The Matt Walsh Show - What is a Woman? Reunion
Episode Date: June 10, 2023One year after the historic release of What is a Woman?, we’ve gathered the heroes from the film to share important updates in the fight against radical gender ideology. Join Matt Walsh, Michael Kno...wles, Dr. Jordan B. Peterson, Dr. Miriam Grossman, Dr. Debra Soh, Scott Newgent, Sara Stockton, Selina Soule, Paula Scanlan, and director Justin Folk for an in-depth discussion. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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Hey, everybody, this is Matt Walsh. You're about to listen to our What Is a Woman Reunion event.
Michael Knowles, the director of the film, Justin Folk, and I sit down with some of the main
heroes of the film to talk about what has happened over the past year since the release of the film.
Plus, the anonymous U. Penn Swimmer finally unveils herself. A lot going on. Thanks for listening.
And enjoy the show. One year ago, transgender ideology was spreading like a pandemic,
infecting schools, workplaces, and government policy all around the country.
Few people understood the enormity of what was happening. Fewer people knew how to talk.
about it, and fewer people still knew what to do to stop it.
And then, DailyWire Plus released Matt Walsh's What Is a Woman,
our biggest production to date, bringing hundreds of thousands of you into the DailyWire
membership community, which now tops 1 million people.
What is a woman, Joe?
What is a woman?
That documentary was fantastic.
What is a woman in many ways defined 2022.
On social media, the conversation surrounding What is a Woman garnered over a quarter billion
views and the film has been watched in 70 countries. It was even screened by the Nigerian
mission to the United Nations during the meeting of the annual commission on the status of women.
After What is a Woman, Dictionary.com named Woman the word of the year. Can you please define for me
what is a woman? What is a woman? What is a woman? What is a woman? Oh, now again, that's a whole other thing.
Not only did the movie reach a wide audience. The film led to a 1,000% spike in discussions
of the child mutilation procedures performed in the name of transgenderism.
This groundswell of public support then moved from living rooms and auditoriums into
the streets and into state capitals.
Matt hosted the largest rally in the nation against radical gender ideology.
He testified before the Tennessee House and he stood by as Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves
signed a ban on child mutilation into law.
As Matt continued to expose the harms of chemical castration drugs, cross-sex horn,
hormones and the surgical removal of healthy body parts from children, more and more state
legislators began to step up to protect children and ban these barbaric practices.
Now, one year since this historic release, we have some never-before-seen footage from
What is a Woman, and we'll be joined by the heroes of the film, who will bring us some
important updates to the story.
Now that everybody in the world has seen What is a Woman, I'm very pleased to be joined
for a reunion by the stars of the movie. We have the director here, Justin Fulk. We have the on-screen
star of the movie, the one and only Matt Walsh. I am tepidly pleased to be joined by you, too.
I'm extraordinarily pleased to be joined by both of you, Dr. Miriam Grossman and Scott Nugent.
First of all, thank you both for coming in for this one-year anniversary of the film. Dr. Grossman,
I'd like to start with you. You are a psychiatrist. You're an author. You have a new book coming
out lost in Transnation. Very important topic. And I'm a sucker for a good pun. So I very much
look forward to that book. You're still practicing. The science seems pretty clear to me.
And yet so many people in your field have affirmed the transgender ideology, especially
for children. Where does the field stand?
Well, I think it's important to begin with just acknowledging the tremendous pain that's going on in homes all over the country because of this issue.
And I think that that's sometimes lost among all the discussions that we have on this topic is the fact that parents are ambushed.
They're caught unaware until one day at dinner their child announces that they're the opposite sex.
and they would like a different name, pronouns,
and they would like an appointment to go get hormones.
And this is catastrophic for many families,
and it ends up being the most difficult thing they've ever been through.
And the point that I want to drive home here
is that this is a man-made catastrophe.
This is man-made.
And that, I mean, my goal,
right now is to educate families so that they are prepared before this happens. They need the
education and the tools at their fingertips before this happens in their families. So if their kid is
two or five or whatever age they are, they have to understand that this may be in the cards for them.
Their kid may one day come home and make this announcement and tell their parents, you know what,
if you're not willing to support me in this journey, I'm going to find a family that is willing to.
And parents have to be prepared. So that's really the gist of what my book is about.
I think a lot of people, they just hear about this issue on TV, not from Matt Walsh, but they'll hear
about it from the establishment media. It'll all be glossed over, and they'll be told that
if you don't engage in the transgender ideology, you're harming your children. Your children
could kill themselves. You don't want that, do you? Okay, go along to get along.
Scott, you have experienced the transgender ideology more intimately than most people have.
You've seen this up close. Your testimony in the movie, it's the most powerful part of the movie.
I think it resonates for a lot of people to see this really up close.
Well, what I try to do in the movie is just tell the truth. And, you know, when the narrative is
talked to by conservatives or by people that we think are in.
to have a certain position, it's gotten glossed over with the idea that, hey, they don't really
know what's going on. But as a lesbian, as somebody that has medically transitioned, I'm
kind of am the rainbow when I'm coming up and telling people that, listen, you know, all seven
studies that came out that said that medically transitioning children is beneficial, had been
retracted or modified. The only one long-term study that's out there finds that these kids
are going to be more suicidal seven to ten years after. So we're giving these kids, you know,
three, four times the doses of normal hormones. They're suicide.
They're going to be the most suicidal after.
We have Europe shutting things down, left and right.
We have Sweden.
The spines of girls aren't fusing together properly because of puberty blockers.
We are nuts right now.
And I think it's funny in the last year, it's been the worst year of my life.
I've been kicked off of Twitter three times.
I've been fired by my non-binary manager who's married to a transgender woman.
I've been kicked off of YouTube.
I mean, my life has been a nightmare.
And I, of all people, have been suppressed the most.
with my word because I make the most sense, and that's the truth.
Right.
You're telling the truth emotionally and the medical truth as well.
And that's why you and I and everyone who's doing that, it gets into a lot.
We're simply correcting the misinformation that exists.
Absolutely.
And that is my concern, that parents have misinformation from the schools, from their pediatricians,
from their therapists and from our government.
Absolutely.
And you talked about the dinner table, you know, where they come out.
Well, at that point, Dr. Rosman, the hook is in.
You know, from my perspective, I've been there.
I never fit in.
I was same-sex attracted.
I skipped a grade.
All these kids don't feel like they fit in.
They're either autistic or mentally gifted or mentally ill or abused families.
All the things that we don't want to admit because we think is so transphobic,
but it's the truth.
They don't fit in.
And so we're telling them that they get a fin by all these people that we're supposed to believe.
So that hook is in.
By the time they go home, you're dead in the water.
Right.
By the time, that's right.
By the time the announcement is made, you know, it's already, it's going to be tough.
And they're being, the kids are given a framework for understanding what oftentimes
are just normal childhood emotions, especially adolescents, puberty.
you're feeling not at home in your own body.
You're feeling like something's not exactly right.
That's normal.
And then the, right, is it the trans ideology comes along and says to the kids, well, okay,
you're feeling that way.
Here's how to make sense of it.
And then it all kind of comes in place.
Once that locks in place, it's like parents are fine people.
But you know what?
It really starts years before that.
