Bless Dan Savage for making time to get on TV and make sense of the world. On last week’s Real Time with Bill Maher, he got into a short scrape with Ann Coulter — yeah, that lady. She’s still around. Doing something, though it’s unclear what.
The topic turned to trans people using bathrooms, as part of a discussion of how bigots freak out whenever freedoms are expanded to a group that they don’t like. “The Kim Davises of the world are like ‘what about our rights to take away your rights’?” Bill observes.
Dan, wearing a fetching jacket that was almost definitely picked out by his husband, replies, “they couldn’t demagogue about gays and lesbians because too many of us are out and too many people know us, so they took the same old script, ‘oh they’re recruiting children, preying on children, creeping in bathrooms,’ that was what they said about gay men 40 years ago, and they’re just taking it and applying it now to trans women. And it’s bullshit, trans women and men use bathrooms all over the country and have forever. And they have no cases to point to where a trans person has exploited a civil rights protection to prey on a child.”
“It’s not that transgender people are going to go and molest children,” says Ann Coulter, trying to tear down his point. “it’s that once you say men can go into women’s bathrooms, men who are out shopping with their little daughters, it’s not that the trans are going to molest them, it’s that a child molester now has the right to go into that bathroom.”
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Dan won’t let that stand: “That’s bullshit, a child molester doesn’t need to put on a dress to enter bathrooms. You can google ‘sexually assaulted in a restroom’ and you get thousands of examples of cisgender straight men.” (Actually, that’s not true anymore — if you try to search for information about sexual assaults in bathrooms, now you mostly get results about from exasperated sexual assault experts debunking the trans bathroom panic myth.)
“You know who the child molester is? It’s Dennis Hastert,” says Maher.
Dan’s right, of course, that banning trans people from bathrooms doesn’t protect anyone. Women are assaulted in bathrooms by men all the time, and it’s not because they used trans-inclusive policies as cover.
But Dan missed one loathsome point from Ann that could have stood some debunking: allowing trans people to use the bathroom that corresponds to their gender doesn’t mean “men can go into women’s bathrooms.” That’s because trans women are women.
AntBee
Not surprised there are no comments on this piece. People are really tired of hearing about this issue, I know I am. I really never cared about it, and still don’t. I just want every media outlet to give it a rest already.
Miss Understood
@AntBee: Easy to say when it doesn’t affect you.
whitakerk861
Coulter uses a stable. She’s incendiary so conservatives buy her crap. Sadly, it works. Fortunately, no one takes her seriously.
SteveDenver
@AntBee: YOU CLICKED ON THIS STORY! Are you really so helpless and stupid that you can’t stay away from stories you don’t like? You poor pitiful THING.
SteveDenver
Ann Colt Face is actually considered a conservative intellectual and is rumored as a possible VP running mate with Trump. She’s such a moron.
Alistair Wiseman
@whitakerk861:
You stated, “Fortunately, no one takes her seriously.”
Tell that to her book sales. Ann Coulter is the author of eleven New York Times bestsellers. People who read seem to take her seriously.
Alistair Wiseman
Benji Douglas and the Queerty staff:
Please look up the definition of “Destroys”, as in “Dan Savage Destroys Ann Coulter….”.
Words have meanings and they should be used properly and accurately. As evidenced by the clip, Dan Savage did no such thing.
DCguy
@Alistair Wiseman:
Both 50 Shades of Grey and the Da Vinci code by themselves have each sold more than all of Coulter’s dozen or so books put together.
So I guess that means that those authors should be taken more seriously than Coulter.
Mandrake
Back in March, a transgendered woman said she’d been raped or sexually molested in the restroom of the Stonewall Inn. Police had a surveillance photo of the suspect and said an arrest was imminent. Then the story totally disappeared. Was this another hoax, or was there indeed an arrest?
DCguy
@Mandrake:
And this relates to Ann Coulter how?
dwes09
@Alistair Wiseman: David Sidaris has had books on the NYT best sellers list, as well as a Grammy under his belt. I suspect the most intelligent readers look at Coulter’s “works” in the same light…as humor.
