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Cis White Gay: The Making of a Gender Heretic
A gay survivor of a Christian cult finds new purpose in LGBT activism and attends Columbia University with the aim of becoming a journalist, only to find himself in a new cult devoted to “queerness,” anti-Zionism and anti-Western radicalism.
In 1983, Ben Appel is born into the Lamb of God, a Christian covenant community in Maryland. From an early age, his gender nonconformity is evident, and he is made to feel sinful and bad in God's eyes. When his parents’ marriage crumbles and his family is exiled from the sacred community, Ben is thrust into the real world, which he finds to be even less tolerant of “girly” boys than the Lamb of God.
Unable to reconcile his gay identity with his religious programming, he prays obsessively for God’s forgiveness and self-medicates with drugs and alcohol. Within a few years, his inner demons drive him to the edge of mental and emotional collapse.
Later, in recovery, Ben rebuilds his life and finds a new calling in LGBT activism, setting him on a path to the Ivy League and a hopeful career as a journalist. Finally, at the late age of thirty-three, he enters Columbia University, eager to join his progressive peers in their fight against right-wing authoritarianism. Yet he soon discovers that he has joined a new “sacred” community, one as conformist as the Christian cult of his childhood and as cruel as his middle school bullies. Even more frightening than this mob’s so-called progressive mentality is its rigid ideology—an illiberal orthodoxy that threatens the very principles of freedom and equality.
For resisting indoctrination into this new progressive cult—the Cult of Queer—Ben will once again face the shame and loneliness of excommunication. Only this time he will discover that true freedom can be found on the other side of exile, in a celebration of genuine diversity based on hard-won individual identity.
In 1983, Ben Appel is born into the Lamb of God, a Christian covenant community in Maryland. From an early age, his gender nonconformity is evident, and he is made to feel sinful and bad in God's eyes. When his parents’ marriage crumbles and his family is exiled from the sacred community, Ben is thrust into the real world, which he finds to be even less tolerant of “girly” boys than the Lamb of God.
Unable to reconcile his gay identity with his religious programming, he prays obsessively for God’s forgiveness and self-medicates with drugs and alcohol. Within a few years, his inner demons drive him to the edge of mental and emotional collapse.
Later, in recovery, Ben rebuilds his life and finds a new calling in LGBT activism, setting him on a path to the Ivy League and a hopeful career as a journalist. Finally, at the late age of thirty-three, he enters Columbia University, eager to join his progressive peers in their fight against right-wing authoritarianism. Yet he soon discovers that he has joined a new “sacred” community, one as conformist as the Christian cult of his childhood and as cruel as his middle school bullies. Even more frightening than this mob’s so-called progressive mentality is its rigid ideology—an illiberal orthodoxy that threatens the very principles of freedom and equality.
For resisting indoctrination into this new progressive cult—the Cult of Queer—Ben will once again face the shame and loneliness of excommunication. Only this time he will discover that true freedom can be found on the other side of exile, in a celebration of genuine diversity based on hard-won individual identity.
- GenresNonfictionPolitics
336 pages, Hardcover
First published November 4, 2025
24 people are currently reading
214 people want to read
About the author
Ben Appel
1 book12 followersIn 2016, after working as a hairstylist for over a decade, I returned to school to become a professional writer. In May 2020, I graduated from Columbia University with a Bachelor of Arts in Creative Writing.
I am the recipient of Columbia’s 2019 Nonfiction Prize for my essay, “Heinrich Hofmann’s Christ.” I have written for The Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, The Free Press, New York Post, UnHerd, Washington Examiner, Queer Majority, spiked, The Spectator, Daily Mail, and Quillette.
My memoir, "Cis White Gay: The Making of a Gender Heretic" (Bombardier, 2025), about my childhood in a Christian covenant community and my experiences in LGBT activism and Ivy League academia, is now available where books are sold.
I am the recipient of Columbia’s 2019 Nonfiction Prize for my essay, “Heinrich Hofmann’s Christ.” I have written for The Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, The Free Press, New York Post, UnHerd, Washington Examiner, Queer Majority, spiked, The Spectator, Daily Mail, and Quillette.
My memoir, "Cis White Gay: The Making of a Gender Heretic" (Bombardier, 2025), about my childhood in a Christian covenant community and my experiences in LGBT activism and Ivy League academia, is now available where books are sold.
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Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews
November 23, 2025
This book will be very popular among the type of people who think they know better than everyone else about everything there is to know and play the victim when you tell them honestly how stupid and naive they are.
