THE BLAZE - ANDREW CHAPADOS - MAR 1, 2023
In an interview with CNN's Jake Tapper, Bill Maher commented on transgenderism, saying he believes that the transgender community is "asking for too much," adding that activists "absolutely do want to shut down debate."
Discussing "wokeness," President Biden, and the 2024 presidential race, Maher made a string of comments regarding the vast differences he sees between what he calls "liberalism" and "wokeness."
Maher described the liberal point of view regarding transgender people as believing that they should "freely live the lives that they should live, with all the dignity and protection under the law that we can afford them, like anybody else in society."
However, the comedian defined the "woke point of view" as "well, babies are born now, and 'jump ball,' we don't know what they are."
"Congratulations, you have a boy, well, let's not be hasty," he joked.
"It's not wrong to have this discussion; this is something that is very new. To shut down debate with these words like 'phobia,' you're 'phobic,' and you hate, we don't hate, there's no hate, we're not phobic, we're not afraid, we're just discussing something that involves children," Maher explained.
After Jake Tapper positioned a would-be transgender activist's argument, suggesting that they wouldn't want to silence debate and rather think there are more important issues to cover (like states banning gender reassignment surgeries) than a term such as "pregnant person," Maher said that he agreed that an outright ban would be too far, before adding, "I also don't agree with what you just said; they absolutely do want to shut down debate."