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Speaker 1: Hi, and welcome back to the Carol Markowitz Show on iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: My guest today is Ben Appel.

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Speaker 1: Ben is the author of Cis White Gay? The Making

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Speaker 1: of a Gender Heretic, a new memoir about his experience

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Speaker 1: and social justice activism, and the Ivy League. Ben has

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Speaker 1: also written for The Wall Street Journal, The New York Post, Newsweek,

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Speaker 1: The Free Press, Unheard, and many others.

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Speaker 2: Hi, Ben, so nice to have you.

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Speaker 3: Greazy to be here, thanks for having me.

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Speaker 1: So I have to start with that title, How did

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Speaker 1: you become a gender heretic?

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Speaker 3: Oh? Gosh, it was an evolution.

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Speaker 4: Back in twenty twelve is when I began my work

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Speaker 4: in I guess you could say LGBT activism. I worked

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Speaker 4: on Maryland's marriage equality campaign. I volunteered for that campaign

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Speaker 4: and then a subsequent trans Writes legislation campaign in twenty

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Speaker 4: thirteen in Maryland. And those two experiences were kind of

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Speaker 4: the impetus that led me back to school. You know,

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Speaker 4: I was I had been a hairstylist for a number

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Speaker 4: of years in the DC area, and you know, after

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Speaker 4: a couple of years, I just wanted to do more

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Speaker 4: with my life. And after I got married, you know,

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Speaker 4: my husband and I I said, I want to be

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Speaker 4: an activist. I want to be a journalist. I want

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Speaker 4: to do more in this world. And he encouraged me,

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Speaker 4: and that led me to Community College to eventually us

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Speaker 4: moving to New York so that I could tend attend Columbia.

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Speaker 4: And so I got my undergraduate degree at Columbia. And

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Speaker 4: that was in twenty seventeen January, when my first semester began.

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Speaker 3: So I was like ready to hit.

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Speaker 4: The road with this fully on board, you know, hashtag

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Speaker 4: resisting some interesting time, right and then you know, so

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Speaker 4: I got involved intern for Glad LGBT rights organization that summer.

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Speaker 4: And so while I'm kind of entering into this space

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Speaker 4: and realizing all of these things that I was trying

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Speaker 4: to achieve, I'm suddenly realizing that there are these once

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Speaker 4: theoretical ideas about gender and about sex, like they're now doctrine.

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Speaker 4: Like there's no arguing with them, there's no descent. And

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Speaker 4: it was a completely different landscape than even what I

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Speaker 4: had encountered five years earlier. And then being immersed in

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Speaker 4: the Columbia classrooms, in these humanities classrooms where I was

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Speaker 4: spending so much time, you know, in learning things through

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Speaker 4: the lens of queer theory, postcolonial colone theory, you know,

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Speaker 4: all of it was. It was just so immersive at

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Speaker 4: the same time, and so my brain, you know, here

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Speaker 4: I am in my thirties and I have these you know,

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Speaker 4: critical thinking skills to kind of think, this sounds backwards,

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Speaker 4: this doesn't sound right, this sounds counterintuitive, this sounds completely regressive,

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Speaker 4: and you know, so I started. I was a heretic

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Speaker 4: on the inside at first, keeping my thoughts. Slowly built

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Speaker 4: the courage to kind of openly dissent and talk back.

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Speaker 2: Did your husband have the same sort of journey?

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Speaker 1: I think I always think about that the people who

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Speaker 1: kind of shift politically, do their spouses or their partners,

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Speaker 1: you know, shift.

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Speaker 3: With them or not.

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Speaker 4: He was a little stunned by the way that I

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Speaker 4: would speak about things. Initially for the first few years,

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Speaker 4: you know, I would come home from Columbia and I

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Speaker 4: would be like, these kids are bananas, like they're nuts,

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Speaker 4: and I would give him anecdotes and kind of describe

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Speaker 4: things in my reaction and he, you know, was just

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Speaker 4: not in that environment. So he really couldn't understand. But

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Speaker 4: the way that I was articulating things. Thankfully, he understood

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Speaker 4: what I was communicating. They didn't fully get to see until,

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Speaker 4: you know, as a few years pasted, it kind of

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Speaker 4: became where things exploded past university gates into a mainstream.

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Speaker 3: It was when everybody kind of became more aware.

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Speaker 1: Uh.

