What Is a Woman?

On the plus side

• interviewed a lot of solemn, pious academics who could not give a non-circular answer to the question "what is a woman?"

Gaps

• not much investigative zeal; very partisan
• did not present the evidence from the UK, Swedish, Finnish and French medical regulators who are raising doubts about treating adolescents with puberty blockers and steroids. Lost opportunity to challenge American gender zealots.

Very enjoyable to watch, but too biased to be called a documentary, and is well designed to support e certain narrative. It cherry picks interviews with stupid or dangerous people in the LGBTQ+ community and well grounded/sophisticated people on the conservative side to present a reality with lunatics vs pragmatists. There are bright minds, like the ones that have helped society move forward the last 100 years, that could provide the real arguments on why gender as a term is a valuable tool in order to study social behaviours and understand ourselves. These bright minds were not presented.

This documentary is affecting. It starts with emotions of confusion, humor and fascination, and journey's deep into a place of disturbance and despair. It has some mild trolling at the start, but it genuinely gives everyone a chance to speak and doesn't have any dishonest cuts. It handles a topic that's managed to become controversial in maybe the last five years. But it also asks questions, that no matter where you stand we should be asking if we really care about people - are the procedures successful outcomes? Are there lasting after effects or issues? Are we influencing people and in what ways? Do children have a clear sense of self and consent?

I was quite surprised to see the level of respect this film had for the subjects, at many points reflecting on the sympathy for children suffering with gender identity.

I think what I appreciated most was that these weren't trick questions, the presenter asked very basic and honest questions - the fact that a univeristy professor was unable to answer simple questions in his own field was very telling. It was a running theme that those who wanted honest discussions were being shut down, lose their careers and even faced imprisonment.

Speaking with an African tribe was also an interesting juxtaposition of societal ideals.

My one criticism is that I wish he had not been able to open the jar of pickles.

An incredibly important and insightful documentary for our time and surprisingly funny at times.

Highly recommended to anyone who is interested in the topic and wants to learn more about how gender has become politicized including what different people from various fields and communities have to say from both sides of the discussion. 10/10.