This book will be very popular among the kinds of people who think if a man wears eyeliner he will be forcibly given a sex change and called a bigot if he resists, which is to say, people who do not live in reality and do not deserve to be taken seriously whatsoever.
'Ben is thrust into the real world, which he finds to be even less tolerant of “girly” boys than the Lamb of God.'
If you think the LGBT community is less tolerant of feminine men than your homophobic church it may be because you don't know or interact with any of us whatsoever. Like in what world is a blatant lie like this taken seriously by anyone? Well, easy: it's what they already believe and want to believe so their confirmation bias kicks in hardcore.
No, your homophobic church that tells all gay people we're going to burn for eternity is NOT more accepting of feminine gay men than trans people are. Come back down to earth.
No, the LGBT community is not forcing transition or sex changes on people. Someone asking you if you're trans or think you could be is not you being forced to be trans or putting you through conversion therapy. They're asking a question and you are free to answer. I've never encountered in all my years this LGBT 'alphabet mafia' cult these people talk about that forcibly transgenders people. I've been to pride, I've been in gay straight alliance clubs, I've got many cis and trans friends, trans friends who range from straight to bi to gay. None of them ever tried to force me, a very feminine, girly gay guy, to be trans or to transition at all.
I HAVE however had homophobic and transphobic family try to pressure me into being more masculine, more macho, and more 'normal' at every turn. I have indeed had cis relatives like my father and brother tell me up front when they see me being girly or glam that 'If you ever come out and have a sex change and try to call yourself a woman, we'll disown you, we won't go along with that' WHEN I WAS NOT EVEN THINKING OF IT NOR DID ANYBODY ELSE BRING IT UP.
You are obsessed with transgender people. They are not obsessed with you.
Ugly as fuck of Simon and Schuster to publish transphobic drivel disguised as 'just having opinions and asking questions!' lmao. when you're making up lies about other queer people to pander to folks who still call you slurs behind closed doors in an attempt to be one of the good ones you lose any and all respect I could have for you.
"Being transgender or standing up for trans people is the same as being in a religious cult!" is actually the most diabolical and disgusting stuff I've seen in a while. Very craven behavior.
I'm already seeing Trump supports talk about "critical race theory" in their review so I'm sure racists who think it's racist to acknowledge racism exists in and of itself are also going to love this book.
Published for the kind of people who will unironically call BLM activists "terrorists" but the people murdering their children "good cops."
Barely worth using as a door stopper, but at least then it would have a purpose other than furthering divide and spreading bigoted propaganda.
LGB without the T people are playing a dangerous game and will find out the hard way their little transphobic friends hate the rest of us too. You think someone who hates trans folks because of how "weird" and "perverse" and "unnatural" they are is gonna stand up for you as a cis gay when homophobes come for you? Have fun realizing otherwise lol: that Venn diagram is just a circle.
It's also crazy that you can say "We can't even criticize trans people these days!" Yes, you can, and do. Hatred of and distrust of trans people is EVERYWHERE. Blaming them for things that aren't their fault is EVERYWHERE.
Immediately after the shooting of Charlie Kirk for HOURS we saw republican politicians and MAGA influencers saying it was trans people's fault, all trans folk should be rounded up and put in asylums, sex changes should be made illegal, etc etc. The minute it came out the shooter was a cis man they deleted all those posts and tried to pretend it never happened.
The fact of the matter is there is big, big propaganda money funding hate against transgender people, targeting trans identity in public, and spreading hateful bigoted propaganda full of outright lies, and this looks like part of that. All of this deluge of anti-trans hate using the exact same talking points and propaganda talking points all coming at once is no coincidence. It is organized, it is deliberate, and it is being pushed by some pretty rich, powerful people.
It coincides with a global rise in homophobia, misogyny, and authoritarianism and corruption. It divides people, including minority groups like the LGBT community, attempting to splinter us so we don't unite and fight back. Divide and conquer, right?
Well, you'll need to do better than this to trick this feminine gay man into turning on his trans friends who have ALWAYS supported me as I am. Who is more of an ally to gender nonconforming cis gay people, the feminine men and masculine women? Is it christofascist homophobic misogynistic reactionaries and MAGA influencers pushing everyone further to the right at all costs, or is it other gender nonconforming people who have gone through the same stuff?
You'd think logically if that were the case, all feminine gay men and all butch lesbians would be fleeing the left and hanging out with MAGA influencers en masse but I don't see it, do you?