It starts when they're three, four years old.
And their nursery school teacher reads,
them, I am jazz, and it says in there, I'm a girl who was born in a boy's body with a
girl's brain. You tell that to a three or four year old, that's going to stick. But why are we
telling kids that? I mean, there has to be a why. And the why is this. I think this really
enlightens people. In 2015, there were 22 kids in the state of Texas that were on puberty blockers
on a four-year spread that yields about $4.6 million worth of profit. Two years later,
After the governor started to get $2.5 million worth of donations, it went to 4,000 percent.
That 4,000 percent went from $4.6 million to just under $100 million, just in that little area.
So why is it that we're medically transitioning kids?
It's because we're enlightened, or it's because we have a whole bunch of people that are in these business meetings saying that, hey, we're going to have the unicorn farts, the glitter bombs, the gay people are going to be right behind us, yelling and screaming, telling everybody that they're transphobic.
We're going to be the light.
Everybody's going to buy our product.
This is going to be great.
And we're going to be protected for about 10 years.
We're going to make so much money.
We're going to write a check afterwards.
We're going to be done.
Those people that are doing that right now need to go to prison.
Because you're citing these studies of all the promised benefits of the transition for adults,
and especially now for kids, they're not coming true.
And the data that we have before us, including the largest data sets,
the biggest studies on it, are actually showing that either they don't accomplish those goals
or sometimes they undermine those goals when we're talking about anxiety, depression, suicidality.
And all of this we are told is in the name of inclusion.
We'll look at people who have been excluded from the conversation in the mainstream.
And the particular vitriol that you, Scott, have been met with.
So now we're at the beginning of Pride Month.
What a great way to kick off Pride Month all here together, telling the truth about this.
Well, first of all, let's talk about the studies, the studies that tell us what happened.
to these children, there aren't any.
Well, I'm going to interrupt.
Oh, go ahead.
We do have, I mean, we have studies from the earlier cohort,
not from the ROGD, these kids right now,
but from the earlier cohort we have studies,
they're very poor studies.
Very poor.
And this is part of the misinformation that parents are getting
when you go to your pediatrician
or you go to the guidance counselor at school
and they say, oh,
you know, oh, this is all, you know, established and well researched, and there's a consensus,
there's a medical consensus.
Dr. Admiral Levine says to the whole country from Washington, there's a medical consensus.
No, there is not.
And that's not transphobic.
There is a debate raging, a fierce debate, an international debate that is raging that is raging
between medical and psychological professionals on this point of how do we help these kids.
And as Scott just mentioned, Western Europe, Scandinavia, there's now a number of countries
who are doing a 180, and they are severely restricting, if not banning these medical interventions
that in this country, you can get in 20 minutes.
Well, heck, my president just said,
that, hey, we need to trans younger, faster, and include surgeries like I did that have a 67%
complication rate, that my doctor charged my insurance company $257,000, just for him, a total
of about $357,000 before complications. After complications were up to $1.3 million. I get
reoccurring infections for last year. And that's going to end my life early. This is a big deal.
This is also why, I'm curious what you guys think about this, but the question
of studies, because it's correct that there aren't any reliable studies. But I tend to think that
once we get into this back and forth about we need studies, there are no studies, it's already a losing
game in some ways, because my answer is always, when someone says, well, look at the studies,
I don't care about the studies, because number one, this is common sense. This is just a basic
fundamental fact that a young boy who says he's a girl is not a girl, so I don't need a study on
that. And I also think that there's another point about this that I don't hear raised very often
which is that the claim that we need to transition kids now,
because if we don't, they're going to commit suicide,
well, if that's true, and if it's also true that there's always been all these trans people out there,
and they just were, you know, this is not a social contagion, there's always been trans people,
but they just didn't feel comfortable coming out.
Well, then if we look back through history, we should find historically for centuries,
just kids killing themselves constantly, because they weren't been,
affirmed, and that didn't even exist. And yet we don't. That didn't exist up until very recently.
The childhood suicide phenomenon is very modern. Kids didn't start doing that until very recently.
So, you know, you have all in your respective fields pushed back against us very strongly.
But we are here at Pride Month. It's the beginning of Pride Month.
Scott, you've pushed back on that front as much as anybody. So...
Well, what I find is that most kids...
and lesbians, and even transgender people.
When you get us alone, we all think that medically transitioning children is nuts.
We all think that the LGBTQ needs to be out of the school system.
Unfortunately, there's not very many people that are saying that out loud.
So I came up with this idea.
The whole month of pride, we're doing an anti-counter pride protest run by gays and lesbians
and transgender people and gays against groomers.
And we're starting what's called the Rainbow Rebellion.
I have hundreds of videos of all trans, gay,
lesbians, bisexual, saying one thing.
LGBTQ, get away from kids.
We don't belong there.
We're a soft place to fall for adults and adults only.
Perverts and money mongers get away from children.
And that's coming from the rainbow, my friend.
Rainbow.
Expect to be excluded more than just about anybody.
You know, I don't stop.
I think people have probably gotten that by now.
You're not going to stop me.
Yeah.
Unfortunately, though, we do have to stop right now.
We have to move on to the next segment.
So wonderful to be with both of you, Dr. Grossman, Scott.
You two, you're sticking around.
We've got a lot more coming up in just a moment.
What do you do inside the home usually?
Do you eat inside the home or do you eat outside?
Or is this basically just for sleeping?
She's saying first she must clean inside of the house every day.
And they also cook inside of the house.
And after cooking, she gave the young children the food supply.
And she's the one to tell them time to sleep.
Is it hard work to keep the home?
No.
No.
Keeping the house clean and taking up the young children, that is their duty.
So they see like it's not much work.
What do you think is the secret to the children?
What do you think is the secret to a happy marriage?
I think is the secret to a happy marriage.
That's what you're going to be.
Okay, number one.
Having kids, that is to make a family to run smoothly
because always a man needs the children's.
If you have kids, that's number one.
Secondly, you take care your husband very well.
You know, where I come from, there are a lot of people who think that the secret to be happy is to not have kids.
Kiddakuron, eh, you know what I'm going to say that's a serious,
in my culture I come from, lots of people are very depressed.
Do you have depression here?
You're right?
Do you need to run a runny?
No, can't rush since I name you?
No.
No depression?
People are happy.
People are very happy and friendly.
Can we bring them over here?
Can they teach in our schools?
I didn't see any therapists.
Yeah, we were saying we should have invited that.
Paul was our translator.
It would have been nice to have them here at the roundtable.
Yeah.
It's hard to get a hold of them.
Well worth the flight over here, I think.
It was probably the highlight of the movie.
And I'll tell you, sometimes around here, when people go on filming excursions,
sometimes I get a little envious.
You know, they go to Italy or something.
They go to the United Kingdom.
When you guys went to Africa in the heat and the bugs and I was not envious.
But it was worth it.
A lot of flies.
A lot of flies.
You would have been even less envious if you were in the security meetings that we had here at Daily Wire.
We had probably three of them, but we had to have conversations about, like, what do you do if you get kidnapped by terrorists?
And that sort of thing.
And we were informed that Jeremy informed us he wouldn't pay a ransom, at least not for me.
So just how it is.
