What Is a Woman? The New Matt Walsh Documentary Interrogates Trans Extremism

 

What Is a Woman?
The New Matt Walsh Documentary Interrogates Trans Extremism

 

What Is a Woman? is a June, 2022 Daily Wire documentary addressing trans extremism. It's directed by Justin Folk. Folk has worked on major Hollywood releases including Hulk and Matrix films. The documentary stars Matt Walsh, a 35-year-old conservative commentator, best-selling author, and Roman Catholic. Walsh is conventionally handsome and gifted with a deep, gravelly voice. He has a thick, dark beard and is given to wearing flannel shirts. He could be the cowboy in a Marlboro ad, if such ads still existed.

 

Walsh wears a perpetual poker face; his humor is deadpan. His lack of affect – the absence of smiles, sneers, laughter or anger – serves his goal. Using the steady, hyperrational voice of an oncologist conveying bad news to family members, Walsh asks his interview subjects to support their extreme assertions. They fail to do so. As one review put it, "Walsh's calm, measured, and objective questioning provides an invaluable chapter in the handbook called 'How to Give Enough Rope'" As in – "If you give them enough rope, they will hang themselves."

 

The documentary depicts Walsh as a modern-day Will Kane, the hero of the classic Western High Noon. Gary Cooper, as Kane, goes up alone against bad guys with guns. Walsh's weapons are not guns, but rather questions. He is a lone hero against a world gone mad.

 

The lighting, sound, camera shots, editing, are all as polished as one would expect from a big-budget documentary that wins prestigious awards. This is remarkable given the documentary's funding. It's not easy to defy trans extremism; people have lost jobs, and gone to jail, for doing so. Daily Wire CEO Jeremy Boreing repeatedly emphasized to YouTube audiences that they must become Daily Wire supporters if they hope for such documentaries to be made. Anyone making a documentary supporting trans extremism could count on millions of dollars from giant corporations and foundations. The Daily Wire had to, down to the wire of the film's premiere, pass the hat to fund its endeavor.

 

What Is a Woman? begins as Walsh chats with Gert Comfrey, a licensed marriage and family therapist. Comfrey is a petite, ingratiating, and very pretty woman. In her interview, she denies being a woman. Comfrey's website insists that she be referenced by the pronouns "they, them, theirs." She says to Walsh, "Some women have penises, some men have vaginas." Walsh asks, "How do I know that I'm not a woman? I like scented candles and I've watched Sex and the City." Comfrey nods so warmly and empathetically that I just want to hug her as if she were a teddy bear. None of the rest of the trans extremists is as charming as Comfrey.

 

Dr. Marci Bowers is a surgeon who identifies as female. On Top magazine calls Bowers "The Barack Obama of gender." Bowers has performed over 2,000 surgeries meant to change the sex of the patient. Out magazine writes of Bowers that he is "responsible for constructing more vaginas every year in this country than any other doctor … as many as two per day, three or four days a week … a virtual pussy factory." Bowers' first wife, Ann Bowers, is still his receptionist. Bowers sometimes says to Carol Cometto, his current partner, "I changed a man into a woman, a woman into a man, and the dog into a cat today. What did you do?" Out continues, "The vaginas she builds look good. Bowers is a maestro with the scalpel. They didn't really design a woman's vulva with efficiency in mind – or aesthetics for that matter … 'I get feedback all the time from natal women. They go, Wow, that looks better than mine. That's better than the real thing!'" View samples of Bowers' vaginas here and here, and testicle removal, or orchiectomy, here.

 

Bowers tells Walsh that his vaginas are the result of "quite refined" surgeries. Bowers also acknowledges that manmade vaginas are "a bit of a Faustian bargain."

 

Here's a footnote to that "Faustian" comment that the documentary does not dwell on. Manmade vaginas are often constructed from penises. Penile inversion vaginoplasty requires lifelong dilation. As one website explains, "Your genetic code has no plan for an opening there. Your body will simply heal what it considers to be a gaping wound and close the neovagina completely and permanently. The tissue surrounding the neovagina, including the PC muscle [pubococcygeus muscles] were pushed aside during the dissection of the neovaginal cavity. These tissues will attempt to move back into their original positions. So in order to keep it open, we must insert something into the neovagina on a regular and frequent basis."

