John Oliver Wants Ladies To Shut Up And Let The Dudes Win | Amber Harding
Well, John Oliver threw quite the tantrum on Sunday night, didn't he?
On the latest episode of his HBO show Last Week Tonight, the British comedian explained why transgender athletes should be allowed to play women's sports and mocked those who think otherwise. Throughout his 42-minute sanctimonious tirade, Oliver argued that males enjoy little to no advantage over females in sports and that men winning in women's sports almost never happens.
Of course, we know this isn't true. But many people on the Left — including John Oliver — are determined to die on the hill that the feelings of gender-confused males are more important than the privacy, safety and dignity of girls and women.
I watched this entire nauseating diatribe so that you don't have to. Let's go through the claims Oliver tried to make and discuss why he's utterly and unequivocally wrong.
Claim 1: The Right Is Obsessed With Trans Athletes
Oliver opened his show by explaining that the participation of males in girls' and women's sports is an "absolute fixation of the Right." He then played a montage of Fox News hosts discussing a female fencer who, over the weekend, took a knee and refused to participate against her male opponent in a women's tournament.
Because she took a stand, Stephanie Turner was disqualified from the tournament and escorted off the premises, while the trans fencer was allowed to continue the competition.
MORE: Fencer Who Protested Transgender Opponent Bashes USA Fencing For Ridiculous Policy
Oliver waved off this injustice by claiming that no one actually cares about fencing.
"I challenge those anchors to tell me one thing about fencing besides Lindsay Lohan did it against herself in The Parent Trap," Oliver said.
Way to completely miss the point, John. So not only should this young woman be forced to compete against biological males, but her concerns should also be ignored because no one cares about her sport anyway? Got it.
He then further railed on the Republicans' "obsession" with trans athletes by mentioning Donald Trump's Feb. 5 executive order to keep males out of women's sports and threats from the White House to cut off federal funding for states that don't comply with the order.
U.S. President Donald Trump, joined by female athletes, signs the "No Men in Women’s Sports" executive order in the East Room at the White House.
(Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
"This issue is an obsession for Republicans," Oliver griped. "Last year, they spent over $116 million just on TV ads featuring trans athletes."
OK, and Republicans won the 2024 election in a landslide — taking every single swing state, the House and the Senate. It's almost as if Americans agree with the sentiment that women's sports are for women only.
Claim 2: Arguments Against Trans Athletes Are Often Extreme Hypotheticals
Oliver mocked the idea that elite male athletes could transition and dominate women's sports, pointing to a clip of Lance Armstrong presenting a hypothetical question: What if Rafael Nadal decided to transition and win Wimbledon? Of course, no one is saying Nadal is about to throw on a skirt and start competing in women’s tennis. But Oliver’s attempt to dismiss the argument entirely ignores a less extreme example — one that actually happened.
In 1998, Serena and Venus Williams claimed they could beat any male player ranked outside the top 200. Enter Karsten Braasch, ranked 203rd at the time, who had spent his day golfing and drinking before stepping onto the court.
He then proceeded to dismantle Serena 6-1 and Venus 6-2. This wasn’t prime Novak Djokovic, Nadal, or even a top-ranked male player. This was a guy barely inside the top 250 who still handily defeated the best women’s players in the world.
Serena Williams is one of the best (if not THE best) women's tennis player in history.
(Photo by Mackenzie Sweetnam/Getty Images)
And we won't even dwell on that time the U.S. Women's National Team lost to a squad of 15-year-old boys. Or the fact that Katie Ledecky's swimming world records have been bested by high school boys.
These aren't hypotheticals. These are real-world examples that prove the undeniable biological differences between male and female athletes. If Serena — arguably the greatest women's tennis player of all time — couldn’t keep up with a low-ranked, boozed-up male player, how can we expect high school or collegiate female athletes to fairly compete against trans-identifying males?
John Oliver might enjoy laughing off concerns as right-wing paranoia, but women losing opportunities, scholarships and records to biological males is no joke. Even if Nadal transitioning is an unrealistic example, the underlying point remains valid: male athletes, even those far from the top of their sport, hold a significant edge over female competitors.
