Maeve Higgins: Why we need to look a little closer at 'The Closer'

This time around transphobic, Dave Chappelle, isn't just delivering stand-up comedy lines in his Netflix show, he's delivering continued permission to hate 

One disturbing routine from comedian/actor Dave Chappelle in 'The Closer' sees him beat up a masculine-presenting lesbian who had challenged him in a club, to the troubling delight of at least one particular member of the audience. It was more than comedy, this time the transphobic showed he meant what he said. Picture: Mike Coppola/Getty Images

There's this strange moment in Dave Chappelle's latest stand-up special, The Closer, on Netflix that nobody, as far as I can tell, is talking about. This is doubly odd because if you've got even a passing interest in stand-up comedy and its role in the culture wars, you will know that everybody is talking about plenty of other moments in this show. There's the lazy reference to hate crimes against Asian people in the US. The archaic crack about some women being too ugly to rape. And there is the show's substance, the reason so many are talking about it; the considerable chunk of stage time he devotes to his preoccupation with transgender people. 

Chappelle has successfully trolled the LGBTQ+ community for many years now and seems particularly obsessed with transgender people.