Show me all the transphobic MAGA influencers and TERFS with their masculine macho gal pals and their feminine girly gay besties who are cis men but look like princesses. If these are really the people who have our backs and are our true friends as girly men and masc women, where are all their girly guy friends and macho girl friends? I haven't seen them. I never do. Do you?
We are not invited to the table when these people meet. Why?
Because just like they think trans folk are 'weird' and 'cringe' and 'unnatural' they feel the same way about us and have never been shy of making that obvious.
I know I can trust trans men and women to defend me and my right to my gender expression and freedom as a girly gay man infinitely more than I could ever trust the same people who call said transgender folks weird, off-putting, cringe etc for the same personality traits I also display. Let's not pull the wool over our eyes for these folks. The transphobic folk who want you to believe they love and protect us girly men call us homophobic slurs behind closed doors I can't even repeat here without getting my account banned or my review removed. How is that your chosen gay ally?
The most genuine read I can give to this is that this man raised in a cult is, however much he thinks of himself as a free-thinker now that he's escaped, still susceptible to cult tactics and has fallen headlong into the rightwing anti-trans rabbit hole. He's too naive to see he's pushing the agenda and goals of people who will throw him away the minute they're done with him. Pathetic to the extreme.
I also would like to note that Ben Appel's public history shows he's not some victim the big evil trans community went after for 'having different opinions' lol, HE went after THEM and made his 'anti-trans' persona his entire public personality and identity and now plays the victim that they don't take his hate lying down. He's a professional victim and a grifter. This is just a payday for him.
Here is the link to his bio/summary of his past history on the Transgender Map, a site that offers resources and info to trans folks and their families and also has sections on more prominent/active transphobes: it's a pretty interesting read.
The man is upset because his AA group had a 'no racism/sexism/homophobia/transphobia' notice in the rules. That's 'trans extremism' to him: a disclaimer saying bigotry of any kind is not tolerated. Wow, how oppressed are we cisgenders that we have to deal with such abuse, right?
He's a member of Genspect, a known hate group who opposes making forced conversion therapy of minors illegal, and doesn't want people to be able to legally get a sex change until the age of 26. (This is all about protecting kids! 24 year old kids! Yeah, right.)
They also call drag queens 'grotesque men dressed as women' so his idea that cis girly gay men are safe with them is obviously not true, lol. They even want to ban puberty blockers which are safe, temporary, and should align perfectly with their goals: puberty blockers allow teens and kids who think they may be trans more time to discover the truth and figure things out instead of rushing to make a choice they may regret. But banning them hurts trans people so their own ideology goes out the window immediately.
They also promote going back to treating being trans as an illness that must be cured and that treatment should center around convincing trans people they're really cis. He says he just wants a world where people aren't 'forced' to be trans (something that isn't happening) but in reality he wants a world where trans people are forced out of existence and stripped of free will and self-determinism. This is all publicly available info.
Genspect: transgender map page
Group dynamics and division of labor within the anti-LGBTQ+ pseudoscience network
This man is not a victim nor is he a freethinker. He's a propagandist and an opportunist who should be treated like the joke he is.
*I have this review backed up and it will be re-posted if removed, as many times as needed. XOXO.
This book will be very popular among the kinds of people who think if a man wears eyeliner he will be forcibly given a sex change and called a bigot if he resists, which is to say, people who do not live in reality and do not deserve to be taken seriously whatsoever.
'Ben is thrust into the real world, which he finds to be even less tolerant of “girly” boys than the Lamb of God.'
If you think the LGBT community is less tolerant of feminine men than your homophobic church it may be because you don't know or interact with any of us whatsoever. Like in what world is a blatant lie like this taken seriously by anyone? Well, easy: it's what they already believe and want to believe so their confirmation bias kicks in hardcore.
No, your homophobic church that tells all gay people we're going to burn for eternity is NOT more accepting of feminine gay men than trans people are. Come back down to earth.
No, the LGBT community is not forcing transition or sex changes on people. Someone asking you if you're trans or think you could be is not you being forced to be trans or putting you through conversion therapy. They're asking a question and you are free to answer. I've never encountered in all my years this LGBT 'alphabet mafia' cult these people talk about that forcibly transgenders people. I've been to pride, I've been in gay straight alliance clubs, I've got many cis and trans friends, trans friends who range from straight to bi to gay. None of them ever tried to force me, a very feminine, girly gay guy, to be trans or to transition at all.
