Daily Wire Hosts Unpack The Death Of Radical Gender Theory, Whether There’s Hope For Gen Z

Daily Wire hosts discussed Generation Z’s apparent rejection of radical gender theories during the premiere of “Friendly Fire” on DailyWire+ Thursday night, debating whether the young generation is headed in a positive direction.

Daily Wire host Michael Knowles kicked off the segment on transgenderism by citing a recent study from the University of Buckingham on “The Decline of Trans and Queer Identity among Young Americans.” The study showed that in the past two years, there has been a steady decline among undergrad students who identify as “nonbinary.”

Knowles kicked it over to the newest Daily Wire host, Isabel Brown, asking, “Isabel, I need to know: is your generation not gay anymore?”

Twenty-eight-year-old Brown, who wrote the book, “The End of the Alphabet: How Gen Z Can Save America,” replied, saying, “I have been trying to warn the world that Gen Z, the kids, were alright for a very long time. Literally a year and a half ago, I was laughed off set at every TV station, every radio station, every podcast when I presented my book that Gen Z was going to save America — that no one wanted to be a lame gay chick that Disney wanted us to be.”

“None of the information out of this new study shocks me,” she added. “The idea of the cultural fad of the transgender cult … has already been disillusioned thanks to people boldly speaking the truth.”

.@michaeljknowles: “Isabel, I need to know, is your generation not gay anymore?”@theisabelb: “I have been trying to warn the world that Gen Z , the kids, were alright for a very long time…The idea of the cultural fad of the transgender cult…has already been disillusioned.” pic.twitter.com/kXrLovagw4

— Daily Wire (@realDailyWire) October 17, 2025

Daily Wire host Matt Walsh, whose documentary “What is a Woman?” helped spark the nationwide pushback on radical gender theory, warned people not to put too much stock in the University of Buckingham, adding that radical gender identities are still more popular among Gen Z than any other generation. Walsh, however, said that he does believe studies and anecdotal observations show “the trans and ‘nonbinary’ thing is declining, it’s losing steam.”

“And that was inevitable and the reason why is because no one ever really believed it to begin with,” Walsh added.

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He argued that the culture has shifted in recent years, and people are no longer afraid to speak out about the insanity of the transgender identity.

“I’m not surprised that we’re seeing this trend. I don’t know that we’re going to see it extend over to homosexuality, but I do think that with trans and ‘nonbinary’ that it’s on its way out,” Walsh said.

Daily Wire host Andrew Klavan said that he agrees with Brown that Gen Z “will actually save the world.”

“They are not the way the two generations between the Boomers and them are,” Klavan said. “They aren’t hostile, women dress like women, the men look perfectly comfortable being men, they don’t radiate the same kind of hostility that I get from the people who are around like 50. Somehow feminism seems to have lost its grip on them, and they seem just much more comfortable in their skins, so I’m hopeful.”

Daily Wire Editor Emeritus Ben Shapiro chimed in, saying that transgenderism became the “ultimate victimhood status,” but now that victimhood status is going out of vogue.

“The victimhood status went away because of things like what Matt did and what we did, obviously, here at The Daily Wire over the course of the last ten years, and sanity reasserted itself,” Shapiro said. “And you’re no longer considered an inherent victim because you’re a man who claims to be a woman, or the opposite. In fact, in some cases, you may in fact be an aggressor as we have seen from time to time.”

Shapiro, however, was not optimistic about the future of Gen Z and warned that many young Americans would move on from radical gender theory and adopt full-blown Marxism, finding their identity in their perceived economic disadvantages. After finding victimhood status in race and sex, Gen Z will move to financial situation, Shapiro argued.

“I’m optimistic that people are going to move away from crazier, ‘I’m sexually identifying as a cat’ routine, but I think they are going to increasingly identify as somehow economically dispossessed and then call for massive government interventionism, which is mostly what the [Zohran] Mamdani moment is about,” Shapiro continued.

“And that, by the way, is what you’re seeing mostly in the polls for young people,” he said. “Young people are increasingly hot on socialism and communism, they’re increasingly hot on massive government interventionism, they don’t really like capitalism very much, so I think that the next victimhood status is going to go back to classic Marx victimhood status.”