You know, I thought we were excited to go.
But the one thing going there was we didn't really know, it was a little bit of a fishing expedition because we didn't know exactly what they would say.
And the whole idea was to take these Western ideas about gender.
hold it up in front of these people and just see how they react to it.
A pretty good idea of how they would react, but of course there's no way to know.
And also, Western culture has the actual real ideological colonialism that happens on part of the left
is so pervasive that it's impossible to know how far these ideas have reached.
And the fear, I think, comes from this ironic fact that when the libs are promoting gender ideology,
they'll often try to couch it in indigenous culture.
So they'll say, actually, the indigenous peoples of Africa and America, they've long understood that gender is a spectrum.
They have the concept of two-spiritedness. But then you go and talk to the indigenous people.
Well, I think that was the root of the idea itself was, I think Matt had this idea to go to one of these places where we often hear from progressives like, oh, no, this is normal.
Actually, it's happening over here. Actually, it's everywhere. And we just wanted to test that theory out a bit.
And we had looked at different places around the world that we could go.
We settled on the Maasai people because they're fairly open to outsiders coming in and talking to them.
So we thought that might be a good thing and not be murdered when we showed up.
You go to Papua New Guinea.
Yeah, exactly.
No, we had talked about going to talk to the Aborigines.
And Australia had really crazy COVID restrictions so we couldn't get in there.
But the Messiah people were perfect for this.
And to Matt's point, we didn't know exactly what they were going to say, but it was refreshing to hear their point of view and that they weren't bogged down by all this crazy ideology.
I mean, they're worried about other things. They're worried about lions coming in and eating their people.
They're not worried about the crazy notions of gender that we hear every day.
And they had an important perspective, too, talk about not knowing what they would say, which is you talk to a lot of even conservative people in America.
say, what is a woman?
They'll say, two X chromosomes.
What is a woman?
It's just a uterus or something.
Their answer was a little different than that.
Their answer was the woman is the one who does the duty of the woman.
It was tied to family.
It was tied to procreation and family.
Yeah.
That was their first answer.
When we first asked the question, they started talking about the duties and responsibilities
of a woman versus a man.
And the reason to answer that way was because at first it didn't even occur to them
that we would be asking on a more basic level than that.
They just assumed that we knew that.
But it did, once we got past the basic stuff and they explained that, you know, women don't have penises, then it always did come back to responsibility.
I thought it was really interesting in that clip asking her if she's happy.
And her first answer was, yeah, taking care of my kids and I'm taking care of my husband.
Of course I'm happy.
Which is actually, we talked to Carl Truman in the film also, who wrote the book Rise and Triumph of Modern Self.
And he makes this point in the book that if you, our conception of happiness is very modern.
and it's all tied to how we feel,
but he makes the point of the book,
if you go back to your great-grandfather
and you ask him, are you happy?
He's going to immediately talk about his job,
caring for his family.
And if he's doing that, of course he's happy.
And so he makes that point in the book.
And then we go to a tribe that essentially lives in the past,
and that's exactly how they think.
Now, my favorite moments in the film
were really people who were not so happy.
And they didn't come back here for the reunion.
I don't know, maybe their responses are lost in the mail or something.
My favorite one was that professor guy who kept on getting so angry that you brought up the notion of the truth.
I also loved the pixie haircut lady who entertained your suggestion that because you watched sex in the city, you might really be a woman.
With the hostile interviews, one, how'd you keep a straight face?
Two, how did you keep most of them in the room most of the time?
Three, did the ones who didn't catch on, did they ever figure it out?
I think, yeah, there was always, it was, one thing we discovered is like psychologically,
people don't like to get up and leave.
So we were able to exploit that.
People will stand, the people will sit there for much longer than you think.
I think also their position is so crazy that it's hard for them, you know,
it's hard for them to figure out exactly what we're going to.
going with. But I think, you know, the whole point was we kept a neutral sort of position and we just,
and we just asked questions. And as long as we could bring it back to the question every time,
they would still stand there. But there'd always be that moment that you could tell where
something flips in their minds and they start to realize this isn't exactly how they thought
it was going to go. And it's always when, like the first time they get a real question,
not a hard question, but just a real one. And it was often a question that I didn't think would
send up any alarm bells for them? Just something really basic. Like one question that tripped them up a lot
was, okay, what is the difference between sex and gender? You claim there's a difference.
What is it? Can you explain it? And I think for every one of our hostile interviews, that question
was difficult for them in a way that I didn't think it would be. And by the way, Matt's being
pretty modest about this, too, because I do feel that people would normally get up and leave
at a certain situation. But he just has a
it's just an amazing ability to engage but not show anything.
So they're engaging with Matt, but they're trying to read him, and they're not getting anything.
And that just kind of like, it just prolongs things.
Psychopathy is, I think.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
And so I think that that actually extended things out a bit.
But what was interesting is that, you know, that we went in there and we basically broke into their bubble.
A lot of these people are not challenged.
you mentioned the professor.
Like, he spends all day talking to people that just nod at everything that he says.
And so the moment he gets asked a real question, which, again, to what Matt just said,
was a very basic question.
He just unraveled.
It was fascinating to watch these conversations take place.
I sort of say, Justin also had the hard job for this in many ways, but especially because
in these really, you know, the awkward interviews, the great thing is once the interview was over,
I get to just leave.
And he has to stay there and clean up all the equipment and stuff,
which was interesting, especially for the congressman who stormed out,
but we're in his office.
So he's stormed out, but he's there.
And after it was over, I said, okay, see you guys in the car.
Matt hits the road.
He's getting a hamburger, and we're like, we're in there for another 20 minutes.
Sorry, Congressman.
We'll be out by evening.
A lot of those interviews were very funny, especially, you know,
the poor professor guy.
You just, you can't help but laugh at him.
You can't help but laugh at their bethuttlement.
One of the interviews was a little bit less funny,
and it was one of the people who had actually some answers to your questions.
There was really pretty dark answers.
I'm thinking about Marcy Bowers.
Marcy Bowers seems to know what he's doing.
To me, that's a hell of a lot spookier than someone who is just a little bit confused.
Has there been any update with Dr. Bowers?
Well, and you're right, because that was one, it's probably the only person we talked to on that side who was willing to answer questions.
And he did show a willingness to sort of admit what this is.
And now, as far as I know, Marcy Bowers leads is now the president of W. Path.
And at the time, he was in the organization.
W.Path is the World Professional Association of Transgender Health, which is like the number one trans organization in the world.
set the standard that all the other medical organizations follow. And now he's in charge of that
organization, which happened after what is... When we talked to Marcy Bowers, Marcy was on par with
breaking the world record of the most gender transition surgeries within months. And so I assume
that's already taken place by now. That is a dark and dubious title to hold. But there was,
There were dark things in that interview that we didn't,
that don't make it into the film,
just because we got to cut down for time.
And also, it went in directions that didn't directly have to do with the topic,
so we couldn't put it in the film.
Can I ask?
But some of those are.
Yeah, well, one example that comes immediately to mind
is he admitted to cutting off a person's penis
who was not gendered dysphoric,
and the complaint of the man who wanted his penis amputed,
was that it was ugly. And so he had this conversation about, where Marcy Bowers is justifying,
cutting off the ugly penis, and I'm asking questions about it. And he says, well, it was a really
ugly, it was a really ugly penis. Marcy's... Yeah, it's, that, 100% that happened.
