 In the film, speaking of just putting on a wig and suddenly being a trans woman, he, Walsh is speaking to some people on the street and he's asking them, okay, what is the truth? What is reality? Are we even talking right now? If I say, we're having a conversation but you say we're not, are we both telling the truth? And then he goes, okay, well, what if I say I'm trans? Am I trans? Is that now the truth? Is that reality? But when you watch this film, realize that when he's asking that question, it's not coming from a sincere place. He's not truly asking that because of a feeling inside. It's just to make a point. And the point doesn't comport because someone who says I am trans doesn't just say, okay, I'm going to decide right now. It's coming from a true connection with something that motivates you to say that. So the fact that he's bringing that up as an example is completely irrelevant. It doesn't mean anything. And he does that throughout the film a lot to try to act like he's outsmarting, like he's this intellectual when he's not, he's just really good at using rhetoric and logical fallacies and he has like debate tactics where he can like use gotcha journalism so that you don't really know as someone walking on the street. You don't know how to respond to that. I think one of the things that is also important for those who don't have experience with trans people to recognize is in that same notion that we feel uncomfortable with the idea of what looks like a man going around young kids. But at the same time, we have this feeling of wanting to stop any child from even being able to connect to their feeling of transness. What ends up happening, and this is the truth, is that being transgender is not an overnight thing. And for most people, they don't want to hear about how a transgender person feels. They just want to know about the surgeries. Unfortunately, as I said before, everybody who's trans doesn't have surgeries. But even if you do have a medical transition, it's not overnight. You don't just go into the doctor on a Tuesday and come out looking like this a completely different person. This many people get surgeries. It's over years and years of treatments and psychologists, psychological sessions with their therapist, hormones, diet and exercise, changing their clothes and figuring out what works on them and going through social chains and transition and having arguments with their families every single holiday dinner to get them to recognize and say the name that they're now using and then maybe having a surgery after all of those things. And during that time, there is a moment where it is uncomfortable. There are some awkward moments. You don't look instant because you can't snap your fingers and look like one thing. If you've ever had surgery, anybody who's ever had surgery, think of how you looked and act and felt while you were healing. Your leg was, you were limping, you were awkward. You couldn't move the way you normally would. Think of that on a bodily level. That is what many people go through when they're trans medically transitioning an awkward phase. And that is just the truth. Being medically transitioning is basically a self and medically induced with the help of your doctors, second puberty. And anybody who's ever gone through puberty knows that is some of the most awkward and most insecure times of your life. Your body's changing. Your voice is changing. Your physiology is changing. Your genitalia are changing. All of these things are changing. And so anybody who's gone through puberty, if you can remember back to that time when it felt very awkward, imagine going through that again after you've already gone through it for the first time. It isn't, for many people, a very painful time. And in a way that's not socially acceptable. In a way that's not socially acceptable. And so when you picture what you're calling a man going into the women's room, imagine for a moment that person is feeling incredibly insecure and very scared and worried that people are going to point the finger and attack them and that their body isn't working the way that they want. And all these different things. Just imagine that. Now allow them, as the person that they are, the right to go through that and to follow that journey because that's what they've chosen. But understand that that is what's on the mind of that person going to the bathroom. Not who can I rape, okay? Secondly, if we are really on board with not having awkward adults going into the women's room or the men's room, then what about having allowing people the freedom to go through that process at an earlier age so that they're not socially awkward when they're 25 or 30 or 40 years old? And so that is what doctors are examining, or in the pun, that is the question that many medical professionals are asking. Is it better for people to go through a second puberty when they're much later in life and much more likely to become teased and attacked, which is obviously damaging to that person's psychological state? Or is it better for them to go through that at an earlier age when everybody else is going through it? And so what some folks, people who have access to money and doctors and all the different things, is at the age of 16, will have a conversation with their doctor and their child. After their child has come to them and insisted, and after their child has changed their clothing and insisted that they want a new name, and after they've had these family fights at the age of 16 now, many, some folks will have a conversation with the doctor and decide together, after much research, should we allow this child to choose which of those puberties they want to go through? And many times the child chooses to go through the puberty that they want to go through. There's a process for doing that, which can pause the puberty that they would have had and then allow them to take the hormones that would lead them down the path of the desired puberty. And that's at the age of 16. That is the youngest that I've ever heard from medical intervention for medically transitioning. And that's not surgery. I don't know if you watched this part in the film. I did not. But Mr. Walsh brings up this treatment. And he is talking to someone. I forget who, what her specialty is. Or there's that lady in the blue. I don't know. I don't remember exactly who, but he mentioned that. Excuse me. The same medicine, chemicals, I don't know what it is. Hormones. Hormones. Estrogen and testosterone. So it's these same hormones that are used on sex offenders as sexual castration. I think is what he terms