Nish Kumar blasts ‘pathological’ obsession with transgender people

Nish Kumar has slammed what he sees as a ‘bizarre fixation’ with the transgender community.

The comedian, best known as the host of satirical comedy The Mash Report, now known as Late Night Mash, has previously slammed jokes directed at the transgender community in comedy, and has now said he believes the media also focuses on these people far too much.

‘I think that there is a bizarre obsession in the press with the transgender community,’ he has said.

‘It is a small minority of people that are quite vulnerable community and I believe that the transgender community deserves our love and support, but there is a bizarre fixation with it in the British press.

‘I don’t know what’s going on and it feels everyone in the British media has caught some sort of brain worms about the subject,’ he added while speaking on Jeremy Vine on 5.

He added: ‘It is a community that people have a pathological obsession with.

‘I think live and let live.’

Nish Kumar has said there is a ‘petrological obsession’ with the transgender community (Picture: Stuart C. Wilson/Getty Images)

During the interview Nish spoke about the cancellation of a comedy show in Edinburgh recently after complaints were made to the venue over the appearance of Graham Linehan.

The IT Crowd and Father Ted creator is a vocal critic of aspects of the trans rights movement and has previously compared trans children to ‘Nazi experiments’ and called trans rights activism ‘evil’.

After being asked if he believed if comedy should be ‘open to anything’ and if comedians should be able to make jokes about any subjects, Nish agreed, but said you ‘couldn’t legally force venues to host comedians’.

‘I think you are able to joke about whatever you want,’ he continued.

‘I think if the audience doesn’t laugh, they are ultimately the arbiter of it.’

His comments come after Graham Linehan had a show cancelled (Picture: Andrew H. Walker/Getty Images)

He went on to say everything was ‘fair game’ and much of the comedy he enjoyed ‘took unfunny subjects and make them funny’.

However, he added: ‘I think it’s strange that some comedians seem to be doing jokes that feel like they could have been done in the 1970s, but I think generally you can joke about anything.

‘People have the right to be offended and I defend that right.’

However last year Nish did call out Ricky Gervais after he faced criticisms for including transphobic jokes in his Netflix special SuperNature.

After the special was released, a clip from Nish’s show It’s In Your Nature To Destroy Yourself Part 2 was shared on social media, and showed him calling out Ricky for deciding to ‘s*** on the latest minority group’.

‘Guys, why is everyone so angry with trans people? What did they do? There’s like 12 of them, why is everyone so upset? Everyone’s like, do you say ‘he’ or ‘she’? I don’t know, ask. It’s not an unsolvable conundrum,’ he said.

Singling out the comedian, he then said: ‘F*** Ricky Gervais. What he’s doing is not edgy or interesting, he seems to think it makes him an edgy or interesting comedian. It’s not, all he is the same as every other rich white dude comedian who gets too successful, runs out of ideas and shoves a s*** on the latest minority group.’

He added that trans people were ‘just the latest to get it in the neck from comedians who can’t be bothered to try at their jobs anymore’.

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‘I think there is a bizarre obsession…’