 

Another website reports, "Initially, one can expect dilation to take up to 2.5 hours per day, with the time and frequency decreasing after you reach 18-24 months post-op ... Dilation is also not as comfortable as one might hope. Dilators are hard, they're plastic, they're cold, they're uncomfortable to be inside you."

 

Dilation is so important that some doctors recommend that vaginoplasty be performed on minors to ensure that parents can reinforce the dilation regimen. "Some surgeons believe that minors should have the procedure done while still in high school so that their parents can ensure compliance; even be 'active' in the dilation routine required to keep the neovagina open to 'maintain the vaginal depth involved' before the teen becomes distracted by college."

 

Even with the best care in the world, sometimes neovaginas don't work, as in the case of international celebrity Jazz Jennings. "At first, Jazz’s surgery seemed to have gone fine, but soon after she experienced 'crazy pain' … 'As I was getting her on the bed, I heard something go pop' … Jazz’s new vagina … split apart."

 

One study reports that a "majority" of men receiving such surgeries can have orgasms six months after surgery; a minority are not experiencing orgasms. A medical journal article reports, "In vaginoplasty, failure to perform preoperative or intraoperative hair removal can lead to inaccessible hair deep within the vagina. This can result in a hairball, which can be a nidus for debris and infection." The details behind the phrase "Faustian bargain" are intimidating.

 

In the documentary, Bowers insists that it is "really, really uncommon" for patients to regret attempts to change their sex, and only "dinosaurs" assess so-called sex change operations as questionable. One source estimates a 4,000% increase in youngsters identifying as trans. Bowers waves away any concern that the astronomical increase in young people identifying as trans might be a social contagion, in spite of Lisa Littman's published research showing just that. When asked about men competing against women in sports, Bowers says, "There are some slight differences. Does it translate to a competitive advantage? You'd be very hard-pressed to prove that."

 

Walsh brings up people who believe that they must be rendered disabled to feel at peace with their bodies. Walsh does not mention Jewel Shuping, but her case is pertinent. In 2006, Shuping, who suffers from Body Integrity Identity Disorder, allowed a doctor to place drain cleaner in her eyes, in order to blind her. Shuping says that she knew from childhood that she was supposed to be blind. People magazine quotes Shuping. "'When I was young, my mother would find me walking in the halls at night. When I was 3 or 4 years old. By the time I was 6, I remember that thinking about being blind made me feel comfortable.' Shuping acquired a white cane in her teens and could read Braille fluently by the time she was 20. As the years progressed, so did her desire to be blind." Given the similarities between cases like Shuping's and gender dysphoria, it was appropriate for Walsh to ask Bowers to address how people suffering from Body Integrity Identity Disorder differ from trans people.

 

In response to Walsh's question, Bowers mentions "apotemnophilia" or "the desire for amputation of a healthy limb," and dismisses sufferers as merely "kooky." Bowers does not, however, communicate how and why an abled-bodied person who feels that he must be disabled to feel that he is experiencing his true identity is categorically different from a man who feels that he must be a woman to experience his true identity. In one case, the surgeon, Bowers, attempts to align the patient's incorrect conviction with physical reality through so-called "sex change." In another case, an ethical doctor would try to convince a patient that amputation or self-blinding is not the answer, and coming to terms with one's body as it exists is a better approach. In one case, anyone who objects is a "transphobic" "dinosaur." In another case, Bowers can dismiss the sufferer as "kooky."

 

Walsh's next informant was Dr. Michelle Forcier. Walsh's eyes are as cold as the eyes in a marble statue of Diogenes, the Ancient Greek philosopher who carried a lantern in the daytime in his quest, as he put it, "For an honest man." Forcier's eyes are cold as a reptilian con artist selling lies to herself and others. She should star in the next remake of that darkest of film noirs, Nightmare Alley.

 

Forcier is a pediatrician, abortionist, Assistant Dean at Brown University, and a manager of medical attempts to change a child's sex. In a 2015 NBC interview with a blonde cupcake of an interviewer, one can see a celebration of victory in Forcier's eyes as she triumphs over every deferential softball question.

 

"Why not wait?" the NBC spokesmodel in a bright pink dress asks Forcier. In other words, why subject a child to life-altering, irreversible surgeries and medications?

 

The child will kill himself if you do that, Forcier insists. And, she emphasizes, "There's nothing irreversible or harmful" about "gender transition" of children. "Most kids never" change their mind, she says. "We can stop puberty when it's the wrong puberty," she says. "Puberty blockers are totally reversible."

