You've probably seen the new documentary by Matt Walsh called "What is a Woman?" If not you can see it several places on the internet, the most legit being here. Walsh is a conservative Catholic, and he goes in search of someone--anyone--to tell him what a woman is.
He interviews academics, clinicians, protestors, etc., and the results are hilarious and tragic. One interviewee decides the word "truth" is "hateful." One woman, asked "what is a woman?," says she really cannot say because she is not a woman! The clinician who prescribes "gender affirming" drugs may be the scariest of all, spouting nonsense such as the assertion that puberty blockers are fully reversible, like "pressing pause" on a song recording. At least one interviewee, hearing the question "what is a woman?," stops the interview entirely and walks out. There's even a furry in the mix.
I can't think of a better way to peak America than to show this documentary. It is so incredibly eye-opening concerning the belief system prevalent among our elites and professional class regarding gender ideology. If you haven't seen it, you really do need to see it. You can google around for free versions of it if you don't want a membership.
The film is not without flaws--I, for one, have a hard time with Walsh, who seems to want women to occupy very traditional roles, and who has a smarmy way about him that makes you know he has never met a woman he considers to be his equal. Walsh also studiously avoided mention of all the gender critical feminists whose work was foundational in analyzing gender ideology and noting its potential harm to women.
Yet I do sense the wind is changing, and this documentary is part of the change that's in the wind. Even the New York Times (!) is now allowing gender critical voices to be heard in their articles--probably because the vast majority of its commenters are openly critical of gender ideology and the paper couldn't forever close their eyes to the views of their own readership. The Tory government in the UK is now openly talking about the active defense of single-sex spaces, such as restrooms and domestic violence shelters. Finland, Sweden, France, and now the UK are backing away from knee-jerk "gender affirmation" protocols in treating gender dysphoric children. Lawsuits--the real engine of change in the USA--are now proliferating over school policies and clinical practice. Perhaps due to Elon Musk's maneuver, Twitter has unbanned some gender critical personalities.
Still, it will probably take a decade or more until much of the damage can be undone. And some of the damage--physical damage to the bodies of young people--may never be undone. I do think many Democrats will be surprised this fall election season over how many women now feel politically homeless because while the right wishes to take away their reproductive choices, the left wants to erase them entirely. Seeing a Charybdis and Scylla situation, many feminists I know are planning to sit out the election entirely--and that will hurt Democrats, not Republicans.
On a related note, I'm not on Twitter, but was agog to see that Twitter had not taken this thread down (someone sent it to me). Of course, the thread is by a man, so perhaps that accounts for it still being up. It's one man's response asto why he does not believe transmen are men.
On a second related note, Jo Brew offers a very interesting explanation for the speed with which our institutions embraced gender ideology. Haven't made up my miind about it, but it's worth considering:
"Transgender ideology offers a new operating system for men who reject the conservative strong man leader, or the religious father god. It offers a new, modern, better OS for patriarchy—not top-down, but bottom-up. Not the Old Testament angry god laying down the law, but new touchy-feely shape-shifting, wordless and formless, bodiless, spirit form of patriarchy.
"Far from being a befuddling mystery, the lightning fast global uptake of transgender ideology is useful in that it reveals how the patriarchy works. Like a bolt of lightning on a stormy night revealing the landscape, transgender ideology has illuminated the structure of patriarchy. Organizations and professions have not been “captured” by transgender ideology. To be captured implies that they were taken over against their will. They have installed the new operating system because it helps them do their job, which is implementing patriarchy."
You can read the rest of her analysis here. I agree that gender ideology does bear an uncanny resemblance to the men's rights movement in its drive to eradicate safe spaces for women, and take away opportunities from women, such as in sports.
Enjoy your new week . . . and see the Walsh documentary.