Equal rights made great strides this week, but on Last Week Tonight, John Oliver urged people to continue to work towards better treatment of transgender individuals, both in the media and under the law. “Because we’ve been through this before”.
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John Oliver knows that the #SCOTUS marriage decision isn’t the end-all-be-all in the fight for LGBT rights – and Laverne Cox is really, really excited about his support. And then there are the bathroom issues and several bills that don’t respect gender identity. I’m talking about the transgender community here. Tackling various ways in which transgender people still face horrifying obstacles, Oliver was seriously on-point in his takedown of everyone from government officials to Barbara Walters and Wendy Williams. “Actually, it’s pretty simple: Call them whatever they want to be called”.
Oliver went on to talk about some of the issues faced by trans people, such as access to public bathrooms. “Some don’t”, Oliver said.
Responding to that, Oliver said: “There is something inherently wrong with forcing us to listen to your f***ed up daydreams of all the sex crimes you would’ve committed if you found a legal loophole”. One study estimates that 700,000 American adults are transgender. “That’s more than the population of Boston”.
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Transgender people do face some enormous disparities. The takedown master has already destroyed Miss America, the annual turkey pardon, FIFA, pumpkin spice lattes, and the Confederate flag, and last night he completely dismantled another target that was wholly deserving of an epic takedown (even more than pumpkin spice lattes): transphobic people in the media, in politics, and in general. “Those statistics are so depressing it’s enough to make you raging at the very concept of numbers”.
