John Oliver on trans athletes

[CyclingSam]

I saw this mentioned on another thread and thought perhaps it deserved its own.

That says "Video unavailable - The uploader has not made this video available in your country" for me, though honestly, I wouldn't have the stomach for it anyway at this point. But I am curious about one thing - can somebody who has seen it confirm if there was canned laughter, i.e., a laugh track (https://x.com/RoisinMichaux/status/1909153282653634826)? Or are people just saying that because it was more along the lines of "his audience will laugh at anything"?

Exactly this. Mind blowing they are doubling down on this stuff when it played a big role in losing the election. Ordinary voters know men aren’t women, don’t want men in women’s sport, don’t want men in women’s prisons and definitely don’t want their tax dollars paying for boob jobs for rapists. The US left has convinced themselves that these entirely reasonable points are extremism. If they don’t change, well, President Vance here we come.

I haven't watched it. If I was on twitter, I would post the picture towards the bottom of the linked article

The other women look so tiny playing full contact sport against this big girl, Hannah, a 6'2/ 188cm, 100kg former male athlete.

People. Can. See. The. Problem... you can't make words obliterate pictures.

I would also thank JO for helping Hannah, she plays Australian Rules Football in the women's state league, but she has to sue the professional league for leaving her out, poor love.

https://www.perthnow.com.au/sport/afl/afl-lawsuit-looms-as-transgender-footballer-hannah-mouncey-calls-out-new-aflw-policy-ng-b881771519z

I wish I knew more about how consent works in sport - like you consent to risks within the sport, but is there also an implied or explicit consent when you sign up to single sex sport that you are not consenting to play with or against the opposite sex?
In countries where sex and gender are different in law this could matter. (it matters everywhere, but legally).

Unfortunately, in Australia, sex doesn't exist in law. There is only gender protected.

I am intrigued by why the Democrats have doubled down on this as a hill to die on. Is it all about money?

Thanks for the information. How depressing.

Another thing he often says: instead of just repeating Orange Man Bad, it might be worth thinking about why Orange Man is so popular with people who used to vote for us.

That the penny hasn’t dropped with them on this, second time around, is just mind-boggling. That they’re doubling down on these smug, misleading arguments about women’s rights seems a complete throwback to five years ago, as well. Things have to move on. Seems JO, as a $1m-per-show ‘trusted’ media name, is a big part of the problem now unfortunately.

Started with Gillard’s change to the Anti-discrimination act in 2013 (iirc) after she came back from the Yogyakarta conference.

I cannot see Gillard as any women’s ambassador.

Oliver Brown is on fire in the Telegraph! He's a sports journalist who absolutely gets it, and is incensed by the unfairness of it all.

Title: "Women’s final between two biological men shatters defence for transgender athletes"

Subtitle : "Viral rants by comic based on bad logic and morals cannot hide injustice of females always bearing impact of ideological drive for inclusion"

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/snooker/2025/04/07/womens-pool-final-between-two-biological-men-transgender/

https://archive.ph/gDWXc (archive version)

I loved this paragraph:
"To anybody still demanding why we cannot all just be kind and inclusive, consider this: the adverse impact of this inclusion drive is endured, without exception, by women. You do not see women trying to make it in men’s cycling, or swimming, or fencing. You do not see women gatecrashing the final of the men’s pool. And that is because basic biology dictates the benefits in sport flow in only one direction, with mediocre males annexing victories and medals once they start masquerading as female."

It's a good read, he covers all the bases well.

In negligence law, people who play sport (both amateurs and professionals) consent to taking on a higher risk of injury that is inherent in the sport. So if you race horses you implicitly consent to the risk of falling off the horse, if you play football you implicitly consent to the risk of being tackled. What you don't implicitly consent to are injuries or risks stemming from people breaking the rules or acting in a dangerous and 'unsportsmanlike' manner. So if someone breaks the rules and does a hard tackle on you, which causes a fracture, you can sue them. The issue about sex/gender has not been tested in a negligence context. It might be argued that if you play in a women's only sport, that you consent to only play against women. But if you knew there were males on the team, and you accepted that, it might be argued that you took that risk upon yourself. There is also the difficult question about whether including a male on a female team is breaking the rules or is inherently dangerous such that it becomes negligent.

