Real Lies with Bill Maher
Bill Maher’s most recent episode of Real Time with Bill Maher on HBO is filled with misinformation, misquotes, and jabs at the transgender community. I want to break down each comment he makes and address the issues I have with them and the impact they have on my community.
Joke 1: The first joke Bill Maher makes is about the LGBTQ population rising. Maher shows a graph of how many people in a particular generation identify as LGBTQ. The most recent being Generation Z, with a percentage of 20.8% according to the Gallup poll in February of this year. The punchline being that “If we keep following this trajectory, we will all be gay by 2054”. Overall I don’t think there is anything wrong with the joke, but I do have an issue with how it’s presented, especially as it leads into his next joke that is specifically about transgender people.
The LGBTQ adult population (assuming adult meaning anyone over the age of 18) in the United States is only 7.1 %, and of that 7.1 % only 0.7 % identify as Transgender. We will use this info in reference to Joke 2.
Joke 2:
I’m just saying, when things change this much this fast, people are allowed to ask “what’s up with that?” All the babies are in the wrong bodies? Was there a mix-up at the plant?
The joke doesn’t quite stick with the information provided above does it? With only 0.7 % of the U.S. population identifying as Transgender, why does it seem like comedians are so adamant to tell their audience that Transgender people are becoming more and more prominent when in reality we are still one of the most underrepresented groups in the United States? Not only underrepresented but also misunderstood and misrepresented.
I know why these jokes are made. They’re made because of the increase in people identifying as LGBTQ over time, but why is this something to joke about? It makes it seem as if it is something negative or something wrong that people are starting to identify more as something other than straight and cis, and I have yet to hear a viable argument as to why this is supposedly something to be concerned about. This leads us to Joke 3.
Joke 3:
It wasn’t that long ago when adults asked a kid “What do you want to be when you grow up?” They meant what profession.
Kids don’t grow up wanting to be LGBTQ, kids still have aspirations despite how they may one day identify. However for some, like myself, not identifying how others wanted me to be is what put a lot of those aspirations on the back burner. They weren’t what I thought about because it was difficult to conceptualize a career or a future when I felt so isolated and withdrawn from who I knew I was. I don’t understand this idea people have when they think kids want to be LGTBQ, or even when some people make up research about girls wanting to transition to boys because of societal pressure or that somehow identifying as transgender is easier than being gay. None of it makes any sense to me, especially with the rates of suicidality in those who do identify as transgender. Nobody asks for this, and nobody aspires to be this. What people do though is they make the most of the situation they’re in, and they try to help others realize that it is okay to have these feelings. Because for some, they don’t have people telling them it’s okay.
Joke 4:
In the wake of America about to lose abortion rights, the ACLU recently tweeted a list of those who would be disproportionately harmed by this. You would think women might top that list, no, wasn’t even on the list. Second on the list was LGBT. Abortion rights affect gay and trans people more than, you know, breeders? Someone needs to say it, not everything is about you.
This is the list Maher is referencing. This joke doesn’t make any sense, as Maher misunderstands that women are automatically included in each category on the list i.e. Black, Indigenous, LGBTQ, Immigrants, People With Disabilities etc. Women don’t need to be included in a list about who abortions would disproportionately affect because it is really only those who were AFAB that abortions affect.
Maher then says that “not everything is about you”, as if the list was created specifically by LGBTQ people. If everything wasn’t about us then why is half the country creating bills that specifically target LGBTQ people and most importantly LGBTQ youth? There is a lot more wrong with our country right now than what I, or anyone else, does with their body. Yet LGBTQ people are being targeted in one of the most anti-LGBTQ years in legislation we have seen. Why do we bring it up so much? Maybe because no one else is coming to our defense, and others like Maher, are spreading misinformation about our lives.