Yeah, which is ironic because Matt had just brought the point of trans-Abalism. And if somebody
comes into Marcy and says, hey, I don't like my arm. I want you to cut it off. I have another
appendage. I just don't like it. It's a real disorder, gender, or a body integrity.
Right, and Matt had just brought that up previously, not minutes before, and then talks about this other patient that wants to get rid of his penis because it's ugly.
And Marcy even says, oh, it was ugly.
I remember that moment.
It looked like, what did Marcy describe it as?
A rotten toadstool.
So we had a lot of rich description in that interview that when we...
It's amazing that the arguments all differ.
you know, I'm secretly a woman. I have a toadstool of an appendage. I have this, I have that.
But the prescription is always the same. Chop it off. Sterellize yourself. Try to become something
that is not in accord with your nature. A lot of pushback against all of this, including against the doctors who are a little bit more on our side.
Dr. Deborah Soe, who was in the movie, was spied upon giving her interview. And the, the
There was a radical gender ideologue outside who accosted Deborah after the interview and demanded that she delete the footage.
Yeah, I'll let Justin talk about that because I know that, but it did prove exactly the point she was making in the interview.
Yeah, it was bizarre because she was talking about how you're not allowed to talk about certain things in this community.
And we had just finished the interview and she was confronted by this person.
And this person demanded that we didn't like the conversation and demanded that we delete all the footage.
Is it that you didn't appreciate what I was saying?
I was February, I'm not trying to offend anyone with what I'm saying.
I would honestly like to understand.
Well, I am a scientist.
Well, I am a scientist.
Research was always done even by the Nazis, for the
Okay, so you're comparing sex researchers to Nazis?
I'm not comparing sex researchers.
I'm in kind of the conclusions you're making to the same type of conclusions other people try to make.
And I don't want to get into a debate right now about this.
I mean, I appreciate your research.
feedback. I wish that you would consider the things that I say based on the merit as
opposed to it being an emotional evaluation. I was trying. I just hope you listen to the
community. I do and I'm coming from a place of as I said I grew up in the gay
community. I see a lot of what's happening right now is anti-gay.
I would you say that but not a cis has a sexual woman? Okay. Would you like a copy of my
book? Are you sure? I'm not. I heard your interview and there was
We are now joined by a paragon of patience.
I think more patience than any of us would have had, Dr. Deborah.
So as well as by Sarah Stockton, another hero of the movie.
Deborah, got to start with you, because, you know, cisgender women,
they're some of my very favorite people, actually,
and you were castigated for being such a maligned person,
and you were attacked, rhetorically at least, by this person
who had been listening in, and because you came to certain scientific conclusions, called you a Nazi.
Yeah, clearly the face of a Nazi, if you couldn't tell.
You could tell, yeah.
A little mustache.
I mean, I literally had just finished the interview with Matt and Justin, and I was getting my jacket.
We were going out to film some B-roll outside, and all I could think was, what was I just saying?
Like, wasn't I just saying this exact thing?
And it was just very surreal to me.
In that clip, I was very Canadian in terms of how polite I was being.
Trust me, if that happened today, I would not be that nice.
I feel that my perspective and my experiences over the last year and a half
since we film that have changed quite a bit in terms of how I see the activists.
I mean, before came to the table really in trying to build bridges,
trying to have compassion and understanding and trying to compromise
and really trying to meet them halfway.
and I've realized that it's just not possible.
It's not going to happen.
These people are not interested in being reasonable
in coming to any common ground.
You know, I see Matt getting a lot of flack
for some of his commentary on you as well.
And honestly, I think the people criticizing you guys
are way out of line because they do not know
what it is like.
They don't know what all of us have had to deal with
with the things that we say
and the harassment we face.
It's constant.
It's unrelenting.
It is unhinged.
And so, yeah, I mean,
the only thing I think it would
have done differently is maybe not offered my book.
I thought that was great.
And we talked about this in the green room, but I really, I thought you handed it perfectly,
you handed it perfectly.
So impressive.
And it kind of, the way you're feeling about it, it kind of reminds me in some ways of the entire film,
because this is a conversation we had while we were filming it, where I would go to Justin
and say, I feel like I need to yell at these people.
Instead of just sitting there and listening to them, I need to go, we need to do one
where I could just go yell at them.
But we always pulled back from that because we really realized.
realize, no, we want to, we're being reasonable. Let them be unreasonable. And that contrast is
really revealing, which you really find is in microcosm in that clip there. So you've had this
change in your mind in terms of at least what is possible in communicating. And I agree with you.
We've all been in political fights and the pushback from the pro trans activists. It is
another thing entirely. It is not different in degree. It's different in kind. And Sarah, you've
obviously had a major shift in your reviews here because you once, your marriage and family
therapist, you once supported, advocated for.
Worked with Marcy.
You worked with Marcy Bowers.
The head of W. Path and one of the people most clearly pushing transing the kids, and you
supported those policies, and then you changed your mind.
Yeah.
And I think what was really weird about the documentary, it's not even just anti-trans.
I got articles written about me, they came for me around the furry segment.
And they wrote an article in which, I mean, claimed that I was lying to them because I couldn't
give them a name of who I was speaking about.
And I was just like, wow, we're not even interested in the truth.
Like you said, is we're not a hip a violation to you?
Right.
Yes.
And I said, you know where I live and where I practice.
So it's a process of elimination in, you know, of schools.
So I think that's been really concerning.
And since then, I get calls, I would say, five, at least five a day about this from parents and counselors.
And it's way worse than I thought it was a year ago.
So what are these people calling you to ask?
I mean, so one of the big things is I got out of treating trans for about six, seven years.
So now to be back in it, now I would say I'm back.
80% of my clients are dealing with this stuff.
But they are calling me because schools are transitioning their kids without parents' consent.
They are getting placed in gym classes with other genders when they're very young,
getting taught this without any medical backing.
They're going to, you know, like, oh, yes, you are something.
It's not even, hey, you're going to be presenting as something as trans.
It's no, you just decide and you will have.
So I have to explain to 17-year-olds that, no, like, you will not be a male.
You will be presenting as one.
And they don't understand that.
And so I'm very concerned with that.
And the identity, I mean, my, I mean, people think I'm blind, but my son has a dinosaur in his class.
Right.
Like, what's going on?
This is way beyond, you know, reasonable.
I think my thing that's been I'm not happy about is we're still the main practitioners talking about it.
You know, it's hard that Matt has to be the ones that are speaking about politically.
We have to hang out with the Nazis in order to talk about it.
You know, I am, you know, going to.
A dangerous bunch over here.
Yeah, I knew going to you twice that I couldn't pretend that I didn't know the first time.
So, but we need to say something.
I don't know what is exactly going on that I have some counselors that are calling me,
but more like Singapore, Italy have been emailing me asking for help,
but not professionals here.
And I don't know what's going to take to wake up because we have to do it.
Or, I mean, I went on Jordan Peterson because we're going to start getting sued.
And I don't know when we're going to look at that.
If you can't be pressured by the online mob, you'll be pressured by the financial mob.