Claim 3: Men Don’t Have an Inherent Biological Advantage in All Sports
Oliver argues that just because men are generally bigger and stronger doesn’t mean they have an advantage in all sports — especially after hormone therapy. To illustrate this, he jokes that Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson would be terrible in a barre class. (Talk about an exaggerated example.)
No one is arguing that every single man is naturally gifted at every sport. The argument is that, on average, male athletes possess physiological advantages — like greater muscle mass, lung capacity, bone density and reaction time — that don’t simply vanish with hormone therapy.
Scientific research backs this up. A 2020 study published in Sports Medicine found that even after a year of testosterone suppression, trans-identifying males still retained significant muscle mass and strength advantages over biological females. No amount of hormone suppression can reverse male puberty.
Oliver also invokes Michael Phelps, noting that the most decorated Olympian of all time was allowed to compete against men "despite being part dolphin." This is a disingenuous comparison. Sure, Phelps is a freak athlete, but he competed in the correct category — against other men. A more accurate analogy would be if a 25-year-old Phelps decided to compete in the 50+ men’s category, or if a heavyweight boxer suddenly declared himself a lightweight.
Sports have always recognized the need for fair competition through categories based on biological differences, whether by sex, age or weight class.
Ultimately, Oliver’s argument relies on hyperbole and misdirection rather than facts. He ignores real-world evidence — stories OutKick has repeatedly documented — showing that trans-identifying male athletes continue to dominate female competitors in powerlifting, cycling, track, swimming and even billiards.
And the fact that this is only an issue in women's sports is all the proof you need.
Claim 4: Men Don't Transition Just To Win At Sports
The episode includes testimony from transgender sports scientist Joanna Harper, who insists that trans people transition "because it’s the only way we can live happily," implying that questioning their participation in women’s sports is an attack on their very existence.
(Michael Siluk/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
This is the classic emotional blackmail tactic — suggesting that unless we affirm their gender identity in every possible way, including allowing them to compete against women, we’re condemning them to misery or worse. But this argument completely sidesteps the concerns of female athletes, who may have compassion for trans-identifying males but still don’t want to compete against them.
Oliver also scoffs at the idea that anyone would transition just to gain an athletic advantage. But even if we assume every trans-identifying male has pure intentions (they don't), that doesn’t make it fair. Every day, we see more examples of mediocre male athletes who switch to the female category and excel.
John Oliver mocked female athletes, like Riley Gaines and Payton McNabb, who spoke up about safety and fairness in women's sports.
(Photo by Rich von Biberstein/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images))
Oliver ignores all of these examples, though, and instead focuses on a random high school softball player whose own mother admits her kid coudn't hit the broad side of a barn.
No one is saying people shouldn't live their lives how they choose. But when their choices infringe on the fairness and integrity of women’s sports, that’s another discussion.
Claim 5: Some Women Are OK With It
Finally, to defend his position, Oliver trots out a few young female athletes who say they don’t mind competing against trans-identifying males. One of them even came in third behind two men in a women’s cycling event — as if that’s a win worth celebrating.
The implication is clear: if some girls are fine with it, then everyone else should be, too.
But consent from a handful of athletes doesn’t erase the harm done to the ones who speak out.
Oliver mocks OutKick's own Riley Gaines, who tied with Lia Thomas in the 2022 NCAA women’s swimming championships, and belittles Payton McNabb, who suffered a traumatic brain injury after being hit in the head by a volleyball spiked by a male athlete. A laugh track plays as Oliver downplays her injury. It’s a grotesque way to treat a teenage girl who was hospitalized and now lives with long-term effects from that blow.
Imagine any other situation where a human being was concussed with permanent damage — would HBO roll that tape for laughs? Of course not. The selective empathy on display here says everything.
Some girls may be OK with competing against biological males. That’s their choice. But many others aren’t — and their concerns deserve to be taken seriously, not turned into punchlines for a late-night "comedy" show.
When it all comes down to it, the most infuriating part is this man telling women how we should feel — then attacking us for trying to protect our own sports and private spaces. If a white man got on TV and told black Americans to just shut up and deal with racism, the Left would lose its collective mind.
"Men shouldn’t make laws about women’s bodies!" But it's totally OK for a man to make a 45-minute TV special lecturing women and telling us to sit down and shut up about our rights.
Long live the patriarchy, though, right John Oliver?