Comedian Sam Morril schools transphobes on how to ‘make a funny trans joke’

 

 

A clip of the comic making witty remarks about various topics surrounding the trans community surfaced on social media just a few days after the 1 September release date of his comedy special Same Time Tomorrow.

Morrl explored these issues in a conversation between him and another guy about a trans person they both knew. During the conversation, they talked about trans people in sports, the idea of “passing” as a trans person, and hilarious jabs at the idea of his friend having a daughter.

Trans joke from my new special Same Time Tomorrow streaming on Netflix now. Captions fixed. pic.twitter.com/NMaGQX7Yhd

— Sam Morril (@sammorril) September 2, 2022

“I was talking to a guy about a trans person we both know, and he goes ‘I fully support it, I mean, I’ll play along,’” Morril said during the beginning of his segment. “I said, ‘I don’t think that’s what they’re going for.’ I don’t think you’re scoring a lot of points walking up to a trans person and going, ‘Sure! If you say so! Honey, come here, this one’s believable, this is crazy!’”

The comic also discussed the anonymous person’s objection to trans swimmer Lia Thomas’ inclusion in elite swimming competitions – which has since been nullified through policies created by elite swimming governing body FINA.

“He said, ‘this is messed up man, there needs to be an asterisk next to those wins,’ and I said, ‘I call bullshit,’ he says ‘exactly,’ and I said ‘no, that you care about women’s swimming,’” Morril continued over the audience’s laughter. “I’ve known you for quite some time, I’ve never heard you mention it!”

The cherry on the comedy cake, however, was his ending line after talking about this person’s hypothetical daughter being oppressed by trans inclusion in swimming. After making multiple jabs at the guy’s ability to get a date, he said: “He was p***ed off, he said, ‘it could happen, I never wear condoms!’ I said, ‘you never wear condoms and you don’t have a kid?’

“‘It’s too bad your sperm isn’t a trans woman, it would know how to swim!’” Morril added to applause.

Several members of the community took the chance to commend Morril for his ability as a cis man to tell jokes about trans people that weren’t at their expense.

“Damn. That was actually fun and it wasn’t even attacking trans women,” one user said. “Huh, I’ve been so used to comedians being hateful that it feels weird this one’s not at the expense [of] the trans community.”

Stand-up comedy has become a particularly tense place for trans people as of late, with various “anti-woke” comedians creating a hostile environment that generates animosity for people who don’t find their jokes funny and others who find them offensive.

So-called comic Dave Chappelle has found himself in hot water multiple times after some of his most recent specials, including The Closer and Sticks & Stones, made jokes at the expense of trans people.

“I am not saying that to say trans women aren’t women, I am just saying that those pussies that they got… You know what I mean?” he said during Netflix’s The Closer. “I’m not saying it’s not pussy, but it’s beyond pussy or impossible pussy. It tastes like pussy, but that’s not quite what it is, is it?”

After facing criticism from the set, he aired his grievances toward groups that he called “instruments of oppression” in a Netflix release named What’s in a Name. The short clip detailed a speech that he gave in June during a ceremony in Washington DC at the Duke Ellington School of the Arts after a since-declined offer to name the school’s new theatre after him.

“I said to the kids, I go ‘well, OK, well what do you guys think I did wrong?’ And a line formed. These kids said everything about gender, and this and that and the other, but they didn’t say anything about art,” Chappelle said, while professing that the criticism removed the “artistic nuance” from his words.