Shocking reason John Oliver is so fixated with defending trans athletes on his woke HBO show

 

John Oliver has been hell-bent on defending transgender athletes as of late, and some recently unveiled correspondence coming from one of his staffers appears to show why.

DM (Dee) Brent, a transgender fact-checker for Oliver’s show, sent a strongly worded comment request to the Women’s Liberation Front Wednesday, and the latter – a self-admitted ‘radical’ feminist organization – has laid it bare for all to see.

In it, Brent – also the show’s researcher – is seen asking a series of seemingly slanted questions, aired ahead of a Last Week Tonight with John Oliver segment that went to air the following Sunday.

Billed as the main section of Sunday’s show, its saw Oliver again express support for transgender women competing in women’s sports, while attempting to poke holes in statistics the organization regularly cites.

Claiming to have ‘debunked’ a prevailing ‘myth’ that women have lost ‘900’ medals to trans athletes in a mere year in the process, the comedian presented his word as fact.

He also attempted to cast doubt on data, bringing up rare events like an all-female Irish Dance competition held in Glasgow in 2023 won by a trans woman, and three poker competitions won by trans competitors that year as well.

However, what Oliver did not mention is the ‘900’ number refers to 890 medals won by trans women since April 2024 – a number proven by publicly available data.

All stats about trans athletes are approved by a team of moderators beforehand, Women’s Liberation Front boss Sharon Byrne sought to explain – after Byrne singled out the same exact events later brought up by Oliver, like a ‘fun run’ held in 2022.

Scroll down for video: 

John Oliver has been hell-bent on defending transgender athletes as of late, and some recently unveiled correspondence coming from one of his staffers appears to show why

DM (Dee) Brent, a transgender fact-checker for Oliver’s show , sent a strongly worded comment request to the Women’s Liberation Front Wednesday, and the latter – a self-admitted ‘radical’ feminist organization – has laid it bare for all to see

John Oliver reveals why THIS commonly used statistic is misleading

‘We’ll answer you openly, as we have the other requests,’ Byrne wrote on April 4 ahead of the ‘Trans Athletes’ segment that aired on April 6 – where Oliver framed pushback against trans athletes in women’s sports as a ‘Republican Obsession.’

‘We note the tone of your questions is fairly accusatory, as though you feel we did something wrong by looking at the stats available on shewon.org,’ Byrne went on.

The org boss at this point brought up how the statistics made it into a report penned by the United Nations’ Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women and Girls, Reem Alsalem, in August of last year.

‘Submitting [such statistics] to the UN Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women and Girls regarding women’s sports’ was within the org’s rights, Byrne said, after first disclaiming the Women’s Liberation Front has a ‘trans-exclusionary’ ideology.

‘You asked about our relationship with the UN Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women and Girls,’ Byrne went on, mentioning how one of Women’s Liberation Front’s ‘key policy advocacy positions is to end male violence against women and girls.

‘Any feminist organization concerned with violence against women and girls would of course know of the work of the UN Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women and Girls,’ Byrne explained.

‘Reem Alsalem has held the mandate since 2021. We enthusiastically support her work, as she’s the finest women’s rights advocate ever fielded by the United Nations.’

When it it came to SheWon.org and its startling statistics – all of which are supported by sources such as news articles – Byrne reiterated that her org has no connection to the website and thus is not pedaling Republican propaganda.

Sharon Byrne, the Women’s Liberation Front’s executive director, offered up a no-nonsense response

‘We’re incredibly grateful to women out there volunteering their precious time and efforts to keep the record straight,’ Byrne explained, mentioning the many volunteers who regularly submit sources to the website for approval.

‘We don’t know who they are, but we sure appreciate them,’ she said

When asked why the org did not track female-to-male transgender athletes in the same fashion, Byrne offered a no-nonsense explanation. ‘It’s only men taking medals from women,’ she pointed out.

