Conservatives are adamantly opposed to the Left’s current transgender movement manipulating and pressuring minors into changing their sex. Conservatives are on the right track regarding this issue, sensing that definitions tie their minds to reality, and that transgenderism and Queer theory are insane.  Ayn Rand spoke often about the need for clear definitions, a reality-oriented theory of concept formation, and objectivity apart from feelings. This presents an opportunity for the Ayn Rand Institute (ARI) to present ideas of Rand’s which would give conservatives stronger arguments against the Left.  But unfortunately, ARI does the opposite, and shamefully supports epistemological chaos and moral relativism instead.

On July 13, 2023 ARI produced a podcast critiquing Matt Walsh’s documentary “What is a Woman?” The persons involved were Onkar Ghate, Chief Philosophy Officer and Senior Fellow of ARI, and Nikos Sotirakopoulos, the director of the Ayn Rand Institute in Europe. Instead of focusing on the film’s important aspects, they nitpicked it, criticized conservatives, and ended up defending the Left.

Walsh’s film did an excellent job of exposing the wicked transgender movement. It was quite revealing to discover that so-called experts in favor of transitioning children could not or would not provide a non-circular statement of what a woman is, and some of them even felt threatened by the question. If no one is willing to define what a woman is, that leads to men using women’s bathrooms and competing in women’s sports. If a surgeon does not know what a woman is, how can he profess the ability to change a man into a woman? Adherence to the meaning of words is important because adherence to reality is important. Ayn Rand said, “Definitions are the guardians of rationality, the first line of defense against the chaos of mental disintegration.”

Ghate thinks that asking people to give a definition of a woman is a gotcha question and that defining the word “woman” doesn’t settle anything. (But no one said it “settles” anything.) He also defends those who refuse to answer the question. He thinks that some people resist giving a definition because they don’t want to be locked into something (traditional gender roles) that they don’t view themselves as (reality as relative). He says that biology determining identity needs to be challenged. Sotirakopoulos agrees and says that your biology doesn’t make you a man, it is how you conduct yourself. It seems that Sotirakopoulos and Ghate, like radical leftists, do not know what a woman is, and therefore do not understand the relationship between biology, volition, and masculinity and femininity.

Walsh went to an African country, visited a tribe, and asked them questions about men and women and their roles. This illustrated the point that even a less knowledgeable and less civilized people know that a man cannot become a woman. The tribesman even said, “If you want to become a lady, but you are a man, there is something wrong in your mind.” They identified a basic fact of reality, unlike the people who are pushing children to transition. It begs the question: which group is more uncivilized? It’s a very effective and obviously funny gimmick. Ghate, however, thinks that Walsh and conservatives want to go backward to a much less civilized society, and that Walsh is holding up a tribe as a proper model as having answers because of God.

Other professionals in the film pointed out that mutilating one’s body does not lead to long-range happiness, and will likely have devastating consequences to one’s health, even in the best of cases. Walsh asks Carl Trueman, historian, theologian, and author, “How have these ideas become so pervasive?” Trueman answers that in the West it has been drilled into us that happiness is the key to flourishing. In addition, many people think of themselves in psychological terms as “I am my feelings” and in order to be happy, they have to express their feelings. These are important observations, but they need elaboration. Rand said that happiness “can properly be the purpose of ethics, but not the standard.” The state of happiness is the consequence of achieving rational values through the use of reason, but not “achieved at the command of emotional whims.” Using happiness as the only guide to action will lead to hedonism, which Rand was, in her own words, “profoundly opposed to.” Conservatives want to protect their children from this kind of hedonistic, short-range thinking approach to life and from permanent physical and mental disabilities. 

Yet, Sotirakopoulos said that conservatives have a problem with trans people because they think that trans-people are obsessed with their own happiness. He goes on to say that if someone thinks they would be happier if they change their body and then go through with it, it is very heroic. But it is not heroic; it is not courageous and brave to reject reality as those who claim to have been “born in the wrong body” wish. Then Ghate directs an ad hominem attack at Trueman, claiming he is no expert because he is religious. If that is his standard, then he must reject almost all thinkers prior to the 20^th century.

Throughout the film we heard these answers to the question what is a woman: “It can be many things to many people.” “There is not one particular thing.” “Whose truth are we talking about?” “What’s true to you, can be false to me.”  “If that’s your truth…”  The film lays bare the ultimate results of thinking that reality is different for everyone -- the conviction that a person can “identify” as anything he wants, and therefore a man can be a woman and a child can be a wolf.  Dr. Miriam Grossman does not agree that reality is fluid, and states with absolute certainty an Aristotelian principle: “There is only one reality.” 

The idea that each person has a different reality comes from Emannuel Kant, whom Ayn Rand regarded as the most evil philosopher who ever lived. Ghate and Sotirakopoulos could have backed up Dr. Grossman and pointed out that transgenderism is the ultimate result of the bad philosophical ideas of Kant that have been taught in our universities as the fundamentally anti-reason ideas of post-modernism, but they did not.

The transgender movement is a frontal attack on reality -- the Law of Identity -- the fact that A is A. Matt Walsh, a man who has the unrelenting courage to unapologetically, intransigently fight the trans movement and its evil threat to our country and our culture, was criticized for an hour by Ghate and Sotirakopoulos. They made excuses for leftists and latched onto the worst interpretations of conservatives, and even made up strange, mind-reading interpretations. In the comments section writer @bingbong3643 answers their criticisms:

The real nonstarter here is moral cowards who refuse to even take a stance on this issue. You can’t even offer an alternative ideology to fight against it and this is why Matt gains influence and you don’t. You’re not even in the fight. You’re just saying Matt bad. If all you bring to the intellectual table is owning Matt for his religious ideology just know in the process your helping Q theology prevail because you have no answer for it.

Too bad Ghate and Sotirakopoulos don’t offer the real answer that Ayn Rand provided, the fact that reality is what it is and can’t be wished away. The world needs less of the anti-Christian wishy-washy Ayn Rand Institute and more of reality and therefore of Ayn Rand.

Charlotte Cushman is a Montessori educator who taught for over 40 years and co-owned and operated two Montessori schools.  She authored Montessori: Why It Matters for Your Child's Success and Happiness, Effective Discipline the Montessori Way, and Your Life Belongs to You.  She has been involved in the study of Ayn Rand's philosophy since 1970.  Her book website is Cushmanbooks.com, and her opposition to social justice in Montessori website is authenticmontessorieducation.com.

Image: Ayn Rand Instatute