I assume from your support that you too are foolish enough to buy into the baseless myths concerning the danger of allowing m-t-f transgender individuals into women’s restrooms, despite the position being based entirely based on fear-fueled fantasy so common on the right.
greenmusic23f
@Miss Understood: So true!
Hussain-TheCanadian
@Alistair Wiseman: What DC said; book sales don’t correspond to credibility or seriousness – Unless you want to admit that “50 shades of gray” is an excellent guide to sex and “the Da vinci code” is lost history.
Also if you watch the entire episode, Dan does destroy her arguments on multiple topics including immigration and civil rights.
ingyaom
I couldn’t decide whose Adam’s apple was bigger, Dan’s or Ann’s.
As for book sales – I doubt many of them were individual readers. Right-wing think-tanks buy 100,000s of copies to run up the numbers and give them away at conventions or just warehouse them.
Daniel-Reader
The haters who make money demonizing trans folk are the same who make money demonizing gay people. Don’t let the haters get away with it.
Tackle
Mabey I seen the wrong video, or need to look at this five more times. But I did not see anywhere where Dan Savage destroyed anyone. Ann Coulter, got in the best punch when she brought up Dan’s misuse of Mexican’s coming over, vs Blacks who were brought over as slaves. It actually shut Dan up, whereas, he had nothing to say…
David Bolton
Christ, I hate these headlines. If someone hasn’t “destroyed someone with the PERFECT response,” they have “SHUT DOWN” someone with the “PERFECT response.” Do people not use thesauruses anymore?
Brian
Any credibility that Dan Savage had is destroyed by his lenient attitude to illegal immigrants. I certainly don’t want undocumented entrants taking the jobs of good gay American citizens.
And, no, trans women are not women. Just because you THINK you are a woman, it doesn’t make you a woman. One really good gay journalist made the point that men-who-think-they-are-women often adopt the most grotesque caricatures of women – big boobs, excessive make-up etc – to prove his point that it’s a fetish.
Just be satisfied with the genes that Mother Nature gave you, guys. Again, just because you THINK that you a woman, it doesn’t make you so.
nycbklyn
I love Dan and Ann neither destroyed the other both had great points… cranstons suggestion at the end made the most sense, we need at least a third party. This bipartisanship is literally tearing the country in 1/2 and I’m straight down the middle
nycbklyn
Well gay down the middle
Evji108
The whole interaction was quite mild actually and Dan Savage didn’t “Destroy” Ann
Coulter, he made a counter-argument.
Hussain-TheCanadian
@Brian: I don’t know where to start with this mess; the immigrants are not taking jobs away from anybody, the majority of those jobs are not being done by white or black Americans. The only thing Anne said which is true is that low-wages bring down wages overall when the economy is in the shitter – As the economy improves, so do wages overall, and low wages have little correlations to wages on average.
Transwoman are woman, their biology and brain neuron mapping says so; you can deny it all you want, but basic science says otherwise.
Hussain-TheCanadian
@Hussain-TheCanadian: Also, no one should disagree with Anne on border control and solving the issue of the undocumented immigrants, but to round up 11 million human beings for forced deportation, who your government has already allowed to stay for multiple economic reasons, is not only savage, but also inhumane.
Wooly
@Brian: Amen.
Wooly
I simply don’t get this whole transgender thing. Make it simple. If they have gone through the whole conversion job, then let them use the damn bathroom. Yes, I can see how some people would feel a bit uneasy, seeing a half man half woman in the ladies bathroom.
Billy Budd
Brian should be expelled from this website. He is incapable of understanding basic facts about LGBT issues. He is a complete idiot.
Matt Achine
@Tackle: No, he didn’t shut her down one bit. But that’s the clickbait explanation we get to prop up our lord and savior Dan Savage.
whitakerk861
@Alistair Wiseman: She’s a performance artist who knows which side her bread is buttered. A political satirist who is not the first to be a best seller. Calm down.
whitakerk861
@Mandrake: Dunno. Do you exist? Dunno.