 

Are Forcier's claims, from the 2015 NBC interview, true? She says that few children change their minds. In fact at least one recent study supports the frequently asserted observation that most children who experience gender dysphoria in childhood "desist," that is, they come, with maturity, to accept their bodies. A March, 2021 peer-reviewed article, "A Follow-Up Study of Boys With Gender Identity Disorder," reports that "the persistence of gender dysphoria was relatively low (at 12%)."

 

What Forcier dismissed as "The wrong puberty" is responsible for things like bone density; puberty blockers interfere with that. "Suppressing puberty in children suffering from gender dysphoria … entails several known risks. One is that patients could 'end with a decreased bone density, which is associated with a high risk of osteoporosis'" reports a website citing peer-reviewed research.

 

During the 2015 NBC interview, the pretty blonde interviewer did not challenge Forcier on her assertions. It is fascinating to watch the difference in Forcier's eyes as she dominates a compliant NBC enabler, and to contrast those eyes with Forcier's eyes in her interview with Walsh.

 

In the same way that Walsh confronts Bowers with people convinced that their bodies should be handicapped, and who demand that doctors cripple them so that they can live out that "truth" of their identity as a handicapped person, Walsh confronts Forcier with four-year-olds who believe in Santa Claus. Forcier forces an utterly cold smile that never reaches any part of her face beyond her lips. "To a child they are real," she insists. Note the pronoun Forcier uses for Santa Claus, "they," not "he." Apparently Forcier believes that she can diagnose a fictional character as nonbinary.

 

Walsh states that chickens lay eggs, and these chickens are female. Forcier speaks very softly as she responds with, "Does a chicken cry? Does a chicken commit suicide?" With her soft speech and mention of suicide, Forcier is attempting to weaponize her interlocutor's empathy – a quality she herself gives no evidence of possessing – to muscle him into agreeing to the mutilation of children. The implication in her absurd statement about suicidal poultry is that if Walsh keeps pressing for the truth, trans children will commit suicide.

 

In both the NBC and Walsh interviews, Forcier says that part of her therapeutic approach to children is to discuss with them their "gender journey." "Gender journey" is a stock phrase of trans extremists; see here. Where are you now? Where do you want to be, Forcier asks children. These questions horrified me. If an authoritative, manipulative woman with scary eyes and a need to dominate had approached child me and asked me about my gender journey, she would learn that I planned to marry my best friend, Christine, that I liked to play soldier with rough boys, that I made my own bows and arrows, and that I had a tendency to get into physical fights. Forcier would, doubtless, subject me to "gender transitioning." All I can say is, I'm glad I still have my breasts – unlike the "detransitioning" woman in this Reddit post who mourns, "I miss my breasts so much."

 

Forcier insists to Walsh, as she did to NBC and as she has no doubt insisted to confused and vulnerable parents, that one can put a "pause" on puberty in the same way that one can press "pause" on a piece of music. Release the pause button, she claims, miming pressing an imaginary button in the air, and the music starts up again at the exact moment when the button was first pressed. Ask yourself: can you stop a normal physical process and expect to release a button and continue that process? Can you stop your breath that way for more than a few seconds? Can you stop digestion? A pregnancy? Can you stop your hair from growing and then restart it with no side effects? Were the Chinese able to stop the growth of girls' feet and then remove the wrappings and expect those feet to grow normally? Photographs and x-rays of previously bound feet suggest not.

 

Studies show that even disrupting sleep and attempting to fall back to sleep is so hard on the body that such disruption may lead to heart disease. Medical science recognizes that disrupting natural processes can harm the body. Why trust the tinkering of this blue-haired woman wearing a dress that looks like a shroud? Walsh points out in post-film commentary that even if what Forcier is saying is true, a child who "paused" puberty is going to have to go through puberty at an advanced age, out of sync with peers or normal development. Forcier must explain why she thinks that a young person undergoing puberty at age 20 rather than age 12 benefits that young person.

 

Walsh brings up Lupron, a drug used as a puberty blocker and also to chemically castrate sex offenders. In response, Forcier, deploying a fake-kindly, fake-quiet "therapeutic" voice, immediately and abruptly announces that she wants to end the interview. "You're not listening," she accuses Walsh, in a quiet purr. In fact his responses to her demonstrate that he has heard everything she has said. "You're choosing exploitive words … You are being malignant and harmful," she accuses Walsh.

