# Real Time with Bill Maher

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/real-time-with-bill-maher/991367>\
**Category:** The BBQ Pit\
**Created:** [October 10, 2023, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/real-time-with-bill-maher/991367 "2023-10-10T21:03:05Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 1139

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**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\
**Post date:** [November 18, 2025, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/real-time-with-bill-maher/991367/1139 "2025-11-18T18:18:57Z")

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> [@iiandyiiii](#):
>
> Discussion is around the 1 hour 14 minute mark. Patton is skeptical, but they don’t fact check in real time, and just move on. But the confidence with which Maher spreads an easily disprovable lie is a quick example of his particular brand of arrogant bullshit.

He’s probably mixing up multiple stories.

California didn’t make it so that birth certificates don’t have a gender on them when you are born, but California _did_ make it such that you can amend your birth certificate later on to change the sex or make it nonbinary, per a law passed in 2017 and implemented in 2018.

The idea of removing sex from birth certificates isn’t a law in California, but it was proposed a number of times; I remember that specifically because there was a thread on this on the Dope when PA proposed it a few years ago:

> [@PA looking at removing sex from birth certificates](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pa-looking-at-removing-sex-from-birth-certificates/1013583):
>
> I think it’s a good idea. Doubtless some fool will pitch a fit about the idea, though. It was proposed by Democrats, and will obviously be leaped upon by the GOP. Almost seems foolish to even propose the idea. [https://www.abc27.com/pennsylvania/pennsylvania-lawmakers-propose-removing-gender-from-birth-certificates/](https://www.abc27.com/pennsylvania/pennsylvania-lawmakers-propose-removing-gender-from-birth-certificates/)

That law didn’t pass (although funnily enough when I tried to look it up I saw that articles from 2025 about PA lawmakers with the same proposal). But the idea of removing sex from birth certificates is what Maher was alluding to, and he’s certainly not lying about that being a thing that was getting pushed. Hell, go read the linked thread - plenty of people here defended the idea.

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