it. Oh, okay. So first of all, boom, I got to just jump in. Please. I don't know about sexual offenders. I don't know anything about that. Does this medicine chemically castrate you? That is a very crude way of putting it. But it does cut off the, and I'm not a doctor, but it doesn't physically, but it does chemically cut off the connection between what we would call gonads. I'm not saying gonads in a crude way. I'm saying whatever's going on down there and whatever, that connection between your brain. Spironolactone is the drug that's usually prescribed, at least in my experience, to stop the effects of testosterone. The effects of having that man, what you would call a man, someone who looks like a man going into the women's room. Spironolactone allows them to look more like the woman that you want them to look like when they're going into the restroom. Spironolactone is something that can be prescribed to 16-year-olds, which are teenagers at best, young adults, to pause their puberty and allow them more time to sort through these feelings. Spironolactone is a blood pressure medication that your grandfather probably took. Just like other medications, I won't get into them, but we've all heard stories, and you can look it up, that one medication had a certain had effect, and people's hair started growing. Ropecia, exactly, whatever. But it was really meant for this or that. Same thing with Spironolactone. It is actually a blood pressure medication. And it had the effect of blocking the effects of testosterone on the body. They found that out afterwards. I don't know if they still prescribe it as a blood pressure medication, but that's what it was. There are lots of men who have been on this medication and they're not necessarily sex offenders. They weren't prescribed that because they were sex offenders and they weren't prescribed that because they were transgender. They weren't prescribed that because they were grandpa, having too much fried chicken or whatever and had high blood pressure. And a lot of us can identify with that. That is what this medication is. It's used in more than one way, and it is used also to temporarily allow people the time to sort through whether they really want to go through this or not. And that's an important thing. We want people to decide for themselves if they really feel this way. If it's really important for them to walk the path that they are looking down because it's hard and there's lots of things to consider. We want people to answer this question for themselves and society can't answer this question for you. Your parents can't answer this question about your sexuality or your gender for you. Matt Walsh can't tell you what gender you are really, even though he says you're a woman or you're a woman, whatever. That person that he was interviewing who de-transitioned, wouldn't we want that person to be able to answer that question for themselves? These medications allow people the opportunity to do that while taking a breath. And that for many people alone is very life-saving. For many people it's the choice between do I take this medication and can I get a break and I take a breath and sort this out or do I commit suicide? Mm-hmm. And so it, to me, it's worth it. It would be worth it to me and I would want others to be able to have that option. And that's what we're talking about when we're talking about young folks having access to medicine to help their transition, giving them the option at 16, not 10, not 9, not 2, not anything but 16 with a letter from their psychologist or psychiatrist, obviously their parents' participation and all the different things, the different states want them to have to have in place before they can even think about getting this medication that's going to save their lives. But when they get access to it, I would like them to be able to take that break. And that's what this is about for the, when we're talking about young kids. Yeah. So we've brought up the fears that surround children with hormone treatment, the surgery, with potential experiences in the restroom. These are all arguments that are made in the film. And then we also have back to sports. And this touches on not just trans kids, but folks who have kids of their own. We all love our kids. We all want our kids to succeed and do great sports and get the trophy. And so when, you know, this villainous trans kid comes on the field and steals away everybody's trophy and their opportunity to win, now we have this villain. Not another child. They're a villain. Yeah. Yeah. I think one of the things that's really important for sports, which I do not understand, I have zero connection to sports. And so let's at least agree that all transgender people are not athletes, are not necessarily interested in getting sports. I'm one of them. And I do not, I'm not interested in sports. Actually, I would be happy if we just outlawed sports altogether. I know that's not fair, but I'm okay with it. Cancel sports for everybody. And then the argument is done. I'm fine with it. I know there's a lot of people that wouldn't like that. The United States is heavily invested in sports, even though we don't really think about it. America is really, really sports great. Maybe other countries are as well. I remember hearing stories of people getting in fights of over sports and not only athletes on the team, on the thing, spectators in the bleachers. Pittsburgh has these notorious stories of, you know, being rooting for the wrong team, and the whole bar comes out and beats the guy to death. And so I understand how invested we are in sports. Athletes, professional athletes in the United States are some of the highest paid professionals in the world. The world. So it's not lost to me how much as a country we're invested in sports. But all transgender people are not necessarily interested in sports. And those who are are most people have, I would imagine that most people's interactions with sports first are at a younger age. People are not just deciding they want to be a basketball player and then going into the NBA or WNBA. Most people are on school and intramural sports. And we can probably all, we all know that most of those people are not going to end up in professional sports. Some of them will, but most of them will. So for most of the people who participate in sports at a young age, it's not about becoming the highest paid professional in the world. It's about getting on a team, being socially connected to other people, learning a discipline, staying active and fit. That's what sports represents to most people. Again, not me, but