Why We Invited Matt Walsh

Next Wednesday, March 1st, we will host author, speaker, and documentary filmmaker Matt Walsh in Dinkelspiel Auditorium at 8 PM. Tickets for both students and community members can be accessed here. In his lecture, Walsh will be discussing the lies and fallacies underlying the transgender movement. On a campus where the leftist gender-bending ideology is the norm—embraced, or at least tacitly supported, by nearly all professors and administrators—it is more important than ever for students to engage with Matt Walsh’s contrarian ideas.

Matt Walsh has been involved in the conservative movement for over a decade, starting in talk radio before stints as a writer and political commentator. Throughout his career, Walsh has been a steady voice for conservative social values surrounding marriage and family. He has authored four books on these subjects, including The Unholy Trinity: Blocking the Left's Assault on Life, Marriage, and Gender and Church of Cowards: A Wake-Up Call to Complacent Christians. His work is instrumental for fighting back against the left’s attack on traditional family values, the only way to truly achieve human and societal flourishing.

Walsh came to prominence last year with his documentary What is a Woman? in which he interviewed a number of people, including politicians, parents, and doctors, asking all of them a simple question: “What is a woman?” For nearly all of human history, the answer would be simple and uncontroversial. Recently, in the West, leftist elites have engaged in a project to redefine sex and gender as fluid and changeable concepts. The rot goes deep: no longer simply male and female, while campaigning a few years ago President Joe Biden even said that “there are at least three genders.”

In the documentary, Walsh shows how the leftist consensus on gender—embraced at Stanford—is completely incoherent and disconnected from reality. Perhaps more importantly, the film highlights the tragic results of embracing the left’s lies. Mutilating and sterilizing children who are confused about their gender or place in the world is not compassionate. Indulging someone’s delusions does not make them happier—gender is not socially constructed. In his lecture next Wednesday, Walsh will explain how his positions are not motivated by ‘hate’ or ‘transphobia’ as some leftists claim, but by a deep desire to create a world where all people can flourish.

Students who support the radical new status quo on transgenderism would be wise to heed G.K. Chesterton’s parable of the fence. He wrote, “let us say for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, ‘I don't see the use of this; let us clear it away.’ To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: ‘If you don't see the use of it, I certainly won't let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it.’”

The rush to tear down what it means to be a woman without stopping to think twice about why womanhood was clearly defined for thousands of years is misguided. We especially encourage students who disagree with Walsh’s views to come to his talk, if only to get a better understanding of why everybody is not completely on board with transgender orthodoxy.

For the past five years, Stanford College Republicans, with the vital support of the Young America’s Foundation, have worked to make Stanford’s campus into a true marketplace of ideas. Even as leftist activists attempt to sabotage our events and mock our members, we remain dedicated to allowing students to hear and engage with conservative thought. We hope all students consider joining us next Wednesday for a meaningful discussion of gender, the family, and traditional values.