A group of Netflix transgender employees plan to strike next week in protest of Dave Chappelle’s “The Closer” comedy special.
Netflix has lifted the suspension of three employees, including a male-to-female transgender, who protested Chappelle’s comedy special on social media.
Netflix software engineer Terra Field, an MtF transgender, has been reinstated along with two other employees.
Prior to the suspension, Field wrote a lengthy Twitter thread on Oct. 9, complaining about Chappelle’s Netflix special.
This is the price of speaking out against transphobia online as a trans woman, and I'm an extremely privileged one with supportive friends, family, and colleagues.
Imagine facing this alone – and this isn't nearly the worst of them, the worst were deleted before we saw them. pic.twitter.com/rOEUgVi7Gd
— Terra Field (@RainofTerra) October 10, 2021
The three employees were suspended for crashing an annual directors meeting to complain about Chappelle at the company headquarters in San Francisco.
Netflix invites 500 top employees to the annual meeting, but Field and the other two workers were not invited.
Field tweeted the reinstatement notice on Tuesday.
“Our investigation did not find that you joined the QBR meeting with any ill intent and that you genuinely didn’t think there was anything wrong with seeking access to this meeting.”
Field added, “At the very least, I feel vindicated.”
A transgender employee resource group at Netflix plans to walk off the job on October 20th to protest statements made by Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos regarding Chappelle.
Sarandos, pictured with his wife Nicole Avant, denied suspending the three employees for complaining about Chappelle.
Sarandos added he will not pull Chappelle’s comedy special off the air.
In an internal memo, the trans resource group ERG wrote:
“Trans Lives Matter. Trans Rights Matter. And as an organization, Netflix has continually failed to show deep care in our mission to Entertain the World by repeatedly releasing content that harms the Trans community and continually failing to create content that represents and uplifts Trans content. We can and must do better!”