most people. Sports represents, yeah. Goodbye, sports. Bye. I'm way too happy to say goodbye to all sports. But for kids, many parents can see the value of putting their kids in sports because they know that their kid is going to learn some values, meet some people, meet some friends, developmental skills, social skills. There's a lot of other reasons that people would put their children into sports besides wanting their child to hoping that they'll be the next Tiger Woods. And so I think it's important to allow transgender kids the ability to access those same things. Team connection, the developmental skills, socialization. That's important for anybody who wants to be in sports. It's important that they have the ability to access those things too. The other thing that I think is interesting is, again, remember how folks can't really tell the difference generally between transgender men and transgender women. We're not really talking about transgender men. The same thing that's happening with the bathrooms that's happening in school sports, it's documented in change in the game. There is a young trans male athlete. A lot of people can't tell the difference trans men and trans women or trans male and trans female. And so there's a trans male who was assigned female at birth who has begun as a 16, 17, 18 year old, who's still in high school, taking, begun his medical transition, which means he's done some kind of medicine to start changing and feeling better about themselves. And it's starting to have an effect on the way he looks and the way his body is. Testosterone changes everything like lightning. And anybody who's ever seen a professional bodybuilder or wrestling knows what we're talking about. So this boy, young man, is passionate about this art of wrestling and desperately wants to wrestle on the boy's team. He is a boy and those who wouldn't meet him, those who don't know would never know that, and they would say, oh, that's the average boy. And he's a good wrestler. He wants to play on the boy's team. But because of the laws and the rules in Texas, he has to play on the girl's team because he was assigned female at birth, which means there is now effectively a male wrestler, a man. He's a young man, built muscles, testosterone, has a girlfriend who's now wrestling on the girl's team. That is not what transgender people want. That is what people who don't want to support transgender rights want. That's what they will get is transgender men wrestling. Now, this is the thing that's so funny is that people in the audience were watching the wrestling match. And his name is Mac Beggs. People in the audience were watching the wrestling match and watching him pin these girls down and beat these girls and go beat them in wrestling and win all these matches because he's taking testosterone and so much more strong and everything than these girls. And they're like, boo, that's not fair. Get him out of there. We shouldn't have him on the girl's team. That's what we're saying. That's why you can't have it both ways. You can't have it both ways. It's either me on the girl's team or him on the girl's team. And I can guarantee you if I was on that damn team, honey, if it was up to me and I had to save, it was up to me to save everybody's life. So by lifting up this couch, you'd all be dead. You'd be dead. You might as well die right now. I ain't lifting nothing. And if I was on that team, those girls would beat me. They would beat me so good. I can't wrestle. My point is I am not physical. And I- And as a woman- As a woman, I- What moments that you're putting into your body- Supress. First of all, I have no testosterone. That's all y'all need to know. Many transgender women who go through medical transition, depending on where they are in their medical transition, estrogen and hormones replacement is oftentimes a part of that story. These hormones do have an effect on your body. And some people say, well, that's a performance-enhancing drug. Estrogen, let's look at it. Estrogen is really not enhancing your performance. It's not. I think that we've heard of folks who've gotten their period, which is oftentimes a huge influx of hormones and estrogen. You can become phargic, tired. I mean, if it's like a sleeping sport, I'm going to win. But I have never been- The biggest thing that I can recognize about how I physically perform after my transition is I am so much more slower. I am so much more like mellow and calm. Contrary to what people say about women and hormones is that we're all just hysterical, which is also another anti-feminine misogynist view. But my point is that if we're talking about physiology and we're talking about how the bodies change and what the chemicals that some people take, how they affect those bodies, let's really look at the effect of it. You can't just say men are stronger than women and you're a trans woman, you're basically a man, so you're stronger, and that's it. And if you are taking hormones, then you're getting superpowers. Because where is the evidence of that? There is no evidence that transgender women are really dominating. Even in this movie, he only has like five or six examples of people. These are the best at their- in their field. It is so disingenuous and unfair to say that those transgender people are doing something different than any other athlete that's on that field or in that sport, because they are showing up to practice every day. They probably were practicing in this sport before they even joined the team. They have studied, they have worked hard, they have exercised, and done all the things that any other athlete in that field has had to do. And that is where they've gone. I think it's extremely dangerous to ascribe physical attributes and abilities to one group across the board. It's not appropriate to say that only and all Black people play basketball and are great at it. That is just not true. And it's the same thing with being transgender. Every transgender person has not the same physical ability and they don't have the same desires for sports. And most transgender people are probably going to score very, very low on any physical test of, you know, I mean, I hate to say it, but if transgender people were winning medals and dominating the sports and completely- then we would have seen it. It would have been happening. Every single Olympian would be transgender. And isn't it fair to say that even cisgendered males and cisgendered females, you're going to meet females who are tanks, giant. What do you say then? You know what you say? And this is what's problematic, is unfortunately