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Speaker 4: And it wasn't just the folks that were in those spaces,

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Speaker 4: it was it was elsewhere where people were becoming aware

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Speaker 4: of it too. So he and I are different people.

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Speaker 4: We have certainly different opinions about things. We have disagreements

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Speaker 4: and so on, and so yeah, he has He's a

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Speaker 4: very strongly opinionated person and he has a lot of

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Speaker 4: his own views and that works for us.

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Speaker 3: I like that, it keeps it interesting.

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Speaker 1: I love that, you know, I have to say that

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Speaker 1: in twenty seventeen, I you know, I was always a conservative.

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Speaker 1: I like to say, you know, I was born in

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Speaker 1: the Soviet Union, I came to America.

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Speaker 2: You're not going to be a liberal. It's just not

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Speaker 2: how it goes.

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Speaker 1: But in twenty seventeen, I would have said that the

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Speaker 1: trends issue, if people were talking about it and saying like, oh,

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Speaker 1: this is really going to be a problem, I think

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Speaker 1: I would have been like, no, it's not like no,

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Speaker 1: It's fine because I wasn't in that university space, and

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Speaker 1: you know, people like Abigail Schreier were starting to talk

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Speaker 1: about it and write about it.

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Speaker 2: But they were very few and far between.

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Speaker 1: So the fact that you saw it up close, I

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Speaker 1: think must have been shocking to you.

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Speaker 4: It was, and I think that there no one was

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Speaker 4: really aware of what let's say, the trans rates movement

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Speaker 4: was asking of society.

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Speaker 3: You know, it's one like when I worked in you

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Speaker 3: know it.

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Speaker 1: That's the whole thing. What they were asking of society changed.

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Speaker 4: Right, And so back in twenty thirteen, when I was

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Speaker 4: working on this this legislation, like volunteering for this, this

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Speaker 4: and this you know, trans Rates campaign, it was about

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Speaker 4: you know, discrimination in employment, in housing.

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Speaker 3: And so forth.

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Speaker 4: And I thought, well, yeah, it's not right, you know,

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Speaker 4: be able to deny housing to someone because there they

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Speaker 4: identify as trans. Right, So there was But what I

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Speaker 4: didn't know at the time, and what was kind of

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Speaker 4: verboten to speak about, even in liberal circles, were was

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Speaker 4: the fact that adding gender identity to the Anti Discrimination

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Speaker 4: Act at the state level, can't it nullifies sex because

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Speaker 4: it's just if you add gender identity, sex is no

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Speaker 4: no longer means anything, So you can just say I'm

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Speaker 4: a woman, I'm a man, it doesn't really matter. So

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Speaker 4: if you're at atting gender identity into this, sex becomes

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Speaker 4: completely meaningless.

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Speaker 3: And that's what we're seeing.

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Speaker 4: That's why yesterday, you know, for folks that are going

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Speaker 4: to see this in a week or a couple of weeks,

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Speaker 4: we've had the Supreme Court arguing about males in female sports.

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Speaker 3: This utterly bizarre and totally asinine.

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Speaker 4: Idea, but it's reached the highest levels of our and

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Speaker 4: our judicial system and they have to argue about these things.

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Speaker 4: Because of all everything that people were just really unaware

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Speaker 4: of what's going on. It was just the kind and

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Speaker 4: the right thing to accept and to do. It was

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Speaker 4: the next kind of gay rights thing. You know, people

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Speaker 4: were like, sure, I want people to be able to marry,

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Speaker 4: and so yeah, this makes sense. You know, it's all

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Speaker 4: part of the same community, but it's a very very

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Speaker 4: different thing. And so even that acronym lgbt LGBTQ, lumping

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Speaker 4: all of these identities together, it's bizarre because it creates

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Speaker 4: this idea that there's you know, just a monolith, a

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Speaker 4: monolithic way of thinking about all things and there, there

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Speaker 4: is not at all.

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Speaker 3: There's great descent and diversity of voice and opinion.

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Speaker 2: Also, if gender doesn't matter, what is gaming? What a

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Speaker 2: straight mean? Like it's it makes no difference.

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Speaker 1: If gender is not a thing, if we're not specifically

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Speaker 1: attracted to one gender over another, it really doesn't make

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Speaker 1: sense to lump them in. And actually, what I wanted

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Speaker 1: to ask you was, you know, you fought for marriage equality,

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Speaker 1: and there's a lot of voices on the left right

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Speaker 1: now comparing trans people in sports to the fight for

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Speaker 1: marriage equality.