Yes.
pressured by the legal mob. You'll be pressured by all of these things. What strikes me about
the two of you is you're so moderate, you're so open-minded to these views, you're really
not ideological in, and yet it seems like perhaps because of that, people are going after
you with particular vigor. The crazy thing is I find is they don't even represent, well, I can't
speak for you, but for me, they don't represent my views at all in terms of when they try,
to argue against me. It's very much they straw my position. And at first I thought maybe they
just don't understand what I'm saying or maybe they are misguided. But I really think in some cases
they intentionally misrepresent us because they don't want to have to engage with us. They don't want
to have to actually understand our position and look into it and try to understand the nuance.
It's so much easier just to make up a boogeyman and then attack that and then also get all
their friends and their colleagues to come after us because when you create this horrible
creation of somebody or of your critics and you demonize them, it's much easier to get people
amped up and angry. Now, what about the colleagues? Because we talk a lot about maybe parents calling
you, maybe patients calling you. You are so prominent in terms of your fields. Do you have
colleagues calling you saying, hey, keep up the good fight? Hey, I'm on your side. Hey, I'd like to help
out. Or are you standing alone? I tell people I joke that I'm the mafia about. I'm a
and I don't know what, of what?
But people call me, well, what are we going to do about it?
Like, what's the next step?
I talked to Matt.
That was step what, I guess.
I don't know what's next.
But yeah, I mean, I do get a lot of calls saying, well, what can we do?
Is there a group?
Is there something?
And I think we're developing it.
I've been working a lot with Stella O'Malley in Ireland,
because they have, in Jen Speck, they seem to be doing something.
But we don't have a professional group yet here.
And I don't know why.
But are these people willing to do that?
to go public?
Remains to be seen.
They want to be on a list.
They want to be on the list.
On a secret list.
That's why...
Because I get the same question all the time.
What can we do about it?
And the answer is, well, you can start by saying something.
You know, rather than...
Because it's...
If we're out here and we have the mob
descending on us, ripping us the shreds,
and you're like hiding off in the bushes somewhere.
It's like, hey, good job out there.
At a boy, buddy.
Right.
The best thing that you, so rather that, I think we tend to think of this in like general terms and think, well, what can society do? What can everyone do? Well, what can you individually do? And especially if you're in a professional field that deals with this, just to say anything publicly to indicate that you're one of the sane ones would be a huge first step at least. And I am surprised. It seems like the sports is going the farthest. And I wouldn't have guessed that. But it's because they're speaking out.
There's five of them at least.
I mean, maybe a couple of us therapists, right?
But that has surprised me that that's what might take it all farther, is that in jail.
You know, you have insight not only on the issue of sex and gender,
you also have incredible insight into media,
because we are now about to be joined by people who are fighting this battle in the realm of women's sports.
And from the perspective, one of the groups that is most attacked by transgender ideology,
that is young women.
Let's say a male says, I'm a woman, doesn't bother you that he says that?
No, I...
But do you think it's true, though?
No, I don't think it's true, but I will not disrespect a person.
I think for probably most of human history, this would have been the most uncontroversial
question in the world, right?
Like, what is a woman? Nobody...
Well, we know what a woman is.
Yeah.
So why is it controversial now?
Because you don't want to hurt anybody's feelings or you say the wrong thing.
Be respectful and abide by what...
they would prefer to be called as.
I don't want to be a man, and I don't want to date a man that's a woman, or a woman that's a man.
But you know what?
Teach their own.
America is landed free, you know, so whatever makes you happy, you know, you do what you do so long as you're not hurting anybody in the process, you know?
If you can't respect somebody for who that is, you can't get along with nobody in this world, you know what you got going on, don't bother me at all.
So I feel like it's kind of messed up when people hate crimes or, uh, um, you can't get a, um, you can't
gender bash or I guess what it's thought.
People are free to do what they want and be who they want now that they could never have done
20 years ago, 30 years ago, 40 years ago.
That's very clear.
Are you a conservative pundit?
What's that?
Are you a conservative funder?
I'm conservative, yeah.
Okay, okay, cool.
Okay, well, thank you so much for that conversation.
The main question I think we face as a society with this issue is what is a woman.
Wow, that's, I think...
It's what you feel comfortable.
I don't know. What do you say? Biologically capable of giving birth.
And you have... I'm light and love. I'm not going to put definitions on anything.
Okay. It's not my job. It's not what I've been put on earth for. I'm just going to put love and light everywhere I go.
And whatever you, you, you, you, you, you decide. What do you think you want to be, when you are, what you decide tomorrow.
It's still going to love.
In the most simplest terms, a human being that can carry and deliver a baby.
We've got two paragons of light and love with us right now, two heroes of the fight to protect women's sports.
Before we get to that, though, I don't want to get too off track, but I feel we have to address the 180-pound naked man in the room.
180 pounds is generous, by the way.
I was trying to be polite to the...
How'd you meet him?
I mean, I was forced into that.
It's like a form of workplace violence, really.
I was forced to have that conversation with a naked man.
Forced by one Mr. Justin Falk.
Yeah, I was not...
We saw the guy walking by, and Justin said, we should talk to that guy.
And I said, no, we shouldn't.
And next thing I know, I look over, and he's talking to the guy and motioning me over.
And that's what happened.
I'm like, Matt, you've got to commit to this.
If we're going to make this film, you know, a naked guy's got to be part of this at some point,
and here's our opportunity.
So I'm just to talk to this guy.
I'm really glad that you guys did not curse us with the wide shot on that interview that was relatively close up.
Ladies, wonderful to have you with us on the topic of protecting women's sports.
So, Selena, we've seen you in the movie.
You were high school athlete.
You have now been one of the main leaders of the five.
to keep men out of the women's locker room.
Paula, we have not seen you before.
We've heard from you, but we have not seen you before
because you were obscured.
You were in shadows in the movie
for fear of retribution here.
And now the shadows are gone,
and you're telling us exactly who you are.
You are a former UPenn swimmer
who swam on the team with that dainty swimmer,
William Leah Thomas. Is that right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so I think one of my biggest things was at that time I was still
a student at Penn. You know, obviously you can't go to the university. Like the university you go to,
you can't go and bash them publicly while you're still a student there. I'm a year removed from that now.
And I think also there's pressure from my family to do the traditional thing and go, you know, be quiet,
sit at your desk, do a corporate job. And it's taken about a year of discussions within my family to realize it's time to come out.
So here I am, no shadows.
Did you fear reprisal?
Yeah, I mean, I had already received a lot of backlash internally from people I knew at school, from just speaking out anonymously.
From classmates or from...
Classmates and teammates and professors also that knew about it as well. Yeah.
Wow. But at this point, cats out of the bag, you feel you've got to come out and speak up.
Yeah, and I think, like, people like Selena obviously inspires me.
And I think, like, you've done so much in the fight in litigation, and it's been wonderful.
And I'm also from Connecticut as well.
So that does hit a little close to home, and I've known about her story.
And just knowing that we need to stand up for other girls.
I'm not swimming anymore.
I'm never going to compete competitively again, most likely.
So it's not about me, and it's about everyone else that needs to be protected.
And obviously, she's got a huge part of that fight.
