Jackass comedian Steve-O has backed out of a breast implant surgery he planned as a stunt after speaking to a trans cashier and coming to a “profound” realization about how the action might stoke anti-trans sentiments.
Following a viral joke this past July about getting breast implants to essentially troll straight men, Steve-O scheduled the surgery, but was backed out on by some of the medical staff involved because they found out it was a prank. He was going to just reschedule elsewhere, until he spoke with a trans worker at a supermarket about the potential effects of getting this surgery as a cisgender man. He said the person ringing up his groceries was “evidently transgender,” and he took it as “a sign from the universe” to get the perspective of someone who might pursue the surgery as a result of dysphoria rather than as a joke.
Steve-O told the trans worker about his plan, how he intended to do things such as wear a helmet and get male bikers to check him out as a woman, and how he had been training in pole dance to perform hidden camera pranks at exotic clubs. He says the cashier did approve of part of the stunt, however, pointed out that engaging in these things solely to troll heterosexual men and the joke being that he was a man with breasts could (and would) stoke anti-trans hatred. He took this as a sign of the universe’s intervention, and as a chance to consider a perspective he previously had not, saying, “… maybe it’s not all fun and games.”
Steve-O hadn’t previously sought out advice about the surgery, as his self-stated intention wasn’t to be hurtful or offensive to the trans community. He had been pursuing it as something of an act of bodily autonomy, which the trans person he spoke with approved of, but he found that the results of doing so in this particular way would make it innately anti-trans in nature. Trans people are four times as likely as cisgender people to be the victims of hate crimes, with at least 32 recognized murders of trans/nonbinary people motivated by their gender identity in 2023 alone, according to the HRC.
Reactions to this revelation were mixed—Some supported Steve-O, praising him for backing down from a two-decades-in-the-making prank the second a trans person told him that it was upsetting, when backing down from a prank is not, in true Jackass fashion, typically an option. Others noted the sheer absurdity of having a well-known professional comedian ask you, as a trans supermarket worker, if their stunt would be transphobic. Steve-O will still use the footage from doctor’s consults in his upcoming ‘Super Dummy’ tour (kicking off October 4 in Tucson, AZ), as that’s where the roots of the joke were planted, but will explain his feeling of universal intervention and his unwillingness to harm the trans community for the sake of a joke.
Photo courtesy of social media
