anyway jokes by straight / cis people that rely on expectations of violence towards gay / trans people are Bad Content.
(example: cis person looks at a trans person, says “god that’s unacceptable”, and the punchline is them saying “THOSE shoes with THAT skirt?” or some shit like that)
like the entirety of the joke is “haha I’m homophobic / transphobic” & the entirety of the punchline is “oops! I can’t believe you thought I was actually homophobic/transphobic!” & it’s just like ??? the entire substance of the joke relies on the person telling the joke to have the power to act violently against the audience.
i mean i wanted to make this post like a month ago but I couldn’t find the words for it & I hope I can help other people have the words to explain it, because like, for example this:
This joke relies solely on the idea that we, the audience of the joke, would see the statement “This is inappropriate. At your age, you should know better. Some things are just plain unacceptable”, and associate the word “this” with “wearing a skirt” rather than “cleaning the skirt incorrectly”.
The punchline of the joke isn’t so much “ha ! I’m not actually transphobic!” as it is “ha! simply being and existing is dangerous for you because of people that think in the way that I tricked you into believing that I think in!”
The joke is only effective as a “joke” at all because of the expectation of violence.
^^^this is exactly true and a well explained way of what I was trying to articulate earlier this summer, ty OP.
Also, lemme just add that these kind of jokes are specifically NOT for the people who are the subject of the joke (in this case, us trans people). If you are able to find this funny, it is because this is far enough removed from you to not be terrifying.
These jokes apply to any societal power imbalance (white/nonwhite, male/female, thin/fat, etc.).
I’m gonna go ahead and call out @thatsthat24 ( Thomas Sanders ) because nearly all of his Storytime sketches rely on this kind of “humor,” and he uses the fact that he’s a white cis man to mess with female and nonwhite strangers, and yeah, the people always laugh at the end of the vine, but it always makes me wonder how many people he tried those jokes on who didn’t laugh, and I feel like the people are giving him a free pass because he’s gay, but the fact is even if he is gay he’s still white and cis and a man and these jokes are still predicated on him using his privileges to put people without those privileges on edge, and then laugh at them for raising their hackles.
Thoughtfulfangirling 