I HAVE however had homophobic and transphobic family try to pressure me into being more masculine, more macho, and more 'normal' at every turn. I have indeed had cis relatives like my father and brother tell me up front when they see me being girly or glam that 'If you ever come out and have a sex change and try to call yourself a woman, we'll disown you, we won't go along with that' WHEN I WAS NOT EVEN THINKING OF IT NOR DID ANYBODY ELSE BRING IT UP.
You are obsessed with transgender people. They are not obsessed with you.
Ugly as fuck of Simon and Schuster to publish transphobic drivel disguised as 'just having opinions and asking questions!' lmao. when you're making up lies about other queer people to pander to folks who still call you slurs behind closed doors in an attempt to be one of the good ones you lose any and all respect I could have for you.
"Being transgender or standing up for trans people is the same as being in a religious cult!" is actually the most diabolical and disgusting stuff I've seen in a while. Very craven behavior.
I'm already seeing Trump supports talk about "critical race theory" in their review so I'm sure racists who think it's racist to acknowledge racism exists in and of itself are also going to love this book.
Published for the kind of people who will unironically call BLM activists "terrorists" but the people murdering their children "good cops."
Barely worth using as a door stopper, but at least then it would have a purpose other than furthering divide and spreading bigoted propaganda.
LGB without the T people are playing a dangerous game and will find out the hard way their little transphobic friends hate the rest of us too. You think someone who hates trans folks because of how "weird" and "perverse" and "unnatural" they are is gonna stand up for you as a cis gay when homophobes come for you? Have fun realizing otherwise lol: that Venn diagram is just a circle.
It's also crazy that you can say "We can't even criticize trans people these days!" Yes, you can, and do. Hatred of and distrust of trans people is EVERYWHERE. Blaming them for things that aren't their fault is EVERYWHERE.
Immediately after the shooting of Charlie Kirk for HOURS we saw republican politicians and MAGA influencers saying it was trans people's fault, all trans folk should be rounded up and put in asylums, sex changes should be made illegal, etc etc. The minute it came out the shooter was a cis man they deleted all those posts and tried to pretend it never happened.
The fact of the matter is there is big, big propaganda money funding hate against transgender people, targeting trans identity in public, and spreading hateful bigoted propaganda full of outright lies, and this looks like part of that. All of this deluge of anti-trans hate using the exact same talking points and propaganda talking points all coming at once is no coincidence. It is organized, it is deliberate, and it is being pushed by some pretty rich, powerful people.
It coincides with a global rise in homophobia, misogyny, and authoritarianism and corruption. It divides people, including minority groups like the LGBT community, attempting to splinter us so we don't unite and fight back. Divide and conquer, right?
Well, you'll need to do better than this to trick this feminine gay man into turning on his trans friends who have ALWAYS supported me as I am. Who is more of an ally to gender nonconforming cis gay people, the feminine men and masculine women? Is it christofascist homophobic misogynistic reactionaries and MAGA influencers pushing everyone further to the right at all costs, or is it other gender nonconforming people who have gone through the same stuff?
You'd think logically if that were the case, all feminine gay men and all butch lesbians would be fleeing the left and hanging out with MAGA influencers en masse but I don't see it, do you?
Show me all the transphobic MAGA influencers and TERFS with their masculine macho gal pals and their feminine girly gay besties who are cis men but look like princesses. If these are really the people who have our backs and are our true friends as girly men and masc women, where are all their girly guy friends and macho girl friends? I haven't seen them. I never do. Do you?
We are not invited to the table when these people meet. Why?
Because just like they think trans folk are 'weird' and 'cringe' and 'unnatural' they feel the same way about us and have never been shy of making that obvious.
I know I can trust trans men and women to defend me and my right to my gender expression and freedom as a girly gay man infinitely more than I could ever trust the same people who call said transgender folks weird, off-putting, cringe etc for the same personality traits I also display. Let's not pull the wool over our eyes for these folks. The transphobic folk who want you to believe they love and protect us girly men call us homophobic slurs behind closed doors I can't even repeat here without getting my account banned or my review removed. How is that your chosen gay ally?
The most genuine read I can give to this is that this man raised in a cult is, however much he thinks of himself as a free-thinker now that he's escaped, still susceptible to cult tactics and has fallen headlong into the rightwing anti-trans rabbit hole. He's too naive to see he's pushing the agenda and goals of people who will throw him away the minute they're done with him. Pathetic to the extreme.