 

Forcier's accusations attempt to create a false narrative, one in which she's the good guy and Walsh is the perp. The crime? "Exploitive words," not children manipulated in ways that alter them for life, before they reach the maturity required to make such decisions. Walsh had been flawlessly professional and appropriately neutral in his questioning of Forcier. Her accusations against him are false, just as Bowers' statement that only "dinosaurs" question his procedures was false. A pattern emerges that repeats throughout the documentary. Any rational questioning of trans extremism results in a false accusation.

 

Dr. Patrick Grzanka is an associate professor of psychology and Chair of the Interdisciplinary Program in Women, Gender, and Sexuality at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. According to his university bio, Grzanka "explores and intervenes in systemic social inequalities. He has expertise in intersectionality, sexualities, reproductive justice, racism and White supremacy, and gender. His scholarship has been funded by the National Science Foundation … and he is an associate editor … of the top-ranked Journal of Counseling Psychology. Grzanka is a committed scholar-activist who frequently writes and speaks to the public and serves on the board of several non-profit, social justice organizations."

 

I wish I could find something kind to say about Patrick Grzanka. His last name means "toast" and also "crouton" in Polish, my father's mother tongue. As I watched Grzanka do everything possible to prove that he is both a human and a weasel, I asked, "How the hell did the strong-like-bull, more-Catholic-than-the-Pope, straight-shooting Polish immigrant coal miners and steel mill workers produce this … person?"

 

Grzanka has the shifty eyes of a pickpocket and the domineering arrogance of a good percentage of tenured professors. Grzanka's eyes shift between fear and a bully's triumph. When Walsh asks Grzanka fundamental questions about sex, Grzanka looks fearful. One can imagine him thinking, "Oh my atheist God, I've been backed into a corner. My BS beliefs will be recorded on this man's camera for all the world to see!" When Grzanka responds by making false accusations against Walsh, his eyes register temporary rejoicing. "Aha! I've used academic language to gain the upper hand and to make this naïve man asking me real questions look like a fool!"

 

Grzanka's bullying of Walsh is representational of how Woke professors bully students. American students are turning off not just to higher education, but also to knowledge – college enrollment is in steep decline. American exceptionalism slowly slips away, and our academic performance is overtaken by countries that exhibit greater academic rigor. None of those countries practice the American tradition of free speech, and they all practice taboos in what one can think, what one can say, and what one can research; thus, no other country can fill the gap left by America's sabotaging of its own educational system. Grzanka is one small man, but he is representational of a national and global catastrophe.

 

Grzanka has amassed money and power by spouting BS and weaponizing personal grievance. A recent Twitter post alleges that "Patrick R. Grzanka’s salary is $92,511 (2019) from @UTKnoxville, and has 2 grants from the  @NSF totaling over $770k to reject truth and pursue political activism."

 

Grzanka tells Walsh that "When someone tells you who they are you should believe them." As Forcier pretended to a kindly therapeutic voice, Grzanka pretends to an outraged social justice warrior voice. His tone implies that Walsh is an abusive bigot for "not believing" that a man is a woman. Of course what Grzanka said is transparently idiotic. When someone tells you that he is a Nigerian prince and all you have to do is send him your bank information, you should believe him. Well, no.

 

"I want to get to the truth," Walsh says.

 

Grzanka rises up in his full social justice warrior armor. "I'm really uncomfortable with that language. It sounds deeply transphobic to me. If you keep probing, we're going to stop the interview. You keep invoking the word 'truth' which is condescending and rude. You're walking on thirty seconds of thin ice before I get up." "The way that you've conducted yourself in the interview," Grzanka says to Walsh, is the problem. The viewer sees that Walsh's conduct is unimpeachable. "You're seeking an essentialist definition," Grzanka alleges.

 

"I'm not seeking anything," Walsh says, and, in fact, the viewer can see that Walsh is telling the truth and Grzanka is demonizing and scapegoating Walsh to escape the inevitable backwash from his own BS.

 

Walsh asks the Rachel Dolezal question that trans extremists hate. "What if I say that I'm a black man?" Walsh asks.

 

"You don't look black," Grzanka replies. Grzanka would denounce as a "transphobe" anyone who said that Zoey Tur, a man who identifies as a woman, does not look like a woman. Race is sacred. White men are essentially evil – there's that word that Grzanka rejected when it comes to sex. "Essential" means "by nature; unchanging." White men are essentially evil and can't change to black men, because blackness, to the Woke, is a sacred substance that essentially evil whites may not aspire to possess. There is no essence, on the other hand, to womanhood. There is no truth to womanhood. Womanhood is a mere bagatelle, an identity that men can claim or discard at will.