the rules and the laws and the policies and the discrimination that is being put in place that they're saying is to address the widespread problem of all transgender people coming in and completely just destabilizing all sports, which is not true, affects that tank woman. That cisgender woman who is six feet tall and has a deep voice and is very muscular, those laws affect her too. But she's cisgender. Caster Semenya is a runner famously. You can look her certain. Not trans. Caster Semenya is not trans. And there's some people that we're not really acknowledging here, those who are not only identified as but are intersex, which means that their genitalia and their chromosomes and all the scientific things that people are using to blind people into boxes of whether they're biologically male or female really kind of go out the window because it's really difficult to chart that part of me for people who are intersex. Caster Semenya, I believe, is intersex, but nevertheless identifies as a cisgender woman is not transgender. It was not assigned male at birth, has not changed any sex or any of those things, is a woman for all intents and purposes according to her. And that's it. But because she is taller, has a wider frame, and black, she is subject to the same type of criticism that Michelle Obama got. And anybody that was around when we were looking at Michelle Obama and President Obama running for office, Michelle Obama was called a monkey, an ape, and a man. Same thing that people call Serena Williams and probably Venus Williams. Have you ever heard any criticism? Serena Williams famously left all social media because people were calling her a man because she's muscular and she's tall. There are differences between different types of bodies, and people who are athletic obviously have different types of bodies and abilities. Unfortunately, these people, the women, who are the teenage girls in this movie who are complaining about it, not being fair that a transgender woman is beating them, are saying, I would be the winner of everything. And no one would beat me if that transgender woman, that transgender woman wasn't there. She's not saying, I put me up against any other trans woman and I'll beat them. Like, she's not comparing herself to any other women, but that group. And that's really difficult because we don't know that that girl would really be, is she a fortune teller? There is an instance in sports that you will lose. And I thought that that was the point of sports, learning how to win, having the desire to win, but also learning how to lose. And I'm not saying that she should just settle for losing. I'm saying, as an athlete, if there's someone who comes along who beats you and is better than you, aren't you supposed to just work harder and beat them the next time? That's what my thought is. These rules that really her argument in the film is that no matter how hard she works, how hard she trains, they have an advantage that she'll never be able to. But what if that girl was born with cisgender? What if that girl was cisgender? What is the advantage that they're saying? That the girl's taller, that she runs faster. So is it possible that there's other girls that are just taller and run faster than that girl? Those other girls will always have an advantage. Right. So does she want to make it so that it's illegal for those girls to be in sports as well? I don't know if you can discriminate based on the physiology, but you're not going to categorize people by their physiology in terms of, if you're running speed, I don't know how track wear works. But if you run the speed of this, if your average running time and speed is one, then everybody who runs a one competes against each other. People who are running at six, they compete against each other. Or maybe it's people who are six feet tall run against each other. And people who are five feet tall run against each other. Maybe that's how we have to do it. Yeah, maybe there's a world where it's not divided by men and women, but... Guess what they're not asking to do? Guess what they're asking to do, what they did to castrosymenia. They wanted to test castrosymenia's chromosomes, which castrosymenia's chromosomes are different because castor is intersex. So... Do you have an extra? I don't... She has an extra something, but I don't know what it is. But the point is, they were testing her blood, they were testing her at hormone levels, and all of these things, and they still forced her out. One of the things that athletes, sister athletes across the board, refuse to do is allow universal testing. They do not want to get tested for their hormone levels. cisgender folks want transgender people to get tested, but they will not take the test themselves. And that's because we will really start seeing who's using, who's not, who's doping. Believe me, if don't... Why does her fly swine around everywhere? So that's an important point to take away. And in the movie, that girl is lying. She actually has beaten those two transgender girls. I've interviewed them before. She is lying. I don't know, and I can't, I don't have it here, but what she's presenting in the film is not the truth. And she has won against those girls even more recently, even recently, meaning just before that film was made. And so she's not mentioning that, because if she acknowledges that, which is that truth, if she acknowledges that, then it falls apart. Right. It's possible for her to beat someone who has an advantage over her, who has a perceived advantage over her. Is it possible that that person won that day because they were better that day? Anyway, that's it with the sports situation. Not to mention men who are naturally born with slender frames, not much muscle mass. Yeah, it exists. And these are men. These are not transgender people. They're not characteristic. These are just everyday, average men who are cisgender, never change their sex or gender, and they are not good at sports, let alone whether they want to. Is that man ever gonna win in a strong man competition? No. But according to this argument, he will say it's unfair to have any other trans men go against me because they'll have an advantage. I mean, we're not hearing that because we're just not hearing that. But yeah, he will not go against a strong man competition, and he will certainly, whether there's transgender people or not, run into people who are better than him in that sport. And so will that girl. Matt Walsh presents it as if we can't delineate the two at all, if we can't say that there's any through line in the definition. Then society