Joke 5:
We’re literally experimenting on children, maybe that’s why Sweden and Finland have stopped giving puberty blockers to kids. Because we just don’t know much about the long-term affects, although common sense should tell you that when you reverse the course of raging hormones there’s going to be problems. We do know it hinders the development of bone density, which is kind of important if you like having a skeleton. Fertility and the ability to have an orgasm seem also to be affected. This isn’t just a lifestyle decision, it’s medical. Weighing trade offs is not bigotry, but when a book questioning the sudden uptick of transitioning children was released, a trans lawyer with the ACLU, Chase Strangio, tweeted.
“Also stopping the circulation of this book and these ideas is 100 % a hill I will die on.”
Jesus, where do I begin with this one? I will first start off by saying that puberty blockers are not experimental. They have been used since the 1980’s in children who experienced precocious puberty. GnRHa, which stands for gonadotropin releasing hormone-analogs, was first synthesized in 1980. This is what puberty blockers consist of. According to this statistical review of multiple CRTS (randomized controlled trials) findings showed that long-term BMD studies in CPP patients showed BMD levels decreased during GnRHa treatment, but the bone mass was sufficiently preserved after treatment. Not only this, but that it was also preventable and reversable with calcium supplementation. The first long-term study in 1986 also showed that puberty blockers actually improved the advancement of skeletal maturation.
Bill Maher then goes on to discuss losing the ability to orgasm, where he uses a quote that he claims came from Dr. Marci Bowers, a gender affirmation surgeon based in California who performed gender affirmation surgery on reality star Jazz Jennings. The quote he uses says “have never experienced orgasm and likely never will.” Marci Bowers never actually said this, but instead was said by Jazz Jennings in reference to never experiencing an orgasm before. This quote comes from an Abigail Shier article where she spoke with Marci Bowers. The actual quote from the article reads…
Her most famous patient – reality TV star and transgender teen Jazz Jennings – has said on the show that she has never experienced orgasm and she likely never would.
The fact that Maher’s writers used a quote from Shrier’s article and associated it with Bowers is deeply troubling, considering Bowers is still a strong opponent of puberty blockers, and was even previously taken out of context from Shrier in that same article is just adding insult to injury. Maher then promotes Abigail’s Shrier’s book, Irreversible Damage, which is filled with misinformation regarding this “uptick of transitioning children”.
Joke 6:
If this spike in trans children is all-natural, why is it regional? Either Ohio is shaming them or California is creating them.
Yes Maher, that’s exactly what Ohio is doing actually. Have you not heard of their SAFE (Save Adolescents From Experimentation) Bill? This isn’t the only proposed House Bills throughout the country like this either. As mentioned earlier, half the country has proposed bills that are targeting trans youth in regard to their healthcare, participation in sports, and the infamous bathroom bills. Ohio has three such bills currently, California has none. It isn’t surprising that LGBTQ youth live more out and proud in places that are not trying to reduce their basic human rights. Do I even need to discuss Alabama’s recently passed law that states people under the age of 19 cannot begin puberty blockers or hormones and if doctors are found to have prescribed such medication it will result in a felony and them serving 10 years in prison? But yeah, it doesn’t make sense that it could possibly mean there are going to be more trans people in a state like California.
Joke 7:
But hormone blockers and genital surgery, fine. Talk about a nut allergy. I guess penises are gross now but one might come in handy one day. If you’re a man who wants to experience life without a pair of balls, you don’t have to get surgery you can get married.
I don’t think I have to explain why this joke is dumb and incorrect. For the umpteenth time, children do not undergo gender affirmation surgery.
The final joke Maher makes is one we have heard thousands of times, “When I was a kid I wanted to be a pirate”. This is no different than Walsh’s failed attempt at creating a book about a boy who wanted to be a walrus. These comparisons of trans people to those who grow out of their imaginations is just old. These continued segments targeted at trans people have got to end. People do not take the time to research and insure that the information provided to them is accurate, and as I have pointed out Maher misrepresents the trans community, prominent professionals that treat that community, and continues to put a target on our backs. These misrepresentations are just added fodder for the assault waged by the same people who propose the bills that are trying to eradicate our existence. Bill Maher and HBO, do better.