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Speaker 2: What do you think about that?

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Speaker 4: I think it's bizarre. I think that it's insane. I mean,

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Speaker 4: you know, sex differences are real. This is these are

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Speaker 4: the basic building blocks you can argue and I welcome

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Speaker 4: argument about like marriage is, you know, supposed to be

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Speaker 4: between a man or a woman and a woman or

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Speaker 4: so on, Like I none of that. Really, it doesn't

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Speaker 4: scare me. I'm a grown up, I'm a big boy.

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Speaker 4: I can handle it. And so that's a difference of opinion.

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Speaker 4: But when we're talking about scientific reality, we're talking about

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Speaker 4: the building blocks of why we're still here, why we've

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Speaker 4: been able to propagate our species. It's it's apples and oranges.

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Speaker 4: It's a completely different thing. So yeah, and going back

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Speaker 4: to what you said, if gender, sex, sex and gender

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Speaker 4: are different, I wish we could just forget about gender altogether.

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Speaker 3: I mean, it can be useful in describing.

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Speaker 4: Things, but people have just completely co opted that to

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Speaker 4: mean so many different things, and it actually ends up

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Speaker 4: being ultimately really confusing. It's not so complicated. It could

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Speaker 4: actually be really simple, and it is really simple. And

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Speaker 4: you kind of saw that. You see that again, you

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Speaker 4: see when people are arguing about these things for males

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Speaker 4: and few, well, what does sex mean? Well, what does

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Speaker 4: well if there's no different infinition of sex, and how

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Speaker 4: can someone be discriminated on the basis of sex? I

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Speaker 4: mean it's it's completely incoherent and there's and and so

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Speaker 4: it doesn't make any sense. But I saw that from

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Speaker 4: the beginning back in twenty seventeen. I think that was

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Speaker 4: the biggest wake up for me was when I started

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Speaker 4: seeing like straight women oh yeah, you know, identifying as

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Speaker 4: as gay male, like first non binary, than trans, then

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Speaker 4: he him pronounced. Then suddenly they're you know, on gay

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Speaker 4: dating apps for men. It was a really so funny,

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Speaker 4: disorienting and bizarre.

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Speaker 2: Like you're just a straight lady, ma'am.

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Speaker 3: You know that's it, and that's okay, yeah.

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Speaker 2: Right, and that's fine.

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Speaker 4: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: It's funny that now we have to be like, it's okay.

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Speaker 2: To be straight, it's totally to be you know.

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Speaker 1: You know the other part of your title is cis

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Speaker 1: white gay? Was it hard to be a cis white

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Speaker 1: gay in that era in New York City?

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Speaker 4: Yeah, And that's why I wanted to call it this

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Speaker 4: because you know, I know that there's so many folks

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Speaker 4: that are like allergic to the word sis and cis

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Speaker 4: gender and I am as well. It's like a highly,

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Speaker 4: for lack of a better word, triggering word for a

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Speaker 4: lot of folks. And I completely understand that, and why

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Speaker 4: I'm using it is hopefully people understand or most people do,

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Speaker 4: get that I'm using it ironically.

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Speaker 3: That it is this.

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Speaker 4: From the beginning, I was hauled this cis white gay

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Speaker 4: a totally new concept and understanding. I didn't even know

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Speaker 4: what it meant. But immediately people were in my so

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Speaker 4: called community and other progressives around me were calling me

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Speaker 4: this in a derogatory way, you know, pronouncing it in

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Speaker 4: the same way that you know, kids in middle school

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Speaker 4: called me gay or you know, the F word for

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Speaker 4: gay in middle school years ago, it was said in

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Speaker 4: that same tone, and I'm like, what is this? And

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Speaker 4: I realized and so if so, I started kind of

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Speaker 4: just hearing that so much, and it just goes down

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Speaker 4: to this identity, like you know, this kind of hierarchy

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Speaker 4: of intersectionality dumbing it down is you know, the more

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Speaker 4: oppressed you are, you know, the higher up when this

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Speaker 4: hierarchy you are, and the more kind of cultural cachet or.

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Speaker 3: Power you have, so you know, white males, you know, and.

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Speaker 2: Then the bottom wrong, Yeah, the bottom wrung.