I also would like to note that Ben Appel's public history shows he's not some victim the big evil trans community went after for 'having different opinions' lol, HE went after THEM and made his 'anti-trans' persona his entire public personality and identity and now plays the victim that they don't take his hate lying down. He's a professional victim and a grifter. This is just a payday for him.
Here is the link to his bio/summary of his past history on the Transgender Map, a site that offers resources and info to trans folks and their families and also has sections on more prominent/active transphobes: it's a pretty interesting read.
The man is upset because his AA group had a 'no racism/sexism/homophobia/transphobia' notice in the rules. That's 'trans extremism' to him: a disclaimer saying bigotry of any kind is not tolerated. Wow, how oppressed are we cisgenders that we have to deal with such abuse, right?
He's a member of Genspect, a known hate group who opposes making forced conversion therapy of minors illegal, and doesn't want people to be able to legally get a sex change until the age of 26. (This is all about protecting kids! 24 year old kids! Yeah, right.)
They also call drag queens 'grotesque men dressed as women' so his idea that cis girly gay men are safe with them is obviously not true, lol. They even want to ban puberty blockers which are safe, temporary, and should align perfectly with their goals: puberty blockers allow teens and kids who think they may be trans more time to discover the truth and figure things out instead of rushing to make a choice they may regret. But banning them hurts trans people so their own ideology goes out the window immediately.
They also promote going back to treating being trans as an illness that must be cured and that treatment should center around convincing trans people they're really cis. He says he just wants a world where people aren't 'forced' to be trans (something that isn't happening) but in reality he wants a world where trans people are forced out of existence and stripped of free will and self-determinism. This is all publicly available info.
Genspect: transgender map page
Group dynamics and division of labor within the anti-LGBTQ+ pseudoscience network
This man is not a victim nor is he a freethinker. He's a propagandist and an opportunist who should be treated like the joke he is.
*I have this review backed up and it will be re-posted if removed, as many times as needed. XOXO.
November 9, 2025
Great memoir about one man's halting, but very brave journey to freedom of thought!
March 1, 2026
"According to queer theory, if you're a man who behaves in 'unmasculine' ways or wears eyeliner you must be a woman inside, which I thought was regressive." A quote from the author published in WSJ
Hey man, maybe the reason you feel so othered from queer people? Is because you fucking suck and you don't actually understand their ideology
Appel, like many other gay men, grew up being made to feel like his feminine traits were wrong. Appel, unlike those many other gay men, has decided to take out his personal insecurities on trans people for a strawman he assigned to them.
In political times like these, the LGBT+ community needs to find strength in solidarity, recognizing the REAL enemy in our governments. Instead, Appel has taken the side of the oppressor, labeling his own community a cult and dividing it so that it's easier for his conservative friends to conquer. In true cis white gay fashion.
No, Ben Appel. The queer community does not want you to transition just because you're girly. And no, gender affirming actions aren't the Big Bad keeping us tied to gender/sex roles. You know who's doing that? Cishets. And cisgenders in general. Idk. Maybe you'd be less annoying if you did transition. Maybe you would stop throwing such a pity party. Boohoo.
And don't think I didn't catch that anti-Zionism mention in the blurb
Support trans people. Stand against genocide. Love is love.
And Ben Appel, remember: you can suck up to conservatives all you want, but at the end of the day, they hate you just as much as they hate the gender cult ^-^
Hey man, maybe the reason you feel so othered from queer people? Is because you fucking suck and you don't actually understand their ideology
Appel, like many other gay men, grew up being made to feel like his feminine traits were wrong. Appel, unlike those many other gay men, has decided to take out his personal insecurities on trans people for a strawman he assigned to them.
In political times like these, the LGBT+ community needs to find strength in solidarity, recognizing the REAL enemy in our governments. Instead, Appel has taken the side of the oppressor, labeling his own community a cult and dividing it so that it's easier for his conservative friends to conquer. In true cis white gay fashion.
No, Ben Appel. The queer community does not want you to transition just because you're girly. And no, gender affirming actions aren't the Big Bad keeping us tied to gender/sex roles. You know who's doing that? Cishets. And cisgenders in general. Idk. Maybe you'd be less annoying if you did transition. Maybe you would stop throwing such a pity party. Boohoo.
And don't think I didn't catch that anti-Zionism mention in the blurb
Support trans people. Stand against genocide. Love is love.
And Ben Appel, remember: you can suck up to conservatives all you want, but at the end of the day, they hate you just as much as they hate the gender cult ^-^
January 15, 2026
“As a gay man” I found that this book clarified and mirrored a lot of my experiences with the movement to place greater emphasis of various inborn identity traits. Like the author, I also experienced having my views summarily dismissed by others with different (“more oppressed” I guess?) identities.
