Trans Employee Fired From Netflix Speaks Out

Dave Chappelle's latest stand-up comedy special, which was released on October 5th, as many of us know, has been criticized for including anti-trans jokes and for attacking the LGBTQ community. Now, Netflix employees have been very outspoken with their disappointment in it as well as the company's responses and it led to a walk out Wednesday in protest. In the midst of all of this, one trans employee was fired for leaking confidential information to the press, which they deny. Is it they join us now to share what actually happened? Be Pickles minor. Thank you so much and welcome to Let's Go There. Thank you. Thank you for having me. Yeah, we're super happy to have you because I think with everything happening, all the news reports, so much gets lost in translation and you just don't know what really is the truth. And so I think it would be wonderful for you to take this time to kind of break down when you all like found out about the Dave Chappelle special. What kind of went down in that process of being like, were you all asking for it to initially be taken down? What was your initial thoughts about that? Yeah, so that's one of the things that I think has been most misconstrued. The people who talked about wanting the content to come down were pretty much all external individuals. They were not internal Netflix employees. One of the things that happens when you're a Netflix employee is that you do understand the cultural values of Netflix and there's obviously the cultural values or like judge makes your eyes to things like that. But there's also this idea of entertaining the world and there's also this idea of creative freedom. And so taking down the special was not a demand from the internal team because that would have gone against the cultural values of Netflix. So the act was always quite simply how the heck do we lower the amount of terms that this type of content creates? And there's a few different ways to do that. One aspect of that is to make sure that you're actually creating trans affirming content. Obviously, they've mentioned like disclosure or sex education examples. But when you actually look at the full library of content, it's pretty lacking. What do you think about it? The second thing was also potentially ensuring that people understood that the content within the special could be considered transphobic or homophobic so people were aware. That means that for an average individual who would not want to watch the special, giving them that context so they wouldn't be exposed to it if they didn't want to. So they're all very reasonable demands asking for investment in trans stories, making sure that the full picture was kind of shown up there. And that was really what started servicing as early as October 6th before the final list of that was even finalized. And you of course joined your peers in doing this. But then what exactly happened in terms of the suspensions and then leading to you getting fired? Yeah, so the suspensions again were a very weird and strange thing. Essentially what happened is that some individuals were told, "Hey, by the way, Ted is discussing the special in this meeting." And so then those individuals sought out a link to join that meeting and a director actually gave the link to those individuals and they attended the meeting. And then they were suspended later for attending the meeting because it was indicated that that was actually what it's called a QBR meeting, which is quarterly business results, which from what I understand now is kind of this meeting that historically was a director level or above meeting. However, it is a live stream so no one was able to talk or comment or disrupt the meeting. So some of the characterization that for instance these people busted into the room and disrupted that's not what happened. They literally just sat back and listened quietly as that conversation happened. And for what I understand they were then suspended because there was a question of whether they had ill-intense for joining that meeting. And after the investigation the termination was that one, not only did they not have ill intent, they were just trying to get information, which is a core Netflix value, but that a director so someone who actually had permission to attend the meeting gave the link to them. And so why would someone not expect that they could attend something that was given to them? Of course, now I feel like you're filling in all of the holes in the story because that makes so much sense. And also you were the leader of the Trans Employee Resource Group, which I would assume there's not a lot of Trans Leadership there. So it just feels like this really does hurt in ways. So how have you been able to deal with the emotional capacity of all of this, especially going through everything you're going through because you are also pregnant? Yeah, you know, honestly, you know, I was telling someone when this first started happening I have never seen people so distraught at a company as over this experience. And I think it's primarily because the Trans Community has been so patient and has tried to slowly educate every single aspect of leadership whether it's the HR team and the important of benefits, whether it's the internal tools team and the importance of tools that don't dead name them or if it's the content team and trying to slowly educate them on how important it is to think about the type of content that's out there, it felt like a betrayal. And you know, I was literally, I was getting Slack messages, text messages, emails constantly for people saying, I had to think that we got, I had to go to four or five therapy sessions this week because I actually felt like, you know, did I want to live anymore because I thought I was safe and this level of faith was gone. And you know, for me personally, like, it was difficult for me to eat or sleep because I was so upset that so many people were being harmed and it didn't need to happen. You know, it just didn't need to happen. You know, people ask, you know, what do I think should have happened? First and foremost, you know, I dig it heads up like on September 30th saying the special was going to come out and I assumed based on the context of the message that I got, but it was