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Speaker 4: And it was kind of just very and look like

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Speaker 4: there is something to be said for racism is real,

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Speaker 4: sexism is real. But all of these these kind of

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Speaker 4: faux solutions that progressives were, you know, coming up with,

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Speaker 4: were completely regressive and in fact boldly racist and sexist.

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Speaker 4: So you know, it just it was completely backwards, you know.

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Speaker 4: But when I when I started hearing that I over

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Speaker 4: and over again, sis why gay?

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Speaker 3: I got so sick of it. And I was like,

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Speaker 3: if one more person.

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Speaker 4: Calls me this, and so I was like, if I

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Speaker 4: ever write about this, I'm going to call my book that.

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Speaker 3: And that's what I did just across the title sis,

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Speaker 3: why gay? Like?

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Speaker 4: This is the problematic take from scary, horrible, evil colonizers

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Speaker 4: like me. This is who are the blight of the universe? Apparently,

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Speaker 4: you know? So, yeah, that's what I wanted to do.

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Speaker 1: Was it hard to come out to your I guess

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Speaker 1: gay community with these thoughts?

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Speaker 2: I imagine it had to be. Yes, what's do you

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Speaker 2: still have any friends?

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Speaker 4: I've lost friends one hundred percent lost friends. Interestingly, well,

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Speaker 4: now I've lost gay male friends. Interestingly, I've mostly lost

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Speaker 4: liberal female friends, which do with that as you will. Yeah,

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Speaker 4: I've mostly lost liberal female friends. Now what's interesting is Okay,

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Speaker 4: So recently we had the Washington Post like come out

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Speaker 4: with this editorial being like, of course males can't compete

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Speaker 4: with in female sports, right right, Well.

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Speaker 1: They're all of coursing it now, right of coursing it,

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Speaker 1: whereas we've all been pulling our hair out for however

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Speaker 1: many years.

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Speaker 4: And you know, for people that are not to pay

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Speaker 4: myself as any kind of victim or anything like that,

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Speaker 4: but for people that are of the liberal universe and

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Speaker 4: the progressive, a great detriment to our reputations, to our friendships,

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Speaker 4: to our relationships coming out and saying and then suddenly

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Speaker 4: the Washington Post is able to just casually fling it

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Speaker 4: out there that this isn't a problem at all. So

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Speaker 4: I start to see where people are even themselves saying

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Speaker 4: things out loud, and you know, and I get it.

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Speaker 3: I really don't.

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Speaker 4: There's a lot of people that I don't blame for

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Speaker 4: staying quiet, because it is really there's been nothing fun

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Speaker 4: about this and that all. Really it's just been something

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Speaker 4: that I had to do because it was actually making

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Speaker 4: me sick mentally and physically, keeping all of these thoughts

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Speaker 4: and this descent in that makes people sick, and that's

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Speaker 4: what part of my book is about as well. And

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Speaker 4: so I had to get this stuff out. And so

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Speaker 4: now I see other people responding in this way. And

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Speaker 4: so now the gay people that are messaging me and

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Speaker 4: saying like, oh my gosh, thank you so much for

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Speaker 4: writing this. I knew I wasn't the two things that

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Speaker 4: people keep saying, They're like, I couldn't put it down,

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Speaker 4: which is like the best thing that an author can be.

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Speaker 4: There's so much information in there, and so I wanted

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Speaker 4: to make and it's a memoir, so I wanted it

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Speaker 4: to be storytelling as well. They said I couldn't put

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Speaker 4: it down and I felt like I was reading my

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Speaker 4: own thoughts.

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Speaker 3: They're like, it's so therapy.

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Speaker 4: I felt like you were in my which is such

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Speaker 4: a gratifying thing because I did really.

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Speaker 3: Want to make people feel not alone.

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Speaker 4: And I think it is not just for gay people,

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Speaker 4: for sure, but for people that have just witnessed the

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Speaker 4: past five ten years of just pretty bonker stuff going.

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Speaker 2: On in sanity.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and they look to somebody brave to speak up first.

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Speaker 1: And I love that you did that, and I hope

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Speaker 1: that you get the support that you deserve, because these

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Speaker 1: are not easy things to say, even now, even in

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Speaker 1: twenty twenty five, twenty twenty six. They're it's not easy

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Speaker 1: to break with your community and say the truth. We're

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Speaker 1: going to take a quick break and be right back

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Speaker 1: on the Carol Marcowitch Show.

