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(LifeSiteNews) — For several days, Elon Musk’s pinned tweet is The Daily Wire’s documentary What is a Woman? featuring Matt Walsh with the advice: “Every parent should watch this.” The documentary – which exposes the transgender movement and sex change industry – exceeded 170 million views and has been shared tens of thousands of times, an absolutely staggering number.  

There are 331 million people in America. It is no exaggeration to say that Walsh’s documentary may be a watershed moment – and that makes Elon Musk’s promotion of it feel very significant in a way that few other developments in the culture wars have. This documentary is no longer simply a film by conservatives for conservatives, it is being viewed by millions of people who are still trying to figure out what they think and promoted by billionaire cultural icons who see its critique of gender ideology as common sense. 

It appeared, initially, that Walsh’s film was going to be suppressed. After The Daily Wire cut a deal with Twitter to stream the documentary, executives at the site labeled it “hateful” for “misgendering,” disabled retweets, and hid the film from Twitter users. I tried to retweet it and couldn’t. The DW hosts and other conservatives began demanding an explanation from Musk, who has famously committed to ensuring that Twitter will remain a free speech public square.  

Musk engaged with critics on Twitter, calling the move a “mistake” and stating that he’d get it figured out. He made good, with two Twitter executives from the “trust and safety team” leaving the company, and Musk confirming that the departures had to do with the initially disastrous rollout of What is a Woman? on Twitter. The attempt by these execs, it turns out, created the “Streisand Effect”—when an attempt to censor something results in far more people hearing about it. 

Musk has gone further, too. “This is a major problem,” he tweeted in response to a thread about the dangers of puberty blockers. “I will be actively lobbying to criminalize making severe, irreversible changes to children below the age of consent. Shame on those who advocate this! It is utterly contemptible.” These are very strong words – and like J.K. Rowling, Musk is too wealthy to cancel. He also quite literally owns the platform most people use for their cancel culture mobs and is thus impervious to the sorts of pressure usually applied to critics of the transgender movement. 

That is why Elon Musk deciding to push a film exposing the danger and insanity of the transgender movement feels so significant. Trans activists have been incredibly successful at silencing their critics, but once the fight is joined by figures too wealthy and powerful to get intimidated or fired or ostracized, their grip on the narrative is broken.

Musk doesn’t care with the transgender movement thinks. He has an adult child who identifies as “transgender,” and that hasn’t compromised his critical thinking abilities, either. So when he tweets a documentary that demolishes many of the trans movement’s central claims and announces that he will be lobbying against “sex changes” for kids, there is nothing these activists can do besides gnash their teeth. 

There’s another effect to all of this, too. Just as J.K. Rowling’s decision to criticize gender ideology gave courage and permission to many others to speak out, I suspect that Elon Musk’s promotion of What is a Woman? will do the same. Musk is signaling to others that this issue is safe for non-conservatives to talk about. Politicians will take notice. So will many other more common-sense celebrities such as Bill Maher, who are fed up with the trans movement’s hold on the Left. And when the herd breaks, it breaks – and it’s almost impossible to stop.  

It is safe to say that the transgender movement is not enjoying “Pride Month” so far. 

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Jonathon Van Maren is a public speaker, writer, and pro-life activist. His commentary has been translated into more than eight languages and published widely online as well as print newspapers such as the Jewish Independent, the National Post, the Hamilton Spectator and others. He has received an award for combating anti-Semitism in print from the Jewish organization B’nai Brith. His commentary has been featured on CTV Primetime, Global News, EWTN, and the CBC as well as dozens of radio stations and news outlets in Canada and the United States.

He speaks on a wide variety of cultural topics across North America at universities, high schools, churches, and other functions. Some of these topics include abortion, pornography, the Sexual Revolution, and euthanasia. Jonathon holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree in history from Simon Fraser University, and is the communications director for the Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform.

Jonathon’s first book, The Culture War, was released in 2016.

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