‘You question [SheWon.org’s] accuracy and some of the ways it calculates the loss to women and girls,’ she added later on.

‘But you missed that sports authorities and organizations like the NCAA and IOC aren’t compiling that data.

‘The framing of your questions indicates you seek to discredit SheWon.org because volunteers put it together,’ she went on.

‘You questioned why stats are being compiled on more than one medal lost when a male wins a women’s competition.

‘There’s a ripple effect from introducing an element (men) to women’s sports competition that should never have been there,’ Bryne explained, before Oliver would later suggest the org was citing inflated figures.

The org boss at this point brought up how the statistics made it into a report penned by the United Nations’ Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women and Girls, Reem Alsalem, in August of last year

The subject has surfaced as a hot-button as of late, thanks to successful trans athletes such as Lia Thomas (seen here in 2022). Two-thirds of U.S. adults favor laws and policies that require trans athletes to compete on teams that match their s33x assigned at birth

2022: Trans swimmer Lia Thomas wins 500 yard race and NCAA title

‘The female that would have been the winner, if not for a male competing, is now knocked into second place,’ she explained.

‘That knocks the second place female winner into third place. Which then knocks the third place female athlete off the podium completely.’

‘Plus the woman or girl who never got to compete at all,’ Byrne went on, two days before the segment.

Unseen in the finished product were these explanations – with Oliver instead framing SheWon.org’s statistics as incorrect and stemming from flawed calculations.

‘A lot of what you see [online] may not be quite what you think it is, both when it comes to trans athletes’ impact on competition or safety,’ the 47-year-old said during the segment, which elicited a response from JK Rowling.

The ‘900 number’, he insisted, ‘included competitions… down to the level of a fun run in Topeka, Kansas, and an Irish dance competition, as well as activities where gender confers no advantage, like poker’, repeating each event mentioned in Brent’s email, albeit vaguely.

He then segued into slamming US President Donald Trump and his recent executive order attempting to ban trans women from participating in sports, renewing a back-and-forth seen between him Rowling in November.

The subject has surfaced as a hot-button issue as of late, thanks to successful trans athletes such as Lia Thomas. Two-thirds of Oliver’s fellow Democrats favor laws and policies that require trans athletes to compete on teams that match their s33x assigned at birth.

‘This issue is an obsession for Republicans, last year they spent over $116 million just on TV ads featuring trans athletes,’ Oliver claimed during the segment.

‘The relentless focus on this over the years has had a meaningful impact.’

Resharing the clip were Oliver mentioned her well-known disdain for trans athletes in women’s sports, the Harry Potter author wrote: ‘I understand why men like Oliver, who’ve consistently mocked anti-science people on the right, sold out initially.

‘They didn’t want to blow up their careers,’ she continued.

‘Taking fashionable anti-women’s rights positions was the cost of doing business. But it’s time to read the f**king room.’

Critics like JK Rowling say trans women who’ve undergone male puberty enjoy considerable advantages over biological women, even post-transition.

They say it is therefore unfair to let them compete against biological women who have no chance of matching this advantage.

Supporters like Oliver say transgender people are a vulnerable minority and that it is unfair to persecute them.

John Oliver loses his temper during angry rant backing trans athletes

But since Trump’s election win last November, liberal Democrats including California Governor Gavin Newsom have broken ranks to say they agree it’s unfair to let trans women athletes compete against biological women.

Brent, meanwhile, is listed as an associate producer on Oliver’s show, and bills herself as ‘a proud transs33xual’ on her IMDB page. She went by David Milton Brent as recently as 2018, credits on the site show.

She also hold degrees from prestigious organizations such as American Film Institute, Yale University, and the University of Chicago.

A 2016 short film she wrote titled ‘Dollar King’ won awards from the Television Academy and the Motion Picture Arts & Sciences Foundation of British Columbia

DailyMail.com has reached out to HBO – which airs Last Week Tonight – for comment.