a pretty typical special, you know, you know, that was going to be, you know, some transphobic content. There was going to be some massage and you know, the simple, you know, Dave Chappelle's going to do with Dave Chappelle does. Exactly. Yeah. And so if I had known that it was going to be what it was, I would have approached it completely differently. I would have made sure that there was therapists. But well, first of all, I would have, I would have tried to insert my influence and suggested them some strategies that they could change, right? Because like, for instance, you know, the first things I said to a lot of people is I was like, why did you release this in October? I was like, October is LGBTQ plus history month. And this entire special is pretty homophobic and pretty transphobic. Like, this is a very, like, you, you've taken a month of celebration and turned it to this fraught experience. Yeah. You know, I would have suggested not October 5th because it was literally the day before many people take a moment to think about Matthew Shepard because of October 6th. He was taken and he was left for dead. And then six days later, he did die. You know, that case is one of the first cases that people started to think of LGBTQ plus people as real human. You know, I would have suggested, hey, did you actually look up what turf means? Right. Like the turf. And we really want to keep this conversation going because I think we want to know what happens next. So, you know, we're going to move forward. Do you get your job back? Do you? Yeah, what are you doing now? What are you doing now? You know, like, what does the trans community want? And, you know, and so we want to keep you around and we have more show coming up after this. Let's go there with Shira and Ryan, channel Q. Now we've been talking to B. Pagels, minor, the Netflix employee who has fired an accused of leaking data over this whole Dave Chappelle controversy. They've been sharing their story here on Let's Go There and we so appreciate you and your time today. Yeah. B, I do want to know really quick. I think what's really interesting for me as a black queer person and watching them play out is often what's left out of the conversation about speaking out, especially when it comes from like, you know, white colleagues or counterparts or other white queer and trans folks. And when speaking out on something on how sometimes the blowback can end up being on black queer and trans folks, right? And I feel like we can't have this conversation without talking about race in some forms because at the end of the day, you are a black trans person who lost their job. And I wonder have you been able to kind of think about that and what are your thoughts about that? Yeah, no, I definitely think about that. I mean, trans day of remembrance is coming up November 20th and the list currently has 44 people on it and the majority of the people on that list. And so to clarify, the list is the list of people who have been killed in the United States who are trans. And on that list is mostly black trans people, right? And you know, the thing about this special, the thing about society is that black LGBTQ plus black trans people get a raise. You know, the whole set of position of the special is that there's this gay, the gay white folks against the blacks, you know, in the civil rights movement, but that's not true because there's a whole bunch of us who've been in both of those categories and we're far more likely to be harmed than anyone else in this fight. And so that's the thing that's so frustrating here. And even so that it's frustrating, it's also great that we finally get to start having this conversation on a national basis. You know, my life matters. Yeah, we're happy that you're here. talking about it to you and it does it more than does. So what happens with you now? Are you fighting to get your job back at Netflix? Do you want it? To be truthful, I don't really want it anymore. So what I've said very clearly is, first and foremost, I want them to take action on the very reasonable list of that the Transstar community has. The entire list is, "Investing content, hire people, be more thoughtful." That's the same thing that your parents might ask you. It's a very simple, very basic list. And then separately, I want a reasonable severance for myself so that I can have my baby next month and spend some time with my baby. And then I'll go do something else. You know, I'm very fortunate in that way that I have a specific feel set and I know that I'll be able to get another job doing this type of work one day. Yeah, and I also wonder last question as we wrap this up. Do you think we, the CEO, the co-CEO who's kind of, he honestly was putting his foot in his mouth the entire time. Do you think he should really be stepping down? It feels like he is just not qualified to hand to and understand the lives when it comes to, you know, marginalized communities and how important content can really impact these communities. You know, it's really interesting that you say that because you know, not only for the so that there were those emails that really leaked that obviously miss the point, but then he did these follow-up interviews that were frankly terrifying. You know, one of the interviews of something like they just, you know, we've been working from home for so long. They don't know how good they have it. And I'm like, that's the characteristic of abusive relationships. It's like, it's like, I'm going to be mean to you and disrespect you, but you know, I'm better than that other man, right? And so I do think that they should think about leadership and whether he has the ability to navigate this because the thing is is that Netflix is becoming a worldwide media company. Like at first, you know, it is a primary United States and Canadian company, but if you really want to be successful in every single reason of the world, what does that look like? And is he has the capability of vacuum navigating that? We said it. Thank you so much again for joining us. That was B Piggles minor. We so appreciate you and you. You choose a breath anytime. Yeah. Get that rest you deserve. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for having me and we back with more of let's go there right after this.