She's doing such great things already, and I want to join her.
Selena, I remember when I came across your story years ago, I guess, at this point,
And you were running in Connecticut, high school athlete, and you start to have your accolades taken away by men.
Yeah, I had to compete against at least one biological male throughout all four years of high school after a year and a half.
One that competed as a man for three seasons, said it to switch over to the girls team and began to dominate in the girls' field.
And I never had a fair race when I raced against those two athletes.
We knew before we even got into the blocks, before we even got on the bus to get to the meet,
that we knew that we were going to come third and beyond, that there was no way that we were going to be able to come in first.
And they would be done with the 100 meter dash, chest bumping each other while the rest of us girls were at the 80 meter mark.
It was just never a fair contest.
So then what impelled you to bring this to court?
I mean, you have in many ways been leading the legal fight on this issue.
Why didn't you just sort of say, okay, well, I guess I'll take second place.
I guess I'll take third place. I don't want to rock the boat.
So my mother and I actually began fighting it locally.
We did it old school with the petition going around to other people at meets.
And once I lost down on qualifying for the New England championships in the indoor season in 2019,
when I was at that meet and two other events, I ended up getting all New England honors in those two events.
So I was forced into the sideline in the 55 meter dash.
That was my last straw.
And I said that we need to ask for these policies to be restored.
let women have their fair chance at sports.
And filing the lawsuit was last resort.
We talked to school administrators, legislators, we talked to the CAC.
They didn't want to deal with this issue.
They shifted around the blame.
And it's just we had no choice but to file the tunnel line complaint and then the lawsuit.
So you didn't rush to court.
You tried to pursue these other avenues.
Those were shut off to you.
So, I mean, you've been following these cases as long as I have.
We've got a kind of a conservative court, but the court also seems to be affirming the transgender ideology.
How is this going to turn out?
I'm not sure exactly how it's going to turn out, but I'm hoping that we will have a resolution in our favor someday,
and there will be some out there that will take a stand to protect women's sports because it's the right thing to do.
So I have a question for you, Selena.
So the first year that you had to race against the male, what year was that?
That was 2017, my freshman year of high school.
So I'm curious for you, 2017, that's years before most people really woke up to this issue.
So it was a very lonely fight early on.
So how did that feel early on when you were struggling against this and hardly anyone was talking about it?
And how do you feel the progress has been culturally on this issue?
Well, I warned everyone that this wasn't going to be an isolated incident when I started speaking out in 2018.
And now it's appearing in almost every sport at every level internationally.
but I'm so glad that there are other girls out there
like Paula that have decided to stand up and join me in the fight
because it's going to be much easier to fight this
with the more voices that we have.
Paula, the man who swam on your swim team,
I think got a lot of national attention
because it was just so obvious.
He's just a big, giant guy.
And what was most disturbing about Will Thomas's rise
as a student athlete, was not even him taking the trophies and him appearing in the leotard
or whatever. It was the leotard, as it were. Wow, I'm a sucker for... Call it whatever you want.
I was most disturbed by the other girls on the team who had to pretend that it was all okay.
Oh, yeah. I mean, I mentioned this in an interview I did with Matt, but the brainwashing the
university put on, like, I honestly give the University of Pennsylvania props. There was a girl
on the team who was so upset, crying about it saying, like, she spent the same events as Leah,
and went to go meet with someone in the athletic department and came back from the meeting and was
like, we're going to be so supportive, we're going to just spread love. I don't know, what went
on in that meeting? And there was meetings that they had with the whole team that worked. And I
mentioned this also with Matt that, you know, there was a night after they met with us.
And I called my family on the phone and I said, I can't talk about this anymore. I said,
I need to be quiet. I need to just, I literally stayed in my room for two and a half days without
leaving because I was so scared that like someone was going to come up to me and say, how dare you
speak about this publicly or anonymously to the media or any way at all? It was just like they did
such a great job of instilling fear in everyone. One of the most disturbing things from the film for me
was the when you talked about how the university came and met with all the female swimmers and they
offered all of you counseling if you could not bring yourselves to accept Leah Thomas as a woman.
because you're the ones who have a psychological problem in that, not Leah Thomas, it's you.
It's gaslighting.
I believe that I had a psychological problem.
I got my own therapist and I like tried to talk to a therapist about it.
You're kidding me.
No, for a moment, I was like, maybe I'm just not being accepting.
Like I did have this one moment where I was like, am I, maybe I'm missing something here and I need help, maybe.
I did one session and I was like, no, I know that I'm right, I know that this is the truth.
And I'm not going to let someone tell me that that's not.
It reminds me of that old TV show, the Monday.
I watched it on reruns, I'm not that old, but the monsters is this family of monsters who are all scary vampires.
And there's one beautiful blonde woman, and she thinks she's the ugly one.
And it makes me think of you where you say, I don't think that men are really women, and I don't think women should be forced to compete against men.
I guess I'm the crazy one.
I guess I'm the hateful one, the irrational one.
Yeah, and this therapist talked me through why people are transgender and what transgenderism is.
and why it's so important for them to be, you know, transitioning and whatever.
And I was like, and again, like, I'm a very loving and caring person.
And, like, when you play on my heartstrings and, like, you tell me something emotional,
like, you do get me.
And there's a few moments where I was like, oh, wow, maybe I'm really in the wrong here.
And then it was very brief.
It was like 12 hours.
And then I was like right back to this is so unfair and this is not right.
And we need to tell the real truth.
That was interesting.
Everybody we talked to in the film, though, was on the other side of this.
They all had the same exact argument.
They said, no, this isn't really happening.
If a biological male, trans woman wins an event, it's kind of an anomaly, it just happens.
They just happen to maybe work harder than the rest of the girl.
But really, like, I think Rodrigo, who's the guy from the Transgender Center in Washington, D.C. said this.
I think Marcy Bowers said it.
They basically discounted the fact that anybody's actually affected by this.
There aren't really real victims.
And by doing so, they're basically denying biological reality.
And you got to see that biological reality, probably a little bit too up close than you wanted to.
Yeah, definitely. And I know Selena has as well.
Like, she's showing me some pictures in the green room of some of these athletes that she had to race against.
And, you know, let's just say they're very obviously male.
And the establishment that's been pushing this ideology, it's not showing any signs of holding
up. I mean, clearly, even just from the courageous work that you are doing, there is a pushback
by the people here, but by women and men and all sorts of people. But the elites who are pushing
it, they're not letting up. And in certain other countries, I think, of America's top hat up in
Canada, they've gone even further on this ideology. And we have our Canadian friend, Jordan Peterson,
coming up to discuss what's going on up there. Thank you both for coming on. Thank you both for
fighting this fight when a lot of other cowardly people
want to run away from it. You've done a wonderful
job of that. If you think things are bad here in the United States, just think about
the father who was up in British Columbia and was arrested for
quote-unquote misgendering his daughter.
Hey, can you hear me? I can hear you, yes.
Well, hey, thanks for taking a moment to talk to us again.