 

Congressman Mark Takano, who boasts that he is the first Asian-descent gay man to serve in Congress, comes off very poorly. Takano supports the Equality Act that sanctions male incursion into female sports and bathrooms, and does other harms (see here). Walsh asks Takano directly about the violation to women's privacy when men invade women's bathrooms. Takano stares blankly at Walsh and pauses for a long time before responding. One guesses that Takano is calculating what answer will bring him, Takano, the most benefit. Then he attempts to manipulate Walsh just as Forcier and Grzanka did. You want to talk about women and their privacy in bathrooms! Takano protests, with fake outrage. I want to talk about transgender people's "right to life," he says. Again, as with Forcier, Takano has instantaneously woven a false narrative in which Walsh wants to kill trans people and Takano is rising to the defense of this threatened population. In fact neither Walsh nor any other significant voice is calling for capital punishment for trans people. After effectively accusing Walsh of being a murderer, Takano announces, "This interview is over," and he leaves.

 

Walsh chats with Dr. Miriam Grossman. The reader will benefit from visiting her webpage, a cornucopia of information on trans extremism. Jordan Peterson points out that it is not a therapist's job to "affirm" his patient's every choice. The current policy of affirmation only in response to gender dysphoria is not "therapy. It's a rubber stamp." In the current environment, Peterson points out, physicians and therapists are terrified to speak frankly. This atmosphere is damaging to health care. Further, it is impossible to produce accurate research. Therapist Sara Stockton points out that so-called "transition" involves treatments for which there are no long-term studies. "This generation is lab rats," she says. Theologian Carl Trueman says that current approaches to identity fuel trans extremism. "Trans is cool; trans is a way to give yourself value."

 

Dr. Debra Soh says, "I left academia because the climate had become too stifling politically, especially when it comes to gender identity and the science of gender. It is absolutely impossible to do good research. You have to decide beforehand what you are going to find, so that you don't upset activists and that is not how you do science … If any researcher spoke out against activist orthodoxy they would have their personal and professional reputations ruined." Soh is the author of The End of Gender: Debunking the Myths about Sex and Identity in Our Society.

 

Walsh interviews Selina Soule, a female athlete who was cheated out of earned accomplishments by two males who raced under the false claim of being females. Rodrigo Heng-Lehtinen, a woman who identifies as a man, is a trans activist. She, smiling and waving her hands, spouted canned nonsense about how males have "no unfair advantage" over females in athletic competition. The documentary intercuts Heng-Lehtinen's misogynist lies with shocking film footage of men beating women, sometimes literally, at sports, including martial arts. Walsh interviews a teammate of Lia Thomas, a man who swims on the women's swim team at the University of Pennsylvania. This anonymous and obviously frightened young woman exposes the serious threats that the university has made against any female swimmer who commits the ultimate Woke crime and speaks the truth. "Your life will be over."

 

Scott Newgent and an unnamed Canadian father are the most heartbreaking figures in the documentary. Newgent is a woman who was encouraged by trusted advisors to adopt a male persona. She regrets this, for example in this online interview. "If I had a magic ball to take me back to the time when I decided to medically transition, I would say that no, I would not transition again. That has been hard to say publicly because quite frankly it's embarrassing." Newgent's health has suffered a great deal. "I will never be a man," she tells Matt Walsh in the documentary.

 

An unnamed Canadian father is interviewed via telephone. A court had ordered him to refer to his daughter as "he." The father's use of a correct pronoun was deemed "violence" and the father was put in jail. The details suggest that this unnamed interviewee may have been Canadian postal worker Rob Hoogland.

 

The documentary discusses the baleful influence of John Money and Alfred Kinsey.

 

What Is a Woman? is a terrific film and everyone should see it. There were a few features of the film that did not work for this viewer. What Is a Woman? films members of a Masai tribe in Africa. The filmmakers have said that they did this in order to interrogate the Woke premise that gender binaries are a "Western construct." A Masai leader tells a translator, who tells Walsh, that the Masai believe in strict gender roles.

