Yup, spot on! Sadly, some people like Elon Musk are just jerks. People who know him say he’s a disrespectful twerp on a power trip, and that much seems clear from his dismissing transgender issues.

It’s easy to dismiss him, of course given his reputation as a misanthrope, but what’s harder to dismiss is this idea that it’s okay to joke about critical issues.

Remember that article I wrote about it not being okay to level homophobic slurs at people like Lindsey Graham? That using homophobic slurs against people we don’t like just perpetuates homophobic toxins?

Holy shit, you should have seen all the outraged responses I got on Twitter from people who were telling me I needed to get a sense of humor and get used to jokes.

But on the same principle as not joking about pronouns, humor doesn’t excuse blatant homophobia. Clearly, it should not excuse transphobia either.

Humor is not a pass for bad behavior.

When people joke about pronouns, they’re normalizing opposition to behavior that normalizes transgender people the way they should be normalized.

It’s not hard to adapt pronoun usage. It just isn’t hard. People who object to it and joke about it are revealing themselves to be, like Elon Musk, jerks.