Comedian Lil Duval defends transphobic remarks, refuses to apologize

Lil Duval is defending the transphobic comments he made on “Breakfast Club” last week, which led to a Twitter hashtag campaign to boycott the popular morning radio show.

When asked how he would react if he found out he was dating a transgender woman, Duval responded that he would kill her.

Appearing on TMZ on Monday, Duval says his comments weren’t transphobic and were about “power of choice.”

“I said that because (the hosts) were saying, taking away someone’s power of choice, and that’s what you did,” Duval says. “When you take away somebody’s power of choice, it should be criminal.

He went on to say he doesn’t have a problem with the LGBT community.

“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,” Duval continued.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMvsH4BQivw

Host Charlamagne Tha God was also under fire when he was approached by transgender activists during his appearance at Politicon. Listeners were furious that the hosts of the show laughed along with Duval’s jokes.

Transgender activist Janet Mock penned a response essay to the “Breakfast Club” episode for Allure. Mock had appeared on the “Breakfast Club” to discuss transgender issues and her new book just days before Duval’s appearance.

During Duval’s interview, the hosts showed Duval the cover of Mock’s book and prodded him to admit Mock is attractive.

“Nope. That ni**a doing his thing….ain’t finna get me,” Duval responded.

Mock made it clear she would not stand for being used “for laughs, vitriol, and a deeper call and justification for violence.”

“Duval purposefully misgendered me (as the hosts laugh, thereby cosigning) in an attempt to put me in my place and erase my womanhood. 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,” Mock writes.

She continued, “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?”

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