 

This portion of the film struck me as unnecessary, exploitative, and misleading. The Masai could not possibly understand the import of their participation in this documentary. Their reaction to Walsh's questions demonstrates this. "Informed consent" is an important feature of documentation. The Masai could not have given informed consent.

 

I lived in an African nation that shares some cultural features with Kenya. This is hard to say, but the simple truth is that I'd almost rather be a dog in the US than a woman in the African country in which I lived. The Masai, like many in the country where I lived, practice female genital mutilation. Where I lived, men spent a good deal of their time socializing with other men and drinking palm wine. Women did heavy agricultural labor. Women cleared patches in the bush, planted manioc, harvested it, soaked it, dried it, pounded it into flour, cooked it, and served it, all while babies clung to their backs. Domestic violence, in the form of wife-beating, is part of life and for the most part it goes unquestioned.

 

Of course the Masai tribal elder tells the visiting American outsider that there are no gender nonconforming tribe members. For the elder to say otherwise would be a disgrace. In fact, though, in my classes of one hundred students per class, I certainly noticed boys who were effeminate and girls who were masculine. In a remote town I visited, one of my fellow Peace Corps volunteers told me that the local mailman was a transvestite, that is a man who dresses like a woman.

 

The documentary's depiction of Walsh as a lone Will Kane facing off against enemy forces certainly adds drama to the film, but it's just not true. The documentary never mentions, for example, Helen Joyce. Joyce is a former editor at The Economist. In 2021, she published Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality. The book is fearless and devastating. In 2020, Abigail Shrier published Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters. This hugely controversial book is embraced by parents trying to protect their children and hated by Woke ideologues. Dr. Lisa Littman published, in 2018, a study of what she called rapid onset gender dysphoria, or ROGD. She caught hell for her work, and her courage deserves recognition. British feminist Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull had the audacity to purchase a billboard reading, "Woman: Adult Human Female." She's been active against men's invasions of women spaces ever since. Radical feminist Julie Bindel has been unstinting in her criticism of how trans extremism hurts women. J.K. Rowling has gained international attention for her insistence that "sex is real." Somehow none of the above crusaders for truth were even so much as mentioned in What Is a Woman? Somehow they are all women. Hmm.

 

Two more names deserve mention. Douglas Murray, a British author, in his 2019 book The Madness of Crowds: Gender, Race, and Identity, detailed how extreme trans extremism is. Murray is a gay man. Benjamin A. Boyce is a citizen journalist. He has posted numerous, devastating exposes of trans extremism. In one video, a young woman who had previously identified as male, described older men who identify as women sexually harassing younger girls who identify as boys. Boyce's work is irreplaceable and necessary. Boyce's recent interview with Helen Joyce is not to be missed. Joyce reveals her razor-sharp analysis and her fearlessness.

 

I wish What Is a Woman? made clear that trans extremism is not about trans people. Rather, it's just another social panic orchestrated by the left to serve their long-term goal – the overthrow of Western Civilization and its replacement with a Woke Utopia. In the past, the left similarly exploited, and then discarded, laborers, recent immigrants like Poles and Italians, Jews, and women. Blacks and Muslims are current darlings, but if blacks and Muslims leave the plantation they immediately become targets. If trans extremism disappeared tomorrow, it would be replaced with the next social panic. We need to note the similarities in these social panics, call them what they are, and learn to address them, from trans extremism to CRT to BLM.

 

Finally, when watching What Is a Woman? I really wanted Walsh to give a hint of what The Daily Wire wants, as opposed to what it doesn't want. I reject trans extremism, but I don't want to return to a world where women are assumed to be decorative and vapid and where effeminate men are targets for bullying and worse. Walsh's documentary opens with retro images of hyper-feminine women. There's a pretty little girl in pink who loves tiaras and tea sets, a debutante in a poodle skirt, a hot pin-up in a halter top, and lots of flip hairdos like Marlo Thomas wore in the sixties sitcom That Girl.

 

The horror I feel at being expected to be pretty and vapid and to wear flip hairstyles and poodle skirts is the same horror I feel when I read 1984. I remember, in school, watching the macho guys beat the stuffing out of the boys perceived to be not manly enough. I felt horror watching those beatings. Teachers, too often, stood by and did not intervene. I want to believe that the world all of us who resist trans extremism are trying to create is safe for Walsh and his traditional family, and just as safe for effeminate men, and also safe for me.

 

Danusha Goska is the author of God through Binoculars: A Hitchhiker at a Monastery