‘What is a woman?’: the trans film that makes for harrowing viewing

What is a woman? A question like this might seem like a strange premise for a 90-minute documentary. But we live in unusual times when primary school children can answer a question our leading politicians struggle to get to grips with. Matt Walsh’s film shows that ordinary people are often baffled too. His interviewees responded with confusion, obfuscation and prevarication when asked to define the word ‘woman’. A professor of women, gender and sexuality studies at the University of Tennessee was stunned into silence by the slightly harder task: ‘Can you define the word woman without using the word woman?’.

Walsh’s wife at least knew the correct answer. ‘An adult human female’, she replied – as she worked in the kitchen – adding, ‘who needs help opening this (jar)?’ Throughout the film, Walsh’s claim was that sex was real, and sex was what matters when it comes to defining womanhood. But that vignette from his home suggested that gender may also play a part, in Walsh’s life at least.