will crumble. And then everything is anything. And anything is everything. And you can be a dog and a wolf and a trans and everything. And it's like, what does it mean? Does it mean anything? It's a circular argument, as you said. A woman is a woman. That's what he says. I obviously disagree. I think it's important to understand that very simple, I know what people want is a quick and simple two word answer on what a woman is, what a man is, and what it is. I like to think of what is the effect of doing that. Boiling down any group of people to just one or two words, I believe clearly does not allow for any nuance. It doesn't allow for anything outside of that. It forces people to conform and to conform to those two little things, whatever those are. Saying that all women are this and this only doesn't allow women to have different body types, different shapes, different colors, different weights, different physical abilities. Some women can have kids naturally. Some kids can't. Some women can't have kids naturally to have different sexual desires, to have different ambitions. Clearly, it's clear that the, I won't even go with Matt Walsh. For some, when asking that question that I believe is disingenuous, what is a woman, the answer that they're looking for is, a woman is a person with a vagina who cooks and cleans and stays home and has kids. They would be very satisfied with that answer. I believe that that's limiting and also outside or the antithesis of what feminists have been fighting for, for years and years. Women who have been fighting for the women's movement, fighting for the right to not be a vagina that spits out babies, to just be a person who stays home and takes care of the husband and not be someone who has to just be known by the, I remember there was a moment in time when I was watching film and television and I think even in real life and if a person's name is John Schmidt, they would introduce the woman as Mrs. John Schmidt. I remember that. I don't think that she liked that. I love Lucy. Exactly. And they would say Mrs. Ricky Ricardo and I was like, oh that's interesting. Yeah. That is the type of, that's what I think of when I think of these very limited examples of what a woman is. She doesn't even have her own autonomy, her own agency over her body, over her name. We weren't calling her her name. We were calling her his name, Mrs. Him. And furthermore, during women's suffrage, during the 60s and 70s, a woman who would go in to get a loan, to go in to buy a car, to go in and buy a washing machine, or say no to people that were at the door trying to sell her something. The next thing they would say is where's your husband? We want to talk to your husband because you can't make this decision. That is, I believe what women have fought to get out of. And getting out of that, means we cannot describe all women by two words, or just one simple definition. Womanhood and femininity, and being female, assigned female at birth, or being someone who's deemed the sex of female, are related. But they're not one in the same. Being, and also being heterosexual, is related. I think it's important that we also speak to a lot of folks who don't necessarily attribute those old stereotypes to what a woman's role is as well in society. They may have a progressive view on a woman being able to be independent and have a career, and the husband can be to stay at home and- But not the people that are making this argument. Maybe there's people that can be swayed by this argument, but the people who are driving the car of anti-transness. But the people it's affecting are people- On the people that it's affecting. But as far as the affecting their opinion, their view on the trans community, are people- Influencing, influencing. Who have progressive thoughts and might not understand the trans community and the arguments that we're presenting? I would really- I would really- I know that we're describing someone who who probably exists. I believe that I believe that boiling down a woman or a man to one specific set of behaviors or physical characteristics is limiting. And I also believe it's going backwards. I believe it's how we have done things in the past. I believe that that is dangerous and also harmful to people who fall outside of that box. I'm not even talking about trans people. Other men or women who fit outside of- fall outside of those boxes that are very narrowly defined. And to the- And I also believe in my own experience if you- If you find someone who's willing to define women in a very narrow way and manhood in a very narrow way, let's focus on womanhood because this is what it's about. If you're willing to define women, womenhood in women in a very narrow way, I do not believe you have to look very far in that person's moral compass to find misogyny and racism. These are two systems that work in the world but work in our country through the laws, through entertainment, through social interactions, through our languages. These are things that operate in a way that everyone has a relationship to and everyone has ownership of that this is the policing that we're talking about. And so I do not wish- I believe that defining a woman in such narrow terms is harmful in the end to all women. I believe that thinking in a liberated way in an intersectional way doesn't allow us to just describe a person by their gender or their race or their sex or any of those things in simple terms. There's women who can't get pregnant who are different body types and different things but some who have kids and some who can't and some who are rich and the rich woman who can afford to go to Europe to have a rich Republican woman whose anti-abortion in the States can fly to another country to get into a world like there's so many different layers at play. Trans women, gay women, people in the LGBTQ community who live outside of many of these social norms and fought for the right to do so. I believe that instability that he that he says that well if we don't assign this and define that then we could be anything. Really what he's saying is if I can't control you and keep you in mind then other people will feel that they have the right to examine and really question these systems and these systems serve to keep women in line. The person that wants to define women very rigidly also wants to control them. That's my belief. So I hear what you're saying and it resonates. This is a topic that I'm not used to exploring very deeply, admittedly. And I think about if I was in the role of teaching what it means to be a woman or what it means to be a man to a