On the last episode of Saturday Night Live, Weekend Update co-anchor Colin Jost made a bad joke about Tinder's new gender identity options, which allow transgender and non-binary users to choose from categories beyond the usual male/female. "The dating app Tinder announced a new feature this week, which gives users 37 different gender identity options," Jost said. "It's called 'Why Democrats Lost The Election.'" Unsurprisingly and totally understandably, there was a huge backlash on social media -- including from queer punk duo PWR BTTM, who rightfully called him out on Twitter. Slightly more surprisingly, Jost has only responded to PWR BTTM:
Yo @ColinJost, do you not get this kind hatred is why trump won the election? Shame. Shame shame shame. pic.twitter.com/OSsru9b92u
— pwr bttm? (@PWRBTTMBAND) November 21, 2016
@PWRBTTMBAND so you think 100 percent of Trump voters were hatred and 0 percent had any other rationale?
— Colin Jost (@ColinJost) November 22, 2016
@ColinJost literally explain why I, a gender non conforming person, should find this funny, and we can talk
— pwr bttm? (@PWRBTTMBAND) November 22, 2016
@ColinJost listen, I love SNL and I think you're great. Please don't trivialize our right to love. We are all so scared
— pwr bttm? (@PWRBTTMBAND) November 22, 2016
@PWRBTTMBAND in no way am I trying to. I'm on your side a hundred percent. Only trying to learn from this defeat and get stronger.
— Colin Jost (@ColinJost) November 22, 2016
@PWRBTTMBAND It's politics. A lot of politics is messaging and getting America on board. I want to examine how we failed at that goal.
— Colin Jost (@ColinJost) November 22, 2016
@PWRBTTMBAND I worry about not doing any self-examination and making the same mistake again.
— Colin Jost (@ColinJost) November 22, 2016
@ColinJost this isn't Lenny Bruce v McCarthyism: this is us afraid for our lives. Just let us have fucking tinder. Trump isn't our fault
— pwr bttm? (@PWRBTTMBAND) November 22, 2016
@ColinJost dude just like wake up, acknowledge your bs. We need you, you're on the most important comedy show ever
— pwr bttm? (@PWRBTTMBAND) November 22, 2016
Jost also defended the joke by linking to an also very controversial New York Times op-ed calling for The End Of Identity Liberalism, which is exactly the wrong lesson to take from this election.
This joke was from Saturday but Mark Lilla's op-ed on Sunday expanded on this idea. https://t.co/jJWyXp0VYP pic.twitter.com/swI7PvLgqR
— Colin Jost (@ColinJost) November 22, 2016
