https://twitter.com/PWRBTTMBAND/status/800758685219819520?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Following this weekend’s edition of ‘SNL‘ you may have noticed a particular joke about Tinder circulating on Twitter. The joke was performed by Colin Jost, and it addressed the decision that the dating app recently made to offer a wide spectrum of gender identity options instead of the limited binary of male and female. Jost’s joke claims it’s inclusive rhetoric like this that lost Democrats the election.
Well, many people took issue with this line of reasoning, pointing out that a cis, hetero white guy blaming a dating app for being inclusive toward non-binary Americans is pretty much the epitome of punching down. One of the loudest voices asking Jost to reexamine his idea was queer power punk duo PWR BTTM, who wrote in an initial tweet, above: “Yo @ColinJost, do you not get this kind hatred is why trump won the election? Shame. Shame shame shame.”
Well, as Stereogum points out, the tweet caught Jost’s attention, and despite criticism from multiple sources, he responded to them directly:
so you think 100 percent of Trump voters were hatred and 0 percent had any other rationale?
— Colin Jost (@ColinJost) November 22, 2016
https://twitter.com/PWRBTTMBAND/status/800894043731410944
https://twitter.com/PWRBTTMBAND/status/800894843916611584
in no way am I trying to. I'm on your side a hundred percent. Only trying to learn from this defeat and get stronger.
— Colin Jost (@ColinJost) November 22, 2016
It's politics. A lot of politics is messaging and getting America on board. I want to examine how we failed at that goal.
— Colin Jost (@ColinJost) November 22, 2016
I worry about not doing any self-examination and making the same mistake again.
— Colin Jost (@ColinJost) November 22, 2016
https://twitter.com/PWRBTTMBAND/status/800937405763055616
https://twitter.com/PWRBTTMBAND/status/800944929883049985
Jost argues that the Democratic initiative to protect marginalized groups is part of why Trump won, while PWR BTTM rightfully points out that it’s a fallacy to blame the rise of Trump on the existence of non-binary and queer people who are trying to get laid on Tinder. After a couple attempts to engage, though, Jost stopped responding and stood by the joke by sharing a New York Times op-ed titled “The End Of Identity Liberalism.”
This joke was from Saturday but Mark Lilla's op-ed on Sunday expanded on this idea. https://t.co/jJWyXp0VYP pic.twitter.com/swI7PvLgqR
— Colin Jost (@ColinJost) November 22, 2016
This article argues that specifically leaving the white working class out of conversations is a mistake, and urges us to embrace “post-identity liberalism.” Like Jost, Lilla is a cis, hetero man whose identity is taken as the given in an overwhelming number of contexts. It is far easier to argue for post-identity focus when your identity is not, as PWR BTTM noted above, continually threatened with violence. Strange how Jost is more worried about examining the rhetoric that irks those who might have voted for Trump, than examining the rhetoric — like his own joke — that helps normalize the violent targeting of transgender and non-binary individuals.
In 2016 alone, Human Rights Watch reports 21 transgender people have been killed. Jost’s joke ran on during the November 19 episode of “SNL,” and was made widely available online the following day, November 20, which is Transgender Day Of Remembrance, timing that increased the joke’s tastelessness.
Despite all this, kudos to Tinder, a dating app, for making the kind of changes that initiate these conversations, and hopefully help educate people who are unfamiliar with the unwarranted hardships America’s queer community still faces.
GLAAD offers resources for transgender individuals who are in crisis or need support. Access those here.
