During a recent segment on his show, liberal late-night show host John Oliver argued that the Democrats shouldn’t move away from some of their leftmost positions, particularly on gender issues, but rather need to maintain those positions and simply create better justifications for them. He was slammed for that position by “Harry Potter” author and women’s rights defender JK Rowling, who frequently tasks a stance against trans involvement in things like women’s sports.
Oliver, for his part, had noted the many ads that Republicans ran during the election about transgender participation in women’s sports, and said, “The Harris campaign failed to formulate a response, especially when it’s pretty easy to do. There are vanishingly few trans girls competing in high schools anywhere, even if there were more, trans kids like all kids vary in terms of athletic ability, and there is no evidence they pose any threat to safety or fairness.”
Rowling pulled no punches in her response on X (formerly Twitter). Beginning, she said, “Nothing about this feels good, because John Oliver generously gave his time for my charity Lumos and I liked him very much when I met him, but God knows, if you ever need an example of motivated reasoning and confirmation bias, this video’s for you. An undoubtedly intelligent person spouts absolute bullshit to support something he wants to be true, but isn’t.”
Continuing, she noted the true scale of the issue, saying, “According to the UN, female athletes have lost nearly 900 medals to trans-identified men competing against them in women’s sporting categories. Girls have been ousted from teams to make way for boys. Women have suffered serious injury playing against trans-identified men (see Payton McNabb, mentioned below).”
She then noted that Oliver’s argument isn’t a new one, saying, “Again and again I’ve come up against men who argue exactly what Oliver does here, using the very same talking points. With a straight face, the ‘believe the science’ guys will say ‘actually, we don’t yet have enough data to say whether men and boys are stronger and faster than women and girls’. The ‘be kind’ crew can’t see what the issue is. ‘Why are you bothered, it only affects a tiny minority of females?'”
She added, on much that same note, “To prove to their progressive credentials – and (coincidentally, I’m sure) indemnify themselves against repercussions from cultural elites in the media, academia and publishing who’ve showed themselves more than ready to kick people to the kerb for failing to mouth the approved mantras – people with a lot to lose are currently prepared to make idiots of themselves. They’ll stare unabashedly into a camera and insist that their audiences’ eyeballs are incapable of seeing what’s plain as day, and that there’s something wrong with the great unwashed for believing that girls are being robbed of opportunities and put at physical risk.”
Concluding, she said, “If you want to tell the world you’re happy to watch females suffer injury, humiliation and the loss of sporting opportunities to bolster an elitist post-modern ideology embraced by a minute fraction of the world’s population, fair enough; you’re allowed your opinion. But if you’ve just told girls they don’t deserve fair sport, maybe rethink using all too real and common sexual predation against young women as a punchline for your ‘edgy’ closing joke.”
Watch Oliver here:
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