In his new documentary “What is a Woman?,” The Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh interviews a number of gender ideologues—people who believe that sex is neither objective nor biologically fixed —including a licensed “gender-affirming” therapist, a pediatrician, a world-renowned surgeon, a university professor, and a Democratic lawmaker. Each attempts to defend gender ideology, only to reveal just how incoherent and ridiculous it actually is.
During his interview with pediatrician Michelle Forcier, for example, Walsh gets Forcier to admit that young children often believe in fantastical concepts, such as Santa Claus, and cannot be trusted to always distinguish between what is real and what is fiction. Yet, despite this, Forcier insists that children as young as 4-years-old can know that they are transgender, and must be trusted absolutely. Part of this trust requires adults to affirm the child’s new gender identity, she says, both socially and even medically.
Walsh later asks Forcier whether it would be appropriate to assume that a chicken laying eggs is a female chicken. In one of the more bizarre responses throughout the documentary, Forcier replied: “Does a chicken have gender identity? Does a chicken cry? Does it commit suicide?”
Forcier is far from the only medical professional to think this way. Walsh also interviews Dr. Marci Bowers, a transgender-identifying person and OB-GYN who performs surgery to make patients appear like members of the other sex. Walsh presents Bowers with a scenario in which an able-bodied patient believes he is disabled and comes into the clinic asking to have his arm amputated to match his identified disability. Bowers appears bewildered, and admits that this patient would be considered as someone suffering from a “mental diagnosis” or “psychiatric condition.”
“I don’t even pretend to know what apotemnophilia is all about,” Bowers says. “I would say that’s—pardon my non-medical language—kooky.”
When asked by Walsh whether Bowers sees any correlation at all between this hypothetical patient and the gender-confused patients who come looking for experimental, physically-altering procedures, Bowers denies there is any similarity between the two. In fact, Bowers insists that “gender affirmation procedures”, including full castration, are completely normal—even if they end up being “a bit of a Faustian bargain,” as Bowers put it, in that they’re “not always perfect.”
What Bowers declines to mention is the many side effects and life-long health conditions that often accompany these procedures. Another interviewee, however, explains to Walsh in detail just how devastating these surgeries can be. Scott Newgent, a woman who decided to undergo transition surgeries when she was 42-years-old, told Walsh that she had no idea what she was signing up for when she agreed to let her doctors mutilate her body so that she’d appear more masculine.
“I’ve had seven surgeries. I’ve had one stress heart attack. I’ve had a helicopter life ride with a pulmonary embolism. I’ve had 17 rounds of antibiotics. I had six inches of hair on the inside of my urethra for 17 months,” Newgent says. “Nobody would help me, including the doctor who did this to me because I lost my insurance. I get infections every three to four months. I’m probably not going to live very long.”
Newgent’s story is sadly much more common than gender ideologues such as Bowers would like to admit on camera (although Bowers did share concerns about the harmful consequences of youth transition in an interview with Abigail Shrier) —which is why Walsh’s documentary is so important. Not only does he expose the impossible logical gymnastics that gender ideology demands of its adherents, but he also documents the ways in which gender ideology is harming individuals, like Newgent, their families, and their communities.
Gender ideology is destructive, as Walsh’s documentary makes clear. And no one has experienced this more than women, who are being forced to compete against biological males in female athletics, who have been attacked by biological males in female prisons, and who are now being told that their very identity is meaningless.
Walsh’s “What is a Woman?” is an important tool to help us fight back. We’ll need many more in the days ahead.