives do not matter. That it’s best to conform to the American requirements of gender if you wish to be revered on this tradition and society. And I feel that is extraordinarily harmful,” she instructed Fox 9.

Chappelle was scheduled to carry out at First Avenue Wednesday at 8 p.m., however the venue launched an announcement simply 4 hours earlier than the present they canceled the occasion, saying it had been moved to the Varsity Theater.  

Controversy has surrounded Chappelle’s views on transgender folks for the reason that launch of his Netflix particular “Nearer” final October. Chappelle declared himself to be a trans-exclusionary radical feminist (TERF) and stated that “Gender is a reality,” implying that it’s a mounted state moderately than a fluid id. 

Chappelle’s feedback caught with Jenkins on the time to the purpose the place she wrote a poem in response, “Mistaken Identification,” which she has carried out a number of occasions over the past 12 months, together with in June at a pageant in Connecticut. 

Jenkins says she’d like to offer him a duplicate within the hopes that it will clarify to him that trans folks have performed an vital position within the Black neighborhood’s push for civil rights. “We’re 100% integral to the wrestle that I feel Dave Chappelle is about as nicely. And I hope that that poem might shed some perception into that,” she stated. 

Regardless of her criticism, Jenkins stays a fan of Chappelle’s work. 

“I’ll add, I feel Dave Chappelle is an excellent comic. He’s most likely the voice of his era. And I actually get pleasure from his model of comedy. And I hope that he can atone for his messages surrounding the trans and gender-nonconforming folks so I can proceed to purchase his costly ass tickets to see his present,” she stated.