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Speaker 2: Ben, what are you most proud of in your life?

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Speaker 4: I'm most proud of the fact that I still have

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Speaker 4: a life to lead like that. I that I've created

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Speaker 4: and cultivated a life that's successful on paper but in

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Speaker 4: real life. I mean, you don't know a lot about me,

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Speaker 4: but in my book, I mean, I came up in

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Speaker 4: religious fundamentalism. We left that when I was twelve, but

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Speaker 4: then I developed a very serious drug addiction and alcohol problem.

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Speaker 4: So you know, I'm twenty years old and I'm shooting heroin.

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Speaker 3: So yeah, so you've I've seen some things.

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Speaker 4: I've seen some things, so, you know, getting clean and

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Speaker 4: sober in my early twenties and building a life for myself. First,

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Speaker 4: your career, then you know, a relationship. I've been married

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Speaker 4: for over eleven years now, graduating from Colombia, writing a book,

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Speaker 4: doing all of these things to just consistently, you know,

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Speaker 4: at the end of this month, January thirty first, I'll

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Speaker 4: have twenty years clean and sober, you know, and so

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Speaker 4: to build this life from it. That's what I'm probably

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Speaker 4: is that I just still have a life to lead.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I think you have a very very bright future.

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Speaker 1: It's true, I don't know you that while I'm really

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Speaker 1: glad we're going to get you know, we're getting to

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Speaker 1: talk a little bit today and I can get to

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Speaker 1: know you, and I'm.

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Speaker 2: Following you now on all the platforms.

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Speaker 3: So cool.

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Speaker 1: I'm hoping to learn more about you. Give us a

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Speaker 1: five year out prediction. It could be about anything at all.

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Speaker 3: You know, that's a really good question, and.

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Speaker 4: I I'm I'm so afraid about this, the polarization that's

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Speaker 4: going on. I'm afraid that it's we're going to be

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Speaker 4: it's going to become even more where the the you know,

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Speaker 4: furthest most radical left and most radical right contingents of

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Speaker 4: our population are going to be speaking for all of

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Speaker 4: us and the rest of us are popping around in

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Speaker 4: the middle. I always think about this analogy Newton's third

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Speaker 4: law of motion, where for every action there's an equal

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Speaker 4: and opposite react. So I find that so prevalent in politics.

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Speaker 4: You know, it's just the left and right. So much

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Speaker 4: is reactionary, reactionary reacting to the opposite side without really

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Speaker 4: talking about what is best for the American people and

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Speaker 4: what is best for us, best for our country. And

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Speaker 4: so that's what worries me. I'm afraid that it is

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Speaker 4: going to be further if if there is a if

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Speaker 4: if we can make it to the opposite where it

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Speaker 4: can be different from that where we finally just have

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Speaker 4: had it with that, then then we're really gonna save

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Speaker 4: this country. But yeah, I'm afraid that if we continue

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Speaker 4: down that road road, it's going to be like we're

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Speaker 4: going to be electing this crazy leftist, then we're going

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Speaker 4: to be elected. I mean, who knows what.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, could be AOC. Definitely the AOC.

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Speaker 4: And so you know, thankfully mom, Donnie can't win because

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Speaker 4: he wasn't born in the.

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Speaker 3: You know, I mean he would honestly.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree, I think he would have a real

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Speaker 1: strong chance. Yeah, either Gavin newsommer AOC. But you know, yeah,

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Speaker 1: you were talking about the bottom rung, you know, being

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Speaker 1: white and sis and I was thinking that that is

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Speaker 1: what we're seeing now with the insane right and their

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Speaker 1: obsession with you know.

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Speaker 2: Their white heritage and all of that. That is the

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Speaker 2: reaction to that.

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Speaker 1: What did what did the left think when they told

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Speaker 1: everybody to focus on their race? That was going to me,

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Speaker 1: not the crazy white you know contingency. It means everybody's

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Speaker 1: going to focus on their race. Oh yeah, I think

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Speaker 1: what we're seeing right now is a direct reaction to

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Speaker 1: what you saw in twenty seventeen and what we kind

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Speaker 1: of became widespread in the early twenty twenties.

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Speaker 3: This is this is where it came from one hundred percent.

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Speaker 4: And I actually, you know, the subtitle of my book

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Speaker 4: is the making of a gender heretic, but it actually

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Speaker 4: goes into so much about race and identity as well,

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Speaker 4: so it's not just about that.