Many of the points he made (ie the absurdity of “Queers for Palestine” for example) I had heard before and many I agree with. What was new and fascinating were his accounts of his time in both cults (the religious one and later in academia). I expected the religious cult to be as described (though it was more accepting of his femininity than I imagined).
What I was blown away by was just how deep and pervasive the identity cult had become in academia to the point where even the smallest of unintended “transgressions” were punished swiftly and harshly, with very little “due process”. I knew it was bad, but had no idea just how bad.
Overall, I found the author to be fair and measured. On occasion though I do think he trafficked a bit in similar types of generalizations. For example, there were a few broad statements (about “Muslim majority nations”, LGBT+ groups, how certain things were funded, etc) that struck me as needing more research or citations to back up at the very least. In some cases the assertions were far too broad to be true and were easily disproved with a simple AI chat or search. I’d encourage the author to dig deeper into some of these generalizations and clarify them in future editions (if any) or in his separate writing.
Those critiques aside, I’d definitely recommend this book to my fellow liberals, especially the gays, lesbians and allies, and those who don’t believe that the kind of thing the author discusses is actually happening. It is and it’s very dangerous for us.
(About the author himself, I definitely don’t think the author is anti-trans or anything of the sort. He fought for years for gay and even trans rights. So all the reviews simply demeaning his character can be dismissed as ad hominem attacks pure and simple. Read the book or don’t review it.)
Many of the points he made (ie the absurdity of “Queers for Palestine” for example) I had heard before and many I agree with. What was new and fascinating were his accounts of his time in both cults (the religious one and later in academia). I expected the religious cult to be as described (though it was more accepting of his femininity than I imagined).
What I was blown away by was just how deep and pervasive the identity cult had become in academia to the point where even the smallest of unintended “transgressions” were punished swiftly and harshly, with very little “due process”. I knew it was bad, but had no idea just how bad.
Overall, I found the author to be fair and measured. On occasion though I do think he trafficked a bit in similar types of generalizations. For example, there were a few broad statements (about “Muslim majority nations”, LGBT+ groups, how certain things were funded, etc) that struck me as needing more research or citations to back up at the very least. In some cases the assertions were far too broad to be true and were easily disproved with a simple AI chat or search. I’d encourage the author to dig deeper into some of these generalizations and clarify them in future editions (if any) or in his separate writing.
Those critiques aside, I’d definitely recommend this book to my fellow liberals, especially the gays, lesbians and allies, and those who don’t believe that the kind of thing the author discusses is actually happening. It is and it’s very dangerous for us.
(About the author himself, I definitely don’t think the author is anti-trans or anything of the sort. He fought for years for gay and even trans rights. So all the reviews simply demeaning his character can be dismissed as ad hominem attacks pure and simple. Read the book or don’t review it.)
January 5, 2026
This book had me riveted to the end, which doesn't often happen to me with non-fiction. With so much confusion about sex and gender in the world, I was hoping to gain clarity by reading this book, and I certainly did learn a lot. If you have ever wondered what queer means today and what critical theory is, this book will shed light on those terms. Starting on page 144 and the next several pages, I gained a deeper understanding of queer theory and how it is affecting our education system and the beliefs of our kids. And decolonization of sex is also addressed, and that was what alerted me to a big problem with the direction of our academic instruction.
Columbia University, where the author studied, is talked about in great detail, and that was both enlightening and disturbing for me to read. Columbia University has been in the news about the protests that occurred there, and much of those protests were described as "Anti-West, anti-America, anti-Israel, anticapitalism, antinormativity." Reading how Appel observed his time at Columbia and the protests afterwards provided a window into a world that seems unhinged and unchecked.
The final chapter was gender ideology focused and packed with discourse about the way that ideology has become divisive, contentious, and an unfathomable medical scandal. Appel gives context to part of the reason the Democrats lost the 2024 election. This chapter concludes the book with fireworks. Appel asks, "How will our country survive if its youngest generations are being indoctrinated to hate it? How will it survive if we're taught to hate ourselves?" A strong finish!
I wholeheartedly recommend this book!
Note: I have observed a few other reviews as a rant, possible defamation campaign and personal attack on the author which seems inappropriate. I wonder if some of the 1-star reviews listed for this book are possibly a violation of Goodreads guidelines and standards.