Mandrake
@DCguy: Because it was a man who allegedly went into the stall and raped her. I believed this whole allegation was a hoax and did not in fact happen., especially since it was in a renowned gay bar.
whitakerk861
@Brian: “One really good gay journalist.” So good that you can’t recall his name. Awesome!
whitakerk861
@Wooly: When did you get the whole straight thing?
Tackle
@Matt Achine: So true about the clickbait.
And, “our lord and savior Dan Savage,” lol…
midknightryder13
@Wooly: “Seeing” a “half man half woman” in the women’s room? How EXACTLY would that work? How would someone “see” the “half man” part? Since there’s no equivalent to urinals in a woman’s room — I’m having a difficult time following your logic.
martinbakman
Kwear-Tee, the reason Ann Coulter was on is two-fold. 1. She is selling another book. 2. Maher gave her her due, that way back last year when she was on his show she was laughed at for predicting Trump was clearly going to win the nomination.
I’m not a huge fan of Maher’s show, but I have to admit this was one of the better ones. All the guests added something interesting and Maher did get a lot of big laughs.
Agreed, Dan Savage made excellent points. I totally missed the sporty coat he wore. I must have been paying too much attention to the whole trans issues being discussed. But yeah, his hubby did pic out something nice, didn’t he.
Transiteer
Ann Coulter is still around???
joeyty
Whether one agrees with them or not (or cares at all about this restroom business)at least when you have intelligent people in a debate it makes for a good show.
rand503
DAn didn’t destroy Ann Coulter, but she hardly put up much of an argument. When even Coulter has no interest in the fight, you know its lost.
gayjim1969
@Brian: Some trans women do choose more flashy representations of womanhood but not most, and it should be mentioned that so do many cis women. The waiting rooms and operating rooms of plastic surgeons are full of cis women who want bigger boobs, bigger lips, narrower waists. You take the trends of the general population and turn it only against transgender women. Very selective misogyny as cissexism. There is plenty of information out there from scientific and medical researchers that indicate that being transgender is not just “men-who-think-they-are-women” and vice-versa. There is a definite biological and physiological component. There have been too many differences found in the trans vs. cis brain for there not to be. The only thing that is due to wishful thinking is the idea that transgender people are sick, that they are delusional, and that they are going anywhere.
gayjim1969
@Wooly: Tell me, since women use stalls, how is anyone going to see a “half-man, half woman in the ladies room?” Considering they have been using the ladies room up until now without any problems, how do you see there being an issue from this point forward? Do you see there being someone looking up women’s skirts or putting their hands down their pants to make sure they have the proper equipment? Transgender women have been using the ladies room for decades…I know, mind blown, huh!
RIGay
Love Bill Maher, but I cannot stand when he brings absolute ass-hat, right wing mouth pieces on his show and allows them to own the talking stick. Happens just way too often. Can’t watch her, passed on the show as soon as she began to speak.
girldownunder
@SteveDenver: Remember this one?
“https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1523WCarLf8”
+1, for “bony ass crank” descriptor- lol…
girldownunder
@Wooly: Me & all of my many female friends (some gay, some str8, some trans) have ZERO issue with a MTF using “OUR” restroom facilities. It appears that it’s, once again, the males of the world having some sort of freak-out that someone might see their little “pee-pee”… It’s weird. Then, they try to pawn it off as being, “concerned for the children”..uh-huh, right-o.
I recall jr. high school discussions about “gays in the gym restrooms & showers”– SAME THING! The boys, all a tizzy!!!! The girls? NOT ONE GIRL CARED.
Very few women pipe in adamantly against this stupid right-wing-created, bathroom-fiasco. Why is this such a male problem?
thisisnotreal
@girldownunder: so as a female you are not worried at all about the possibility of a man abusing the system to enter your bathroom and assault you or take pictures of you? Your a braver soul than I would be in that situation.
o.codone
Anne did just fine, as always.
onthemark
Mann Coulter can go to whichever bathroom s/he wants… in Trump Tower… lol.
