'SNL' Still Thinks Trans Jokes About Caitlyn Jenner Are Hilarious

As perpetually problematic as Caitlyn Jenner is, making jokes at her expense because of her trans identity still isn’t cool. And for some reason, a lot of people can’t seem to get this through their heads.

Case in point: during last night’s “Weekend Update” segment on Saturday Night Live, Michael Che decided to take roundabout swing at Jenner while making fun of Kanye West’s new gospel album.

“At first I thought Kanye was losing his mind,” Che lamented, “and now I feel like he’s fine, he’s just turning into an old white lady.”

He could have stopped there! But he didn’t.

“I mean, he used to be one of the coolest black dudes on earth. Now he’s showing up to events in sweatpants and orthopedic sneakers, listening to Kenny G and trying to get black people to like Trump. It’s like, how long until this guy changes his name to Kathy?”

He even could have stopped there. And we would’ve rolled our eyes and wished that Che would think of better jokes that didn’t hover right on the edge, confusing the ridiculousness of Kanye’s conservativeness with the actuality of transitioning. But. He didn’t.

“Now you might think that I’m crazy, but about five years ago, there was a fella named Bruce Jenner, and he moved to Calabasas…”

The audience collectively groans as Che trails off, a photo of Jenner from several years ago up on the screen next to him.

It’s a shitty outdated joke, on top of being offensive and moronic, but here we are. While no one can really claim taking a swing at an out-of-touch millionaire reality star is punching down, when that joke is specifically mocking someone for being trans, it’s the folks who share that portion of Jenner’s identity that become the casualties.

And the internet seriously was not here for it.

Next time, SNL, if you want to make fun of Caitlyn Jenner, try to be a little more clever and a lot less offensive. It's really not that hard. At least, the latter isn't.