By Simbiat Bakare


It’s the 20th century, and the world suddenly began to pretend they do not know who a woman is. Women, who are half of the human population and are responsible for the birth of every single human on earth, are suddenly reduced to an undefinable entity whose existence is ambiguous.


It would have been laughable if it wasn’t so offensive. At the center of this confusion is a gender ideology controlled by a small but influential group. The word “transgender” first appeared in print in American English in 1965, and the idea of the transgender phenomenon is that some people suffer from gender dysphoria, as a result, have the intense urge to appear as the opposite sex. In the 20th century, the ideology has rapidly spread its tentacles to many parts of the world. 


In Nigeria, male crossdressers like Okuneye Idris “Bob Risky” Olanrewaju adopted the western solution to gender dysphoria, and proclaimed themselves to be “transgender,” hence “women.” On May 1, 2022, due to the introduction of the crossdressers' prohibition bill, some transgender males, alongside gay rights activist Victor Emmanuel Eze, staged a protest in Abuja for freedom to be.


Following the wide spread of the transgender ideology and its social, health, and political implications, particularly on young people and women’s rights, intellectuals have attempted to spotlight the intricacies of the movement. British author and philanthropist J.K Rowling published a piece on the subject in part, saying,


“The current explosion of trans activism is urging for removal of almost all the robust systems through which candidates for sex reassignment were once required to pass. A man who intends to have no surgery and take no hormones may now secure himself a Gender Recognition Certificate and be a woman in the sight of the law.


“As many women have said before me, woman’ is not a costume. ‘Woman’ is not an idea in a man’s head. ‘Woman’ is not a pink brain, a liking for Jimmy Choos, or any of the other sexist ideas now somehow touted as progressive.”


Renowned Nigerian writer and novelist Chimamanda Adichie spoke out in support of J.K Rowling's piece, stating that it was perfectly reasonable, and how males who suffer dysphoria cannot claim to have the same experience as women. However, she was met with heavy criticism by Nigerian writer Akwaeke Emezi and other Nigerians who have adopted the trans ideology. 


Other women including Nigerian software engineer and writer Lotanna “Sugabelly” Igwe Odunze,  Irish journalist Helen Joyce, British philosopher and writer Kathleen Stock, and American philosopher and gender theorist Judith Butler have also published pieces to critique gender ideology. Sugabelly’s piece, Helen Joyce’s book, Kathleen Stock's book, and Judith Butler’s literature provide detailed insights on transgenderism and revealed the misogyny central to the movement.


In the latest effort of concerned individuals to spotlight the transgender ideology's inherent incoherence, Malt Walsh released a 1 hour and 30 minutes documentary ‘What Is A Woman’ produced and released by Daily Wire on June 1, 2022.


Matt’s documentary is creative and mind-boggling. It reveals many inconsistencies in the transgender activists' and allies’ arguments, their attempt to shut down conversations, and their strategy to police word usage. 


In the film, when Matt asks the simple and straightforward question, ‘What Is A Woman?, a United States Democrat congressman got defensive and left in the middle of the interview. A social science professor stated that he found the question irrelevant. A consultant pediatrician Michelle Forcier said using the word castration when describing the negative effect of Lupron, a drug formerly given to sex offenders to castrate them, and now given to trans teenagers to block their puberty, is offensive. 


Other people interviewed on the street said, ‘’a woman is anyone who says she is.” All of these spotlight the woke plague in America and how many people are willing to deny the knowledge of who a woman is.


However, as incredible as I found Matt Walsh's documentary to be, it falls short in many ways.


A person who is not grounded in the knowledge of transgenderism would be misled to believe many women do not know who they are. When I watched the documentary and saw several women denying their existence, my first thought was, where did he find these women? There are many women in America who are gender-critical feminists and constantly reiterate that women are adult human females. Why were they not interviewed?


Matt Walsh's film painted the idea that there are many women who do not know who they are. While many women are sympathetic to the trans movement, that simply isn’t true. Women like Kellie-Jay ‘Posie Parker’ Keen-Minshull has consistently reinforced their identity as women, adult human female. The founder of Standing For Women, Posie Parker, also launched a billboard in Liverpool with the definition of ‘woman’ on it.


Matt Walsh’s documentary also fails to make a substantial corrective notion of the trans ideology. Walsh gave a lot of screen time to trans allies and their argument and spent little to no time exploring the other side of the debate – how sex is binary, and the claims of transactivists are primarily false and illogical. 


The sole objective of a piece like ‘What Is A woman’ should be to show that women exist, as adult human females, spotlight many logical and credible arguments of the women grounded in their existence, and reveal why gender ideology is harmful to women as a sex class.


It shouldn't be a film, just to add insult to the injury, question women's existence, and stop there. That is deeply offensive.


At the end of the documentary, Walsh goes home to ask his wife the same question he has asked others, ‘What Is A woman’. She gave the correct answer; an adult human female. However, that begs the question, why didn’t he start by probing the question from his home?


Why travel the world to find an answer to a question your wife could simply provide?


As the Yoruba people would say, Oun to'n wa lo sokoto, o’n be lapo sokotò [what you are searching for in a long-distance is simply near you]. 


So, is Matt Walsh really interested in the truth at all, or is he just having some fun?


Walsh also travelled to Massai, Kenya, to find the answer to his question. As rightfully revealed in the documentary, the Massai people have a strong sense of self and identity. They found the idea of transgenderism ridiculous, but attempting to make transgenderism mostly an American problem would be incorrect. Maybe not the Massai, but there are some Kenyans and many woke Africans who have bought into the idea of transgenderism. Although mostly a western problem because of the sympathy it has received from the western government, it is also a ‘woke’ problem irrespective of the country.


Another fascinating aspect of Matt Walsh’s documentary is Walsh’s lack of self-awareness. One of the reasons people buy the idea of transitioning into the opposite sex superficially is because they hold on to the belief of gender roles, and the societal construct of masculinity and feminity, so much so that they are willing to undergo surgeries and claim to be the opposite sex.


Yet Matt Walsh, who is probing the transgender group to spotlight their irrationality, also believes in gender roles. He showcased in the documentary that while he was traveling the world working, his wife was in the kitchen making sandwiches.


Starting the film with a misogynistic view of women and associating them with the colour pink, Matt also ends it with the notion that women are weak. The last few minutes of the documentary showed his wife asking him to help open a jar.


With views like that of Walsh and journalistic pieces like ‘What Is A Woman’ that portray women as confused and weak entities, is it any surprise that the existence of women as a sex class is being denied?


Rather than a documentary, like Matt Walsh's ‘What Is A woman’, I would recommend Gender critical women's YouTube videos like that of Magdalen Berns. They not only reveal the inconsistencies of the transgender ideology, but also assert the correct view of who women are – a unique sex class, who is not a feeling, weakling, or an idea in anyone’s mind but a human being who deserves to be respected and acknowledged.


This article was first published on Netng. 

Simbiat Bakare is an expert in communications. The author of the Book: Love in Hell, Simbiat’s creative contents have been published in Malimbe Magazine, Ekocity Magazine, The Nation, Virtue Digest, The Ready Writers, Kobo, 234 Star, Amazon, Sons of Issachar Concepts amongst others. Aside from being a writer, Simbiat is a feminist. She loves travelling and reading fictional works of intellectual writers.

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