Columbia University, where the author studied, is talked about in great detail, and that was both enlightening and disturbing for me to read. Columbia University has been in the news about the protests that occurred there, and much of those protests were described as "Anti-West, anti-America, anti-Israel, anticapitalism, antinormativity." Reading how Appel observed his time at Columbia and the protests afterwards provided a window into a world that seems unhinged and unchecked.
The final chapter was gender ideology focused and packed with discourse about the way that ideology has become divisive, contentious, and an unfathomable medical scandal. Appel gives context to part of the reason the Democrats lost the 2024 election. This chapter concludes the book with fireworks. Appel asks, "How will our country survive if its youngest generations are being indoctrinated to hate it? How will it survive if we're taught to hate ourselves?" A strong finish!
I wholeheartedly recommend this book!
Note: I have observed a few other reviews as a rant, possible defamation campaign and personal attack on the author which seems inappropriate. I wonder if some of the 1-star reviews listed for this book are possibly a violation of Goodreads guidelines and standards.
January 22, 2026
Unlike life, good memoirs read like a story, and Cis White Gay qualifies in that regard. It's well written, easy to read, and tells an interesting story.
The only criticism I can offer is that the memoir seems a bit too topical, and I wonder how much interest it will hold to readers in twenty years, when gender woo-woo has (we can hope) joined recovered memories and Satanic panic in the ash-bin of moral panics. Perhaps the life-span of this memoir could have been extended by telling more of the personal side of the story; I'd have liked to know more about Appel's specific, personal interaction with the ideologues that shaped his life, both positively and negatively.
That said, I very much enjoyed Cis White Gay and I'd recommend it to anyone who hasn't already decided they know everything about everything.
The only criticism I can offer is that the memoir seems a bit too topical, and I wonder how much interest it will hold to readers in twenty years, when gender woo-woo has (we can hope) joined recovered memories and Satanic panic in the ash-bin of moral panics. Perhaps the life-span of this memoir could have been extended by telling more of the personal side of the story; I'd have liked to know more about Appel's specific, personal interaction with the ideologues that shaped his life, both positively and negatively.
That said, I very much enjoyed Cis White Gay and I'd recommend it to anyone who hasn't already decided they know everything about everything.
January 6, 2026
Finally, a book that calls out all the things that most people have been thinking and shines a spotlight on the so-called "inclusive, liberal LGBTQ community" and the vicious culture on American college campuses cracking down on free speech. The book starts off with the author's personal anecdotes about growing up gender non-confirming in a strict Christian household and discovering his sexuality at an early age, before the author enrols in Columbia University and experiences cancel culture for real where his own views become increasingly censored. Highly recommended reading for anyone who doesn't believe the mainstream narrative pushed by the alphabet soup of the LGBTQIA+ community, I read it in a couple of days.
January 15, 2026
Ben Appel’s honesty, vulnerability and incredibly clear-headed analysis and criticism of the harm being caused by the insanity of gender ideology shook me to my core. This book will always be a wonderfully eloquent document of witness and truth telling in this strange and disturbing time in which we live.
January 20, 2026
I read this incredibly fast—Appel’s writing style is personal and compelling, although a bit rambly at times. I find his examination of American leftist ideology particularly striking and quite honestly relatable and accurate.
A good perspective, albeit potentially unpopular, to share.
A good perspective, albeit potentially unpopular, to share.
January 18, 2026
One need not agree with every opinion and perspective outlined by the author to appreciate this book. It is well done and well-reasoned, with facts laid out.
March 14, 2026
I confess that I skimmed more of this than is probably fair, but the premise struck me as a bit privileged, *despite* the ex-cult, self-loathing stuff. I know I'm speaking from a place of "safety"—in a mostly anonymous account that I don't advertise (unlike Appel's admitted mistake of publicly sharing a link to his inflammatory Substack post) and as someone who has never once stuck my neck out for activism—but he seems to miss the point, that the ones who feel lower on the ladder will (yes, unfairly) hold things against him for being perceivably higher on the ladder.
White privilege doesn't mean you have EVERYTHING go your way—you just don't endure some of the problems that others do, on account of you're white, they're not. Yes, it sucks that you went through the whole cult thing and internally villainised yourself for being you. That doesn't excuse your insistence that "Transwomen are men" and ignoring others' self-identities just because you can't parse them.