What you don't implicitly consent to are injuries or risks stemming from people breaking the rules or acting in a dangerous and 'unsportsmanlike' manner. So if someone breaks the rules and does a hard tackle on you, which causes a fracture, you can sue them.

IANAL, but I think this is only a partial (or maybe I should say, theoretical) right. By and large, it doesn't happen. If you're playing football and you get kicked on the ankle hard by foul play, whether you're a billionaire superstar or just playing in the local park, players don't, with very rare exceptions, sue each other. They take it on the chin, and if you're too injured to work as a result, that's part of the risk. I think there are good reasons for this.

Excellent rebuttal by She Won; https://archive.fo/l11gb

''She Won recently made an appearance on Last Week Tonight. John Oliver stuck to his tired recipe: dishonest sanctimony wrapped in a thick coating of self-deprecation (all the easier to swallow), this time about male athletes in women’s sports and specifically about our org. 🧵1/n:
First, John Oliver leads viewers to believe that the content on is directly published by random people on the internet. This is totally false. We encourage people to submit tips, and our team of volunteers reviews each entry before we publish anything.
We only publish what we can verify from primary and secondary sources. We state this methodology clearly on our website...''

Thanks so much 🙂🤔

Indeed, And this bit, too:

The sad truth is that no media outlet has seriously investigated the scope of the problem, and sporting organizations are more often than not hostile to providing any data about males in female competition.

At one time, people would have said, that's a job for the BBC, to expose this scandal. Or the Sunday Times, or someone.

Oh what a surprise another champion of women really isn't at all

the upkeeping of male entitlement is far more important to the vast majority men in positions of influence and power

same old same old ...

Jon Oliver is such a disappointment. I hope he doesn't have daughters.

Does he think the entire female population of Afghanistan is identifying into their lack of human rights? Because according to his position, all they need to do is identify into the 'gender' that has human rights. Right?

What a total dick he is.

I read in the Private Eye that the Democratic Party were insisting that their three national chairs had to be “gender balanced” - ie a “man” (presumably self ID’d as such), a “woman” (ditto) and a “non-binary” (very definitely self ID’d!)

They really, really, don’t seem to want to learn the lessons of how the orange buffoon got a second term. It wasn’t only the gender bollocks, obviously, but it was a bigger part of it than they’ll ever be prepared to admit to themselves.

Go Men, says male feminist

I've just watched this and it was very much an appeal to tribalism. There was no mention of the ultimate issue, which is how we define the terms "men" and "women."

"particularly found his commentary about Payton MacNab to show exactly what type of man John Oliver is".

He is a self-righteous pos.

Decent summary of Oliver here:

https://www.outkick.com/analysis/john-oliver-last-week-tonight-trans-athletes

This is because there is no American left. If there were they'd be fighting for working class people against big business. Instead you have comfortably off liberals trying to be oppressed. We can't improve your wages or house you but here , take a rainbow 🌈 sticker and a pronoun. They cost nothing...

I think for many, they really enjoy feeling self-righteous and smug, and smarter than everyone else.

And for the older ones a lot of their identity is built around things like being an activist for the oppressed, being open-minded, etc. In reality though they are rule followers.

It's interesting in the US, a lot of the same people are still doing things like wearing masks in public. It's very performative and tribal.

I think for many, they really enjoy feeling self-righteous and smug, and smarter than everyone else.

The comic part of this is the gap between what they imagine people are thinking ("Gosh! Isn't that John Oliver a clever chap, with all those sophisticated arguments? He really showed the opposition what for!") and what people are actually thinking, which is: "How is it possible to be that stupid and still manage to dress yourself in the morning?"

I think lots of Murican liberals assume that a (relatively posh) English accent means the speaker is clever and sophisticated.

John Oliver is just number 453 on my list of why there should be a moratorium on Cambridge Footlights alumni getting into the entertainment business, and I live in dread of Trump deporting him so he ends up back here.