S/he seemed uninterested in the trans issue (or perhaps uncomfortable, ha ha); no doubt she would have preferred to explain her crazy ideas on immigration, the topic of the book she’s plugging.
dwes09
@Brian: “One really good gay journalist made the point that men-who-think-they-are-women often adopt the most grotesque caricatures of women – big boobs, excessive make-up etc – to prove his point that it’s a fetish.”
Your post remains apocryphal, proving nothing. Who is this “really good gay journalist”? His (or her) prior output is important to the issue of credibility. Additionally “often adopt”, if not backed by statistics is meaningless and entirely anecdotal. It sounds exactly like the position I had before I actually knew any M-T-F women. And though my experience is anecdote, based on a small sample size, they ran the gamut from overly expressed conventional femininity to bull-dyke like. My take away was that just as “real” women they each had an individual style based on innate personality and life experience. They also are gay, straight and bi, so generalization about trans women seems as silly as generalizations about women in general.
Clearly NONE were simplistically “men who think they are women”; a slur all too often directed at those of us who are gay (often by those who are gay who wish they were straight).
dwes09
@o.codone: “Anne did just fine, as always.”
Only if you think the inability to support positions with facts, and the belief that her opinions are real by dint of being her’s constitutes “doing just fine”. Most see her as at best a clown, at worst a bully. And if media appearances are any indication, her star is fading.
Bob
thisisnotreal: Someone trying to abuse another in a bathroom is already a criminal, so why would they need a law to allow them to enter a bathroom? Last time I checked there were no locks or guards at the door. Anyone can just go in and do whatever they want. Always been that way.
vonlmo
the only ones who “recruit” that i know of are the Mormons. Btw: hideous sport coat.
o.codone
@dwes09: I should have the money this “clown” is making from her best selling New York Times books. Most people think she’s fabulous. I certainly do. Who needs facts when you have emotions and feelings to back-up your positions. A couple of years ago all we needed was for someone to whisper “hope and change” and America was cumming in it’s pants. No facts, no record, not even a birth certificate. You no longer need empirical data to endorse anyone, it’s just about how we feel. And, I feel great about Annie right now.
StormNC
You don’t know what the word ‘destroy’ means, do you?
abnerbha
I want to go into women’s bathrooms if there are pretty women in there & if a pretty woman wants to use men’s bathrooms, then that is fine. I want a pretty woman to go into men’s bathrooms but I wouldn’t want uglies like Ellen Lee DeGeneres and Rosie T. O’Donnell shitting in any bathroom so Ellen & Rosie can shit in diapers. Ellen Lee DeGeneres & Rosie T. O’Donnell both like to have farting & shitting contests in bathrooms, so Ellen & Rose both want to do battleshits contest in men’s bathrooms since women’s toilets got dirtied by them.
abnerbha
There is something wrong with a man thinking he is a woman or a woman thinking she is a man. It is mutilation with dangerous hormones. Most transexuals were sexually abused in childhood which messed up their minds and transexuals sexually abuse children. Transexuals are mutilated gays and lesbians. I don’t care what others say but mutilating a man or woman to make them fake members of opposite sex is gay/lesbian. And gay/lesbian groups are apologists for Transexuals which is why the word T is there. They must abolish this surgical mutilation.
Finally, sex change maimings which is mutilating some1 to make them fake members of opposite sex is comparable to trying to make a man a fake animal because he thinks he is an animal trapped in a human body. 1 would hope that feminists would oppose the mutilation that happened to Chastity Sun Bono as feminists have spoken against Female Genital Mutilation which happens in some nations. Transexuals are mutilations which no Dr. should take part in, yet most feminists are not condemning this female genital and breast mutilation as what happened to Chastity S. Bono where her healthy breasts were mutilated, dangerous hormone shots and her genitals mutilated.