child and trying to explain that. How do I do that in a way without confusing the child and the child just putting the label woman on man, I don't know, but see I don't think the child would do that because there's cues that we pick up on there's things that we there's vibrations and all kinds of stuff that that goes into all those ingredients that I talked about what it takes to be a woman. It's not just the only way to say the simple answer is there's only one simple answer. There's only one simple answer. A woman is a person who has a vagina and has kids. That's the simple answer. It's the only one that exists. Yeah. That's the only simple answer. I believe that being a woman being human is not so simple. Agreed. That's like saying tell me how to be a doctor in one minute. No, no, no. I only want to know the one minute way. Well, I can't because you can't. It's complex. And even to a child if you're going to tell a child what it takes to be a doctor if you say a doctor is a person that takes care of you and that's all. Well, that's not really all it is to take a doctor. That might be what you feel comfortable telling that child. But the real definition of what it really takes to be a medical professional involves years of schooling involves all kinds of different things that go into play. It involves the desire to be a medical professional. It's not so simple. And so just finding a woman so simply it only has one result to force the notion to reinforce the notion and the idea that all women because to be a woman is defining all women to define what a woman is to define every single woman that's ever existed and ever will exist by these terms. Here it is. You have this and that and this. That's it. And if you don't have this or if you have an extra one of these, you're not a woman. It allows us to say that anybody else who doesn't have only these three things is not a woman. And that is what they're trying to do. But unfortunately that all I believe that also affects other women who aren't trans. And so it's hurtful to do that. It is possible to just to describe womanhood. It is possible to describe femininity. How a woman how like something that's swishy and how what we as what we say is feminine, how it smells, how it moves. It's possible to describe those things. It's possible to describe what a woman is. But that impact is different for different people even in our country and in our social circles to some people if your only experience with women is the fact it are nuns. If you're if your only experience with women is as nuns then being a nun is going to be part of your description. Do you know what I mean? If your experience of women is as a mother or if your experience with a mother is an abusive mother God forbid then your your idea of being able to describe what womanhood is is very different. To some people manhood is a sense of pride and a sense of providing for the family. To some people someone who's been sexually assaulted by men manhood and being a man means something completely different. I understand that and I understand that a definition is going to be limiting no matter what. Words language in and of itself is limiting but at some point we do find a compromise where we can because I'm thinking of it from like a scientific analytical practical standpoint like even just defining what a human being is we could go down a rabbit hole what does it mean to be a human versus Yeah what does it mean? Some people would say human is just skin and bones and a heart and stands them and walks. Well first of all now all human have two legs but humans are other things I've some religious people would say that to be human the biggest thing to be human is your spirit and your soul and how you feel these things are all really and it's subjective. True and and I don't I I think that most people in describing a human would not want to add the caveat this is an absolute and that there's no exceptions but we come to a general idea of a coalescence of what it means what a human being is so that in scientific journals in literature in whatever in in in communication with each other we can have something agreed upon that we can all say okay we we I don't know when questioning that there's no there really is no questioning of that we know what a woman is we have experience of women in our lives but a lot of people watching this are thinking do I know what a woman is? because only only for one for the one purpose no because I think there's an earnest desire to understand the trans community and this notion of maybe growing up and seeing someone who's trans and going oh that's our man and woman's right yeah but and being like okay I really want to understand this and be able to make the distinction and and be empathetic but I'm not allowed to have a definition and I'm not allowed to like because I can't alienate anybody so I have to be open to all definitions and that can be very confusing and overwhelming and and so I'm not saying we have to have an answer I'm just saying that these are the kinds of discussions that we need to have absolutely absolutely I think what what we need to understand is that being a woman is let's think of it as an inclusive rather than an exclusive rather than saying all women are only this let's say that womanhood or being a woman includes people who can give birth people who marry men that's not all of them people who are blonde and blue-eyed and big titties people who are fat and round and can't can't have kids or can't have kids and have brown hair and like all these descriptors because being a woman includes all of those descriptors some women and I mean I think for intents and purposes most people really want to boil womanhood down to a person who can have kids that's really what the what the we're going to talk about the fundamental difference between a man and a woman and what and what the root of reinforcing what they already believe is that men have penises women have vaginas men impregnate women women have the babies men and then and then and and and if you're only interested in defining men and women by their physical attributes then that's what they want to hear I believe that there are cisgender people non-trans people who fall outside of even those descriptions and so to cut womanhood or manhood off at just that is doing a disservice to all of those other cisgender those really beautiful cisgender people I'm not talking about trans people talk about cisgender people who don't fit into that and so I think anyone who's just trying to understand can understand that that is limiting alone to even cisgender