Activist Projects Names Of Trans Dead On Netflix's Los Gatos HQ

LOS GATOS, CA — The names of transgender people who died this year to violence were projected Saturday onto Netflix’s headquarters in Los Gatos on Transgender Day of Remembrance.

Alan Marling, a Bay Area projection activist, shined the names in white font over the archway entrance to the media streamer's headquarters at 100 Winchester Circle.

Netflix has been criticized for its response to comedian Dave Chappelle’s jokes aimed at transgender people in his Netflix special, “The Closer,” and for firing B. Pagels-Minor, an employee who organized a walkout by transgender employees and allies in October. A second employee who helped organize the walkout, Terra Field, announced Monday that she resigned from the company.

A Netflix spokesperson declined comment Monday when asked about the projection.

The names scrolled across the archway above the red Netflix logo, visible to cars driving past on Winchester Boulevard, for about an hour Saturday. One driver rolled down a window and shouted, “That’s awesome!” according to Marling.

The activist had contemplated the event since the October walkout and regularly does similar projection activism across California.

“I thought it was excellent,” Gwendolyn Smith, founder of the Remembering Our Dead project that led to the creation of the Transgender Day of Remembrance in 1999, told Patch on Monday.

Netflix is “one of the main things right now that is helping to aid a climate that is dangerous to trans people,” said Smith, a transgender woman who is also a columnist for the LGBTQ community newspaper the Bay Area Reporter. Smith served as a resource to Marling, who reached out to her for guidance about the projection and names, she said.

This year was the deadliest on record for transgender people. Some 47 transgender and gender-nonconforming individuals were fatally shot or died by violent means, according to the Human Rights Campaign, which has been tracking the data since 2013.

Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos initially defended Chappelle’s special by claiming that on-screen content doesn’t directly translate to real-world harm. He later walked back the statement in the face of criticism, acknowledging that he “screwed up” his response and internal communications.

“Certainly it has an effect,” Smith said. “Certainly people are going to watch that special, and they’re going to come away with an attitude towards trans people that is in some way shaped by the words of Dave Chappelle. If they’re a fan of Dave Chappelle, they’re going to be affected by it. That’s obvious.”

Smith said it was "a fitting rebuttal that the names of those who were murdered in the name of anti-transgender violence end up projected on the walls of Netflix’s offices," adding that the projection serves "as a reminder that there are, indeed, real world consequences to consider when you platform transphobia disguised as comedic expression.”

Netflix didn’t have to necessarily pull “The Closer,” but that Sarandos could have immediately owned up to how Chappelle’s comments could have exacerbated the anti-trans climate, Smith added.

“I would’ve liked for him to have just owned up to that rather than try to say, 'Oh, this has no effect,' as if to say that any of the content that Netflix provides is meaningless,” Smith said.

There is far more awareness of the transgender community today compared to decades ago, when Smith first started the project. She attributed the rise in anti-trans violence to “the other end of acceptance, which is the backlash.”

“You’re seeing us as a larger target for the religious right, for right-wing politicians, and you’re seeing us as a target even more for comedians who have specials on Netflix,” Smith said. “It’s a double-edged sword.”

Smith believes the transgender community is going through some “pretty dark days,” but that it is all “part of the process,” she said. “The thing is, it’s always darkest before the dawn. I think that applies here as well.”