Bill Maher Stunned Speechless to Learn of ‘Genital Checks’ in School Sports – Then Kinda Defends Them

Comic and pundit Bill Maher was stunned speechless to learn of Republican proposals to allow “genital checks” for school athletes — then proceeded to defend the idea behind them.

On Friday night’s edition of HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher, the host was taken aback when guest Lis Smith told him about Republican proposals that would have required student-athletes in Ohio to undergo a medical examination of their genitals if someone disputed their gender (the Ohio provision was eventually removed from the proposed bill).

But once Maher recovered from the shock, he defended the idea behind such proposals, if not the genital checks themselves:

LIS SMITH: So what I would say about that is when people say, Oh my God, it’s the Democrats who are so wrapped up in identity politics. You know, it’s the Democrats who are obsessing over what bathrooms kids go to. It’s not the Democrats who are introducing bills in places like Ohio saying that school kids need genital checks. That is creepy. That is not freedom. And the reason why we.BILL MAHER: Wait, what is — I’m not familiar with the genital check.LIS SMITH: Oh, yeah. So it’s so in Ohio, there’s a bill introduced that if you suspect a kid, like on a sports team, is like of a different gender, that there can be a genital check of them.BILL MAHER: [LONG SILENCE]LIS

SMITH: And Republicans introduced that bill. It says, it’s creepy.BILL MAHER: Well, It’s creepy. Also. I don’t even know why we. But it, shouldn’t it just be obvious?LIS SMITH: But it is not Democrats who are have, who are introducing that, it’s Republicans.BILL MAHER: So you’re saying they’re imposters that the people who are pretending to be of one sex. I mean is that what–LIS SMITH: I;m not saying that.BILL MAHER: But that’s what prompted this bill?LIS SMITH: No, I think what prompted it is–BILL MAHER: Because there’s a–LIS SMITH: — a very creepy urge among the Republicans to invade in people’s privacy.BILL MAHER: But it’s not a private thing. It ceases to be a private thing if you’re competing against other people. I mean, there are many, many women athletes who are up in arms about this, who say, I’m actually competing against a man. I’m competing against someone with different muscle mass who may still have a penis. And that’s not fair. I want to compete in.MATT TAIBBI: Or in a prison.BILL MAHER: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I want to compete against people in my division. Because there are different physical attributes between a man and a woman. So, I’m not

saying we should be checking under everybody’s skirt. But, you know, this was prompted by something. It didn’t come out of thin air.LIS SMITH: But what I would say is, okay, let’s look at one guy. Let’s look at the state of let’s look at the state of Michigan, for instance. There are, I think, four, five kids who play in a league that is separate from their birth gender. This is the GOP finding a problem and trying to do this to divide people. There is not some big threat of men taking over women’s sports.BILL MAHER: Men have won sometimes in women’s sport in recent years. I mean, there are many examples of this. And no, it’s not a big spread, you know. No, it’s not a big deal at all. It’s sports, but it does matter to people.LIS SMITH: Oh, no, I know. I agree with that. And I think that there should be commonsense regulations around it.

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