people so it does not serve as if you are really genuine about wanting to understand for the sake of including then it does not serve anyone to exclude by those definitions yes if you want to say a woman is a person who has kids and has a vagina you can do that that really does do a disservice and so what you're saying and what you're describing this re-evaluation of male and female and definition of what that all that means really requires a release of millennia of indoctrination of how we view the world how we're taught in school the binaries that we've talked about the left and the right the good and the bad the up and the down and that it's there's really no up and the down there's this space this space and all the space in between it's scary because in order for someone like myself or someone watching this to let go of this concept that there is an easily discernible male and an easily discernible female means that this same logic has to apply to them everyone and to everything and to all of life and then the way that we perceive life and our relationship to stabilize general is like completely blown apart but it really isn't I mean I know that's the perception that's the fear but it doesn't it doesn't I lost control of everything and I don't and I've got to re-evaluate I remember people outwardly using that same exact language when they were saying if you allow marriage equality to happen people are going to be married in turtles the world is going to fall apart like they were saying that and they were ascribing to a sense of fear and I can understand it's very human to have those fears that is a human attribute to be human is to be fearful but at the end of the day what we are talking about effectively is do you want to how much harm or do you want to harm others by excluding them so yeah I really do think it's important when asking this question the why is really important why Matt Walsh is asking this question I believe is for the is I think he he and people like him are saying how do we exclude transgender people how do we make it so that transgender people are vilified and not liked and feared and we want to keep them up let's ask the question what is a woman and then leave it at that I believe that to anyone who is really interested and curious about the lives of transgender people the best thing to do is just ask them the philosopher in me says you're going to ask these questions let me honestly take a moment to try to answer it and to delve into that but I know Raif Darazi that it's a ploy it's a ploy it's the intention behind it is not truth-seeking it's not it's not truth-seeking and this is understand this to people watching there are a lot of people in the trans community who as I said are entertainers and artists and mathematicians and doctors and all these different things and they're part-time job even though it's not a job because we don't all get paid to do it is as an activist someone who's educating everyone else about how we want to be treated many of those people were approached by Matt Walsh's team and Matt Walsh did not say I'm Matt Walsh I'm making a documentary and I just want to ask them a question they had an artificial company that was that was another artificial company like two or three companies that were very deceiving and I don't remember it you can like Shell companies yeah and you can look it up online there's a whole thread there's discourses about trans people screenshotting the conversations that they had with the individuals that were baiting them into and they were they basically hired someone who was progressive and you know also queer in the LGBTQ community to approach transgender people and all the people in the movie to ask them oh I'm making a documentary for my school thing which that was a lie it wasn't for the school thing it was for this other company for my college thing or something like that you know and I just I just have a couple questions really interested and I'm going to have this other journalist say would you would you participate these people were tricked into having this conversation and you might not care about that you watch the movie and you see the beginning of the interview you'll notice that moment where the interview we goes this is not what I thought this was going to be and they didn't just assume on their own naively that this was supportive conversation that they were about to have someone obviously told them and it was the the 180 critics on the other side of this of of this of this issue there aren't many but go ahead there aren't many who would disagree with what you're saying about well you know the dinosaurs of the world are certainly out there and I see a child who you know believes in Santa Claus and then let's say this is a boy and he says I'm a girl this is someone who can't distinguish between fantasy and reality so how could you take that as a reality I would say that as a pediatrician and as a parent I would say how wonderful my four-year-old in their imagination is if we're talking about trans woman has all of the male physical characteristics so would that not be a male then couldn't we plainly say this person is a male well I guess it's like why are you asking the question I think I I want to understand sort of why that's so important so if someone tells you to sort of understand reality you know well I mean I think when someone tells you who they are you should believe them so if a person says that they're a woman or they're a man then that's them telling you their gender is I'm not so sure why what social interactions would have to do with with maleness or femaleness that we I'm not even talking about social context I'm just I'm just trying to start by getting to the truth you know yeah I mean I'm really uncomfortable with that language of like getting to the truth again in social life why is that uncomfortable because that it sounds actually deeply transphobic to me and if you keep probing we're gonna stop the interview women only know what women are are you a cat no can you tell me what a cat is this is actually a genuine mistake I am sorry I even came up here if you consider the dishonesty that it takes to put all that effort into tricking those people to getting into those situations these are people who speak publicly for free about this all the time and if you're so confident that you have information and knowledge and examples and and arguments and sound science to to make to prove your point then why do you need to go through all these deceptive tactics that's what I'm saying that's what I'm saying there's that there's also