Two and a Half Men star Cryer made an appearance on January 5's installment of Club Random with Bill Maher, where he spoke with the titular host about a range of issues, including youth gender-affirming care.While Maher expressed opposition to children going through gender-affirming care, he also questioned the rise in numbers of young people identifying as transgender.Cryer countered by suggesting that when certain identities and attributes are more widely accepted in society, it affects the numbers of those who will identify as such, using the onetime vilification of left-handed people as an example.Newsweek has contacted representatives of Maher and Cryer via email for comment."There are cases where it is appropriate, I think," Maher said of gender-affirming care. "I think this is the standard liberal position.
And then there's like, the people who won't admit that some of this is social contagion, some of this is just a TikTok trend that got out of hand."When Cryer said that he disagreed, he said: "Trust me, in this town, you'll be the big champion—'You owned Bill Maher'—because they just want to agree with you.""The people in this town, they just want to be warriors, social justice warriors," Maher added in refence to Hollywood. "So they're just always looking for a cause, and it's so much more often about them than the cause itself—not that there's not [sincerity] about stuff."Referencing Dave Chappelle, who has faced backlash in recent years over his own comments about transgender people, Maher went on: "What bugs Dave Chappelle, so much about the trans thing, I think, is the fact that they want to make it the social just issue of their generation, and it just doesn't compare to other ones."It's important.
It's an issue. I think it's great [that] we live at a time when trans people can be respected and protected, but you're asking too much often to rewrite like the idea that when someone is born, there is a default setting for humans—male and female.