ABOVE: “The Matt Walsh Show” screenshot via the Los Angeles Blade.
Transgender academic and activist Eli Erlick has revealed on Twitter that anti-transgender podcaster Matt Walsh has been attempting to lure transgender people into speaking with members of his production team for a fake documentary.
This appears to be part of what Walsh earlier this year called his “assault on gender ideology.”
Erlick described how she was approached by a woman calling herself “Makenna Lynn,” who reached out to her in January. Makenna claimed to be a film student creating a documentary for the “Gender Unity Project,” which had a website and a Twitter page.
Erlick grew suspicious and discovered Makenna was actually Makenna Waters, Matt Walsh’s show producer. She also found that the Gender Unity Project was registered to Justin Folk of Project Veritas, which specializes in creating fake media meant to cast liberals in the worst light possible via lying to them about the purposes of their projects, and deceptive video editing.
A trans woman tricked into participating spoke with Matt Walsh directly. This is no longer “a producer associated with” this is straight from the asshole’s mouth. https://t.co/foX6UiVthF
— Eli Erlick (@EliErlick) February 8, 2022
Other prominent members of the transgender community have revealed they were approached as well. Former MMA Fallon Fox was approached last summer. Fox turned them down after an initial video call she found them to be “sketchy and ignorant of trans issues.” Transgender MMA fighter Alanna McLaughlin was also approached.
Debi Jackson, mother of 14-year-old Avery Jackson who appeared on the cover of National Geographic, was also approached by Waters under false pretenses, claiming that they wanted to interview her and Avery for the Gender Unity Project. During a phone interview with the Blade, Jackson told us that she has done many video projects before, including with National Geographic. She grew also suspicious when Waters had plenty of money to travel, but only a skeleton website, no visible means of funding, wouldn’t reveal her producer, and claimed to “just be six friends working on a project.”
This appears to have been a long term project: when Erlick checked her emails she found that another of Walsh’s associates (Rebecca Dobkowitz) had approached her in July of 2021, also under a fake last name. When Erlick had demanded to know the name of the producer for the project, Dobkowitz “ghosted,” according to Erlick, and did not reply.
During Erlick’s discussions with Waters, she claimed she had already interviewed over 50 prominent doctors and trans people so far, supporting Fox’s and Jackson’s claims. Since the initial reporting by Erlick, the Gender Unity Project Twitter account has been suspended, Makenna Waters has closed her account, and Justin Folk has locked his.
Walsh, who is claiming that transgender activists plan to disrupt his speaking engagement at Texas A&M University on Feb. 8, has neither confirmed nor denied his or his team’s involvement publicly, and has not responded to a request for comment at this time.