Yeah, no problem. So your story
in what is a woman is one of the, I think one of the most powerful parts of the
film and it's it's one that I get asked about probably the most people want to know where it stands
right now what's happening with your case so I'll something we just jump right into it I mean first
of all are you still banned from talking publicly about your your story I am yeah I'm still under
my own gag orders then there's publication bans on top of that for everybody else so yeah
none of that has changed and and I know in the what is a is a woman documentary you know that I think
The last thing mentioned there was I was going to go into court in November, and that's been delayed.
So my court day is actually tomorrow.
Why was it delayed?
In this case, it was my delay to get it to tomorrow where I'm appealing this sentence.
I was the first time offender by telling a story about my child that I thought everyone deserved to kind of know what was going on in the schools.
And the reality of what parents were not being told, and I have a few interviews on that, and I get a six-month prison.
and sentence is a first time offense.
And so that's why tomorrow is important is because this is the precedent that this government
here is trying to set as a deterrent for any parent that, you know, has a child going through
this, decides, hey, I want to make some noise and say something what's going on.
But they're going to understand that, you know, they're facing a humongous penalty for saying
anything in opposition to this agenda.
My best case scenario is that I walk out of court in the next number of days, however long this takes.
and in the panel of three BC Supreme Court judges, at least two of them agree that my two months
was sufficient and that is the penalty. And I walk away with time served. So there's a bunch riding
on this. I mean, not just for me personally. I mean, obviously, for me personally, it's obvious
what's writing on it for months of jail. But even for people in British Columbia and in Canada,
there's a lot riding because that's a big deterrent to go from two months to six months.
If you lose tomorrow, if the tyrannical side wins out, what happens to you?
My lawyer says 70% chance I'm going back to jail to finish out that term.
She says she's never seen the government behave in this way.
She's like, they have made this their top priority in this case or not letting it go.
You're saying that's based on the political bias against you.
The government is just determined to see this all the way through.
That's it, yes.
Because in any other case, common sense would almost dictate that, you know, I've been out on bail now for, it's been about two years.
and my bail conditions are pretty strict, like super strict.
And so one would think in any other case, it'd be like, fine.
He's already spent a couple months in jail anyways.
Let's just let us go.
But they won't.
And that's exactly it, like you were saying, and what my lawyer says too, is that it's just so political.
They just have to see this through.
They've got to make this example.
How are you personally feeling heading into tomorrow?
You know, I was optimistic.
but I just because I don't see anything changing politically the climate here in British Columbia
and I face it as if I expect the four months. However, you know, if I get good news, then obviously
I'll be thrilled. But I'm mentally prepared for what I think is going to happen, which is
kind of the worst-paced scenario. What do you think needs to happen in Canada to start moving it
in the direction of sanity and common sense? I have no idea. You know, it's because you would think
we'd be there already. U.S. states seem to be heading in the in the direction of common sense,
at least many states, watching some of the stuff going on in the states, the battles.
But wow, I'm so impressed. And like I said, I know you were part of the thing in Tennessee with the signing there with the governor.
And Canada is doubling down on this stuff. I think they are, they see what is happening.
And they, and I think, feel like somehow we are the safe haven for perversion.
Like I'm watching this euthanasia stuff sweeping in right now. And I know where the last,
stock of the world. I mean, the poll just came out that apparently Canadians are 30% in favor of
euthanizing poor people. And I have people that I know that have physical and mental handicaps,
and they're terrified. The child in high school, who's 12 years old, can say, I'm, you know,
I just broke up with my girlfriend, or I, or, you know, I just failed the test. I'm feeling really
depressed. I would like to be euthanized. And the parents get a call because they don't need
any parental consent, just like they didn't with my child when it came to the sterilization
and the hormones, and they'll say, yeah, your child is a funeral home. I've been trying to
wake people up for five years in this country. And I don't know. I mean, thank God,
people who are waking up in the U.S. It wasn't in vain. Well, at least it starts,
it's got to start with a voice in the wilderness, which is what you are. And we really appreciate
your courage. And we're pulling for you over, we're probably.
for you. And thanks again for talking to us. Yeah, no, thank you. And yeah, congratulations. Yeah, one year.
It's what funny, June 1, five month. Yeah. Yeah. It's a good, it's a good, good anniversary to have it.
Okay, thank you. All right, thank you.
Had I not heard that interview, I would not have believed it was possible for a man to actually be sent to prison for calling his daughter, she.
Well, maybe I would have joked about, or I said that happens in North Korea, that is happening in America's top hat.
And we are now joined by a Canadian who knows this sort of thing firsthand, the great Dr. Jordan B. Peterson.
Jordan, thank you for making it for this one-year reunion of the movie.
How is that real?
Well, laws have consequences.
You know, when this broke back in 2016, when the law making it illegal to, you know, when the law making it illegal to,
not use someone's pronouns, let's say, was passed. I was assured by the legal scholars, so to speak,
some of whom were from British Columbia, that my concerns that this would ever result in,
you know, genuine legal penalties, penalties like prison, that was just scaremongering on my part.
And I thought, well, it's a law. If you break the law, then you're put in court. And if you don't
stop or then you're going to be subject to the full penalties of the law because that's what a law
is and so and here we go you know in his case is absolutely catastrophic and you might say well it's
it's an isolated incident first of all incident like this is not isolated and second of all
there's all sorts of crazy things happening in Canada so you know you you walk in the direction you
aim at. And this is where Canadians aimed. And I think my country, you know, for a long time,
you could be complacent in Canada because fundamentally the institutions were sound. You could
essentially trust the political parties. You could trust the socialists to represent the working
class to the degree that they did that. The liberals were a centrist party. The conservatives were
the party of big business. Everyone knew that. People were playing basically a straight game. The
newspapers were trustworthy. So were the educational institutions.
and the courts. That's all done with. We're done with that. And maybe worse in Canada than
anywhere else. Maybe worse than New Zealand. Yeah, it's quite something. You know, there's a bit of
positive emerging, I suppose. Pierre Pollyab, who's the leader of the conservative, seems to have
a spine. Daniel Smith maintained control over Alberta and its fossil fuel resources in an election
that was insanely close. The socialist just about got control of the third largest oil reserves.
in the world. That was two days ago. Scott Moe, who runs Saskatchew, and he's got a bit of the spine,
and he's standing up to Trudeau. And so, you know, it's possible that this will be reversed,
but Canadians just have their, they're completely asleep on this.
And you did see it coming. It occurs to me just now. You, you first came to public...
It was going to happen. You know, it's amazing, because you've done so much since all this time
that you kind of forget how you first came to public consciousness. It was over this issue.
Absolutely. Wow. Yeah, well, I knew that compelled speech was a catastrophe. It's like the government made a law saying what you had to say. No political system derived from English common law tradition had ever done anything like that. In fact, the Supreme Court in the United States made that unconstitutional, ruled that that was unconstitutional, I think, in 1942, like explicitly. And, you know, I watched that bill go through. I thought, what the hell is going on here? I really didn't care one way or another.
about the trans issue, you know, although that's become just this unbelievable,
bloody, catastrophic, what, parody, it's murderous, you know, and, well, here we are.
That's what happens when you let the government control your speech.
Yeah, I think also, you know, the groundwork for this is it's before the law.
So that's what, you know, in the United States, we look at what's happening in Canada,
and we like to think that, well, let's see.
It's not going to, it's inconceivable that we would throw parents in prison here for mischandering
their kids.
