What was most upsetting about hearing Lil Duval’s “joke” about trans women was thinking about the fact that, at some point in my life, I would have laughed along with him. Even more disheartening was thinking that I may have once been the one to tell the “joke.” Worse still, I’m left wondering if, knowing better now, I would have the temerity to tell the person making the “joke,” to their face, that they are wrong.

This week, Lil Duval, a comedian of no real consequence, appeared on The Breakfast Club, the popular New York-based radio show hosted by DJ Envy, Charlamagne tha God, and Angela Yee, where he was initially asked about the recent ban of transgender people from serving in the military declared by President Trump. The conversation quickly devolved into hateful territory after DJ Envy posed another question to Lil Duval, this time regarding what he would do if a woman he had been dating disclosed that she was trans. “This might sound messed up and I don’t care,” Lil Duval responded. “She dying. I can’t deal with that,” while later adding, “If one did that to me, and they didn’t tell me, I’mma be so mad I’d probably going to want to kill them.”

Then, after being shown the cover of Janet Mock's recent memoir, Surpassing Certainty, where the hosts agreed that Mock was pretty, Lil Duval said, “Nope, that nigga doing his thing ... ain’t finna get me," deliberately misgendering the author, media personality, activist, and, full disclosure, a friend of mine. Mock offered her own response to the morning show hosts and Lil Duval. You should read it here.

If Lil Duval’s “joke” sounds less than funny to you, it may be because when Dee Whigham disclosed to Dwanya Hickerson that she was transgender on the night of July 23, 2016, Hickerson “lost it” and stabbed Whigham 119 times. Or because Joshua Vallum lured Mercedes Williamson to his car, stabbed her repeatedly with a pocket knife, and then beat her to death with a hammer, a year after they broke up (Vallum was aware that Williamson was transgender, but he was allegedly afraid of what might happen if his peers found out he had dated her). Or because, similarly, Rico LeBlond shot Zella Ziona, a woman he had known for two years, because he was “embarrassed” that she had flirted with him in front of his friends.

And these are just a few real life examples of the hypothetical situation Lil Duval saw fit to make light of. In 2015, 21 trans women were killed in the U.S., and in 2016 that number rose to 27, making it “the deadliest year on record for trans people,” according to GLAAD. A study conducted by Human Rights Campaign and Trans People of Color Coalition found that, in 2013 and 2015, 87 percent of trans women killed were women of color.

I would like to think that knowing these statistics would make these “jokes” less funny to people. I would like to think that even without knowing these statistics these “jokes” would not be funny to people. I would like to think that cis men would not attempt to find value in their masculinity by undercutting the humanity of trans women. I would like to think a lot of things, but my optimism is tempered by the reality that I know.

"Trans women are not dying because they are trans women, they are dying because we make it known that we value our own place in this social hierarchy more than their lives."

I would also like to think that I’m a better person than I am, that I’ve never made a “joke” as violent as Lil Duval’s. But who am I to say? Any joke I’ve ever made at the expense of trans people’s existence has only contributed to an already prevalent atmosphere of hostility and violence. I’d like to think that because I don’t make those jokes anymore that I am absolved of any pain I have caused. I want to believe that because I’ve stood in front of crowds and denounced the violence against trans women, and I’ve used to correct pronouns, and I’ve stepped back when a trans woman is speaking her truth, that I am good.

But I am a coward. And I imagine every cisgender man reading this right now is a coward, too. I know that I’ve also sat in barbershops and living rooms with supposedly well-meaning, liberal-minded people where trans women's bodies have become fodder for cruel commentary and dissection. We have all been in the same seat as Charlamagne and DJ Envy, and we have all acted in similar ways, either egging on the behavior or being complicit through silence. We have hedged, we have deflected, we have laughed nervously, we have conceded points that reinforce harmful logics, and we have acted like we are heroes because we weren’t the one to make the “joke.” We are not heroes because the words didn’t come out of our mouths. We are not heroes because the knife wasn’t in our hands, nor did the bullets come from our guns. We are cowards because our silence, and our nervous laughter, give cover to the cis men who do kill. They justify their actions because we play along in the dehumanizing game of making trans women less visible and desirable. Trans women are not dying because they are trans women, they are dying because we make it known that we value our own place in this social hierarchy more than their lives. Their killers believe they are doing the rest of us a favor.

In the face of all this, trans women are living and loving, forming community, and fighting for their survival. We, cis men, placed them in the position to have to do so. How much longer will trans women be required to survive our cowardice?

Mychal Denzel Smith is the New York Times bestselling author of Invisible Man, Got the Whole World Watching, and a Knobler Fellow at The Nation Institute.