Amid the swirl of controversy around Dave Chappelle’s recent Netflix stand-up special The Closer, which — along with his other specials in recent years — has been widely criticized for being transphobic, the streaming service recently suspended three of its employees, one of whom is a trans software engineer. Terra Field and two others were ostensibly suspended after attempting to attend a “director-level meeting,” though the disciplinary move also comes after Field’s vocal condemnation of The Closer, Chappelle’s final entry in a multi-special deal with Netflix.
Following the show’s premiere last week, Field tweeted, in a thread that went viral, about the violent discrimination toward trans people that Chappelle’s special, which included him vocally referring to himself as “Team TERF” (a term used to mean trans exclusionary radical feminist), contributes to. The thread included the names of the literally dozens of trans people who have been murdered throughout this year alone. Netflix has denied that it suspended Field for the tweets, while also standing by the special, despite many (including, in an open Q&A document, Netflix’s own employees) claiming that it crosses the line of artistically pushing the envelope and that it instead plainly promotes hate. Netflix did not immediately respond to a request for comment for this story.