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Speaker 3: And I have that.

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Speaker 4: I mean when I was at Columbia and I share

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Speaker 4: these student stories about you know, my another guy, a

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Speaker 4: white student who started having panic attacks in class because

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Speaker 4: he was you know, kind of essentially screamed at, right

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Speaker 4: or offering actually help and encouragement to a black student.

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Speaker 4: But because he was white, he wasn't supposed to be

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Speaker 4: doing that, because he didn't know the black experience, and

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Speaker 4: it was interpreted as talking down to and he no

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Speaker 4: longer wanted to speak. Then there's other folks who there

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Speaker 4: was when I was at the university, there was a

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Speaker 4: young student, a white male student, who it went viral

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Speaker 4: on social media. A lot of listeners might remember this.

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Speaker 4: A student who was on video saying like white people

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Speaker 4: created the Western civilization, white people are the greatest and

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Speaker 4: da da da, and it became this whole viral thing.

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Speaker 4: But he was drunk and he was and I write

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Speaker 4: about this, and I write about my own experience of

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Speaker 4: actually reaching these new levels of depression and isolation there

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Speaker 4: and being like, this is the natural reaction, this is

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Speaker 4: what's going to happen. This is so honor productive. You're

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Speaker 4: going to have people doing worse. This is not the

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Speaker 4: way out of this.

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Speaker 1: My only kind of spot of optimism is that you're

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Speaker 1: able to write about, you know, being a gender heretic.

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Speaker 1: And your book came out in November, right, so twenty

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Speaker 1: twenty five. Just a few years ago, Bethany Mandel and

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Speaker 1: I co authored a book, Stolen Youth, and we had

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Speaker 1: a hard time selling it because of the transgender chapter.

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Speaker 1: And I'm talking we had a hard time selling it

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Speaker 1: to conservative publishers who would say, we love this book,

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Speaker 1: can you just take out the transgender chapter? And we

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Speaker 1: were like, no, we can't do that. Things have shifted,

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Speaker 1: things have changed for the better. So you know, maybe

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Speaker 1: that's the only point of optimism, is that things were

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Speaker 1: really crazy for a little while and they've improved.

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Speaker 2: Maybe I like that. We'll see, Ben. I have loved

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Speaker 2: this conversation. I've love getting to know.

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Speaker 1: You leave us here with your best tip from my

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Speaker 1: listeners on how they can improve their lives.

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Speaker 4: Saying what you think. I mean, if I were to

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Speaker 4: teach a writing class, it would be right what you think.

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Speaker 4: If I was to teach a writing class, it would

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Speaker 4: be say what you think, Say what you think, and

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Speaker 4: it can be matter of factly because common sense, you know,

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Speaker 4: it really does ring true with people.

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Speaker 3: And what is unfortunately, again going back to that.

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Speaker 4: Idea of these of these the more radical contingents of people,

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Speaker 4: as if they're representing the majority of the American people,

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Speaker 4: they're not. And so you think that what they're saying

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Speaker 4: is actually what everybody else is thinking. And that's not

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Speaker 4: peace at all. So just be unafraid to say out

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Speaker 4: loud what you think, and and and from there, and

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Speaker 4: it's actually hugely liberating. It can be terrifying from the beginning,

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Speaker 4: and I've gotten vast amounts of trouble for which was

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Speaker 4: like my biggest fear. I didn't want to be seen

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Speaker 4: as a bad person.

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Speaker 3: That was my growing up religious, growing up in this

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Speaker 3: Christian community. I just wanted to be a good person.

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Speaker 4: And so being a heretic, it was, it was, it

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Speaker 4: was awful, it was, you know, very very traumatizing. But

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Speaker 4: getting through that, this guy didn't fall, i didn't die,

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Speaker 4: I didn't spontaneously combust. I'm still here, I'm still breathing

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Speaker 4: and getting to that and then it just opens up

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Speaker 4: this new world of possibility because you start to meet

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Speaker 4: new people that are also speaking in their mind and

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Speaker 4: also saying what they think, and you're like, you can breathe,

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Speaker 4: you know, yeah, be.

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Speaker 2: Brave like Ben.

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Speaker 1: Check out his book Cis White Gay The Making of

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Speaker 1: a gender heretic he is Ben Appel, Thank you so

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Speaker 1: much for coming

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Speaker 3: On, Ben, Thank you for having me