the fact that in the edit and I know a lot of people don't even understand what editing is or that how do be doing a documentary of storytelling there's a lot that goes in a lot of planning a lot of thought a lot of consideration into how you're going to put together the pictures and the sounds to make sense of the audience what you're going to cut out what you're going to leave in all of that everybody who makes a movie or any video that you're watching has to consider those things when you're going to ask somebody a question like what is your name and if somebody has a really long name and you just you can fast forward and rewind and cut it up and put like weird music over top of it blurry stuff and you'll sit there rolling your eyes that has an effect subliminally on the viewer and he used those tactics to really discredit the people who were answering in earnest and so he really used a lot of tactics and um there's an example of that that often gets shown in school of I think showing a man like a man or woman or someone on film making some sort of expression and or it might be a photo too but it's usually variations of the same thing and they'll overlay like happy music to it and then they'll say that what how's this person feeling what's the expression that they're making or they'll put sad music and then it'll be the exact same picture image but because of the way it was overlaid with music they associate that that person's facial expressions with a different emotion and those are all little tricks it's tricks and so like you said why if somebody who's coming to you who's lying about who they are lying about why they're doing what they're going to do if somebody comes to you and and tries to sit you down in that situation how would you feel wouldn't it make you feel uncomfortable something is wrong here and then also comes into these conversations and addresses these people with this arrogance and this attitude and this flippance it's not like you sat down with an open heart and was like hey like let's let's let's connect and have like a real conversation and bring some real value to people I hate to use bud buzz words like agenda and things like that but there I really do believe that any I'm willing to sit down with anyone and have a conversation like this even if it even if it escalates to a debate about these types of things and I'm happy to learn of course I feel conviction about what I'm saying and passion about what I'm saying but I want to listen and I want to learn and I want to exchange ideas evenly I don't believe that that's what he was doing and so that is why I have a problem with this film I highly encourage people that are watching this to base first of all if all you want to do is watch a video and make a judgment then it's fair if you don't know a lot about trans people to watch another video from someone who is trans and so maybe you'll post some some resources for people to watch some other videos I think you should follow some transgender creators have you considered following someone who's trans and hearing what they have to say directly from their mouths in their own in their own way not chopped up and cut up you know not from Matt Walsh telling you who it is but from themselves there are lots of transgender creators who do this who very successfully explain what it's like to be trans what some of the feelings can be what some of the thoughts and goals and desires are and at the end of the day again we are human we want the same things that everybody else wants we want to not be defined by someone else or put in a box by someone else we want the ability to express who we are without being attacked or discriminated against and we want to be included that's what we want that's it and my positive takeaway from this film is that you know it's it's we're sitting here having this conversation as a result of it and the culture and the atmosphere in the country right now regarding the trans community and all the anti-trans legislation and hate that's out there is also a sign of the significance of the trans community coming to the forefront and being important in American culture and so now we have to talk about it we have to figure it out we got to like parse through the everything the data how we view life how we view gender all of it which is so good if we can have these discussions even with the gay movement we had to go through so much hurt and so much pain and tumult activism advocacy for us to grow from that and now we're at a place where we have such an understanding of what it means to be gay and the gay community and people outside of the community know what that is yeah and I think they're not threatened by it necessarily and I think they many people for the most part except that they're gonna that it's normal and natural and and all of these things and I hope that that's where we can get to with the trans community I just want people to know the takeaway at the end of the day is that trans people do want the same things that everybody else wants we want to be safe we want to be respected we want to be the ability to make our own decisions about our own bodies and express ourselves in a way that we know is going to be different we know is outside of the box of what people are expecting but we'll still be respected and and protected in a way not necessarily over someone else we don't we're not looking to compare ourselves or replace other people or erase anyone else there is certainly room for all of us to be included but the only thing it takes for everyone to be included is for us to change our minds and open our minds about that instead of again defining things rigid narrow boxes that really exclude people and so I hope that you folks can look at some resources some links overcome the fear and the sensationalism yeah realize that we're all we're all human and we all just want to live we just want to carve out our little piece of life on this earth and live a happy life fulfilled and that's it that's it peppermint thank you so much for spilling the tea with me I had a blast me too and I'll work with you pep to make sure that we provide you all with some amazing resources that relate to the different topics that we covered in these in this video series peppermint thank you so much as always for your graciousness for your big heartedness for your empathy I think that's why so many people connect with you and to see you as a teacher and a leader maybe I am so glad that you invited me to have this conversation and I hope that all of you out there have enjoyed it well love you fam I'll see you soon peace