Over the past few years, HBO’s Real Time host, Bill Maher, has distinguished himself from his late night comedy contemporaries by being willing to criticize the left, especially on transgenderism. However, on his Friday show, Maher attacked President Donald Trump for not finding a "middle ground" on the issue with a recent executive order, claiming, “There’s not just two sexes,” even though there are just two sexes.
Responding to an unrelated point by progressive Rep. Ro Khanna about a different Trump executive order about medical research funding, Maher tried to paint himself as the lone reasonable person left in the country, “To your point, you know, this country never reacts. It only overreacts, and some of this is brought on by the left. You're right, you brought it on yourself. I mean, penises in the locker room, penises in women's prisons, of course, he's going to go the opposite direction now, and now we have, ‘There’s only two sexes.’ Whereas, obviously, there is a middle ground, which is there's not just two sexes.”
There’s no middle ground. Either there are two sexes or there aren’t, but Maher defended his position by adding, “This goes back to hermaphrodites and ancient history, and, you know, chicks with dicks, it's just not that simple, but it's also not the case that every baby born, which is what we've had for the last four years, is kind of a jump ball of ‘Oh, I don't know, just as likely, let's not even put the sex on the birth certificate; let's let the kid decide when they’re five.’ That was crazy, so there’s going to be this backlash, and that’s what you have now. You did bring it on yourself in a lot of ways.”
In his own crass way, Maher was probably referencing critics of the idea that there is a sexual dichotomy that like to point to the .018 percent of the population that is intersex where people have both male and female characteristics. However, intersex is not a unique third sex as evidenced by the “inter” prefix.
Some things in politics, like peace in the Middle East, are complicated and have perplexed people for thousands of years. Others, like the sexual dichotomy, are not, and Bill Maher does not get bonus points for trying to see nuance in a simple subject even if he is correct about the left's embrace of transitioning children.
Here is a transcript for the January 24 show:
HBO Real Time with Bill Maher
1/24/2025
10:23 PM ET
BILL MAHER: To your point, you know, this country never reacts. It only overreacts and, some of this is brought on by the left. You're right, you brought it on yourself. I mean, penises in the locker room, penises in women's prisons, of course, he's going to go the opposite direction now, and now we have, “There’s only two sexes.” Whereas, obviously, there is a middle ground which is there's not just two sexes.
This goes back to hermaphrodites and ancient history, and, you know, chicks with dicks, it's just not that simple, but it's also not the case that every baby born, which is what we've had for the last four years, is kind of a jump ball of “Oh I don't know, just as likely, let's not even put the sex on the birth certificate; let's let the kid decide when they’re five.” That was crazy, so there’s going to be this backlash, and that’s what you have now. You did bring it on yourself in a lot of ways.
