On Friday, Oct. 15, Netflix fired the organizers of the trans employee walkout suspecting that she leaked confidential information. The employee, who is Black and currently pregnant, is said to have shared metrics with the press related to Dave Chappelle’s latest special, “The Closer.”
“We understand this employee may have been motivated by disappointment and hurt with Netflix, but maintaining a culture of trust and transparency is core to our company,” a spokesperson for Netflix said in a press statement.
The confidential information that was shared appeared in a Bloomberg article that specified how much Netflix paid for “The Closer,” and how many people it reached.
The news of this employee’s termination comes amid the controversy surrounding Chappelle’s special after it received widespread backlash from members of the trans community who deemed it transphobic.
Netflix just recently reinstated Terra Field, a trans software engineer whose tweets went viral about the controversy, after suspending her for attending a director-level meeting that she wasn’t supposed to attend.
In an interview with The Verge, a former employee of Netflix spoke about the perceived disparity in how Netflix is treating Black trans employees versus Whites.
“All these White people are going around talking to the press and speaking publicly on Twitter and the only person who gets fired is the Black person who was quiet the entire time. That’s absurd, and just further shows that Black trans people are the ones being targeted in this conversation,” the former employee told The Verge.