Yeah, they'll do it in California.
They'll do it.
Oregon.
They'll do it.
And one of the reasons that they'll do it before the law, we just listen to the words that they're
using, listen to the arguments that they're making.
And the moment that they tell us that misgendering is a form of violence.
Yeah.
And that if you're misgendering, you're a terrorist and it's abusive, they're already saying all
of that.
And if that's true, like if it's true that it's violent abuse to misgender someone,
then you should go to prison for it.
But it's not true, obviously.
So the moment they win that argument and people accept that,
then all the rest of this is just...
It follows.
It follows logical.
Right, right.
Well, that's the problem with things that follow logically is they follow.
So, yeah.
I have to wonder, especially from your perspective as an academic
and a public intellectual,
I don't want to sound like an old ornery man saying,
things always used to be better in the past,
and kids these days don't know anything.
When I look at the commencement exercises from Harvard and Yale
and Princeton,
in the 18th century, 19th century, early 20th century,
they were debating serious philosophical,
epistemological questions in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew.
And today, the people at the elite universities
are listening to entertainers crack jokes
with no point whatsoever.
The education is just gone.
Our sense of ourselves and our political order
is just gone.
Is this a crisis of the elites?
I mean, if we don't know the answer to the question,
what is a woman, and the people
universities are done. You know, when Elon took over Twitter, he fired 80% of the people. I've heard
through the grapevine that he probably has to fire half of the remaining 20%. That seems that
that's apparent now. Yeah, right, right. And the universities are in the same situation.
Like, they're not repairable. So what I saw happen over three decades was that the administration
encroached on the faculty. And every time they did that, so that'd be like 3,000 times the faculty.
stepped backwards. And I used to tell my colleagues, why are you saying yes? And they'd say,
well, we won't get what we want if we don't agree. And I said, well, are you getting what you want now?
It's like, well, no, but it'll get worse. It's like, have it your way. And so then the administration
took over the university, and then the woke types took over the administration. And that happened
much faster. But the president had already been established, and it was the faculty's fault.
As far as I'm concerned, it was like just constant acts of micro-cowardous.
And so how do you repair that? Cornell put together, hypothetically, like a panel to
investigate bolstering free speech at Cornell. But then they stacked the panel with DEI types,
of course. And so, like, that's not going to work. It was all for show. And so,
Now, you know, does that mean that higher education is doomed?
It's like, no, I don't think so.
There's all sorts of technological workarounds,
and there's a huge opportunity on the educational front
to get things right and in a much less expensive manner.
But I can't see that the universities are salvageable.
And the woke types are trying to take out
the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics specialties,
and they'll do that because those people don't have a political bone in their body.
They have no idea how to fight off the, the,
the woke types who went through the humanities and then the social scientists. So I can't see that
being repaired. The granting agencies are completely corrupt. Well, in California, I think it's 75%
of applicants for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, entry-level positions at
universities have their dossiers set aside without their research even being evaluated because
their diversity, equity, and inclusivity statements are insufficient. And that's California.
had one of the greatest state education systems in the world. So this is, we're done with, we're done with that.
Do you think parents, a parent right now with an 18 or 19 year old kid or 17 year old kid, should they dissuade their kids from going to college?
It depends on the college, but broadly speaking, yes, especially if it's expensive. It's like, no, there's just, why would you send someone to a institution that panders and propagandizes? And it's a weird combination of corporate speak stupidity.
Our students are our customers, you know, they're consumers.
It's like, no, they're not.
They're not consumers, not in the classic sense.
And then, well, and then cowtowing to the woke mob, you know,
and letting their claims to compassion stand unchallenged,
which is also quite stunning,
because the real woke radicals are anything but compassionate.
They use that 100% as camouflage.
The worst of them are predatory psychopaths.
And the research, by the way,
the research on that front is indicating that with great clarity.
dark tetrad types, macchiavellian, so manipulative, psychopathic, that makes them predatory parasites,
narcissistic, so they want unearned status, and that was the initial dark triad. That wasn't enough.
The researchers had to add sadism to that in the last three years because it turns out that if you
have those three personality trait clusters characterizing you, you also take undue pleasure in the
suffering of others. And so, and psychometrically, it appears that having those personality traits is
almost indistinguishable on the measurable front from being a left-wing authoritarian. So, and we're
compassionate. It's like, no, I don't think so. I think you're a complete, bloody, poisonous snake,
and you're using compassion to hide what is nothing on your part but pure maneuvering for power.
And that's why the left-wing radicals say, well, you know, everything's about power. It's like, well,
That's how you think.
What about reason?
What about facts?
What about logic?
What about reality?
You know, when you see the government putting this guy into prison for calling his daughter,
his daughter, for calling her, she, you want to point to you, say, but no, but here's biology
and here's philosophy and here's epistemology, and here's the constitution.
And then these people will look at you.
I'll say, so what?
We don't care.
It's like, what's your point, buddy, and all that old stuff?
Besides, the right response to that from the radical side is, every single.
single word you said was nothing but a justification for your power striving. You and your free speech,
right? You and your productivity, your merit. All that is is you're conniving to mask your power striving.
Well, that's the basic claim. So, you know, and, well, the reason that holds purchase to some degree
is because almost all social interactions between people at all levels are contaminated to some
degree with inappropriate striving for power. So you can say, well, look at the corruption,
and you can say, well, it's all corruption. It's like, well, at that point, you really have to
watch your plane. Right. Because if that's true, then we are in a very dark place. Now, there's
much more... And if it was true, nothing would work. Right. And things do work. So obviously,
it's not true. Right, right. We wouldn't have intelligible speech for that matter.
Or electricity. That's right. Blumbing. There will be a lot more intelligible speech.
in your interview, Matt, on Jordan's podcast, which is out now, I believe.
He dared to put me on his YouTube channel.
Well, RIP, Jordan, to your YouTube channel, went out with a bang, though.
And it's got about two and a half times the normal number of views for the time period that it's been out.
And YouTube at the moment has left it alone.
And so, yeah, and I don't think it wasn't there, you know, because there's always a risk in these situations, right?
risk is you do it or you don't do it. Those are both risks. And I think it's clear and it's been
clear for me all along. The biggest risk you can possibly take is to let the cat have your tongue.
It's like you, if you can't say what you need to say, you can't think. And if you can't think,
you will wander into a pit. And if you don't think there are pits and abysmal pits, you're pretty
damn naive. So, you know, people have said to me, you're so courageous, I think. No,
No, no, no, you don't understand. I'm just afraid of the right thing.
I'm just seeing ahead what happens if I make the other choice.
And you've seen that for years, and you can go listen to that conversation right now
on Dr. Jordan v. Peterson's YouTube channel.
I want to thank all of you for coming out and making the time,
for all of your work in the film, outside of the film.
Even you, Matt, I want to thank you for this movie.
One year of this movie.
And I want to thank all of you, the viewers, and especially the Daily Wire Plus members
who made this movie possible.
who funded this movie and all of the other content that we have out there right now and the content
that's coming up in the future. I hope that you know the answer to what a woman is. I think you do.
I hope many, many more people as a result of this movie in these conversations will know it as well.
Until then, we'll see you next time.