I will also admit that I don't know the "easiest" solution to cisgender men claiming they are women to go into dressing rooms to assault and rape (cisgender) women. The less easy but foolproof way is single-occupancy dressing rooms, bathrooms, etc. with family rooms for... families... but good luck getting business to pay for THOSE renovations without incentivising them for compliance/penalising them for noncompliance! Similarly with sports: I don't have an easy answer because I haven't thought about it because I basically find sports uninteresting and don't see it as a problem to personally solve. Maybe if I had a stake in things I would have better answers, but nope.
Actually... Appel's argument for gender segregation in sports stems from "women" getting badly injured, which... is something one expects to happen in sports? Like, even "men" get injured, but nobody says that MEN should be kept out or whatever? Also, it only becomes an issue when direct contact is part of the sport (American football, soccer, rugby, hockey) vs. sports based on individual performance (any type of running, weightlifting, skiing, swimming). Yet sports are divided as soon as a woman wins against men:
Do they really think they are "protecting" women when they segregate sports? If so, how does this protect them, in sports where the players do not come in contact? And how do trans people competing hurt when cisgender players with fully natural advantages aren't similarly banned?
So, I don't as such fault Appel for truthfully reporting on his own experiences, but this is definitely not my jam and not my personal experience, as mostly a bystander on the outskirts of gender (but observant of many different friend "heresies"). It's just frustrating reading this kind of book since Democrats in specific will eat each other alive while ignoring the ACTUAL threat (Republicans, who have no such qualms about attacking Democrats), so it feels like more of that—the set of people who are not at least one of 1. straight, 2. cisgender, and 3. white* in-fighting rather than focusing efforts on the glacial** rate of political change. Yes, I've (thankfully briefly) dealt with exactly the extreme types who want the "extreme" end of progressiveness at any cost. No, I don't think tearing them down helps at all.
Maybe I'm being unfairly harsh—I did after all skim and probably missed some important details—but I had to know what exactly it was about *just* the title that was setting off my alarms and unfortunately did not find sufficient evidence to allay my fears. I feel like talking civilly would definitely go a long way to solving most of our problems in this day and age, but I also recognise that's exactly what the people in power DON'T want.
*Appel has reservations about adopting "queer" as an all-purpose designation for anyone who doesn't consider themselves cisgender or straight, which is making writing this just a bit wordy.
**A cis white gay friend once took me to task about doing exactly what Appel did and withholding my vote because I didn't like the options, because "political progress is glacial"—and at the time, this was true! Then along came Lil' Donnie, and suddenly many of my friends have to keep checking the news to see if they still have rights. Definitely haven't withheld a vote since, particularly for local affairs.
White privilege doesn't mean you have EVERYTHING go your way—you just don't endure some of the problems that others do, on account of you're white, they're not. Yes, it sucks that you went through the whole cult thing and internally villainised yourself for being you. That doesn't excuse your insistence that "Transwomen are men" and ignoring others' self-identities just because you can't parse them.
I will also admit that I don't know the "easiest" solution to cisgender men claiming they are women to go into dressing rooms to assault and rape (cisgender) women. The less easy but foolproof way is single-occupancy dressing rooms, bathrooms, etc. with family rooms for... families... but good luck getting business to pay for THOSE renovations without incentivising them for compliance/penalising them for noncompliance! Similarly with sports: I don't have an easy answer because I haven't thought about it because I basically find sports uninteresting and don't see it as a problem to personally solve. Maybe if I had a stake in things I would have better answers, but nope.
Actually... Appel's argument for gender segregation in sports stems from "women" getting badly injured, which... is something one expects to happen in sports? Like, even "men" get injured, but nobody says that MEN should be kept out or whatever? Also, it only becomes an issue when direct contact is part of the sport (American football, soccer, rugby, hockey) vs. sports based on individual performance (any type of running, weightlifting, skiing, swimming). Yet sports are divided as soon as a woman wins against men:
Do they really think they are "protecting" women when they segregate sports? If so, how does this protect them, in sports where the players do not come in contact? And how do trans people competing hurt when cisgender players with fully natural advantages aren't similarly banned?
So, I don't as such fault Appel for truthfully reporting on his own experiences, but this is definitely not my jam and not my personal experience, as mostly a bystander on the outskirts of gender (but observant of many different friend "heresies"). It's just frustrating reading this kind of book since Democrats in specific will eat each other alive while ignoring the ACTUAL threat (Republicans, who have no such qualms about attacking Democrats), so it feels like more of that—the set of people who are not at least one of 1. straight, 2. cisgender, and 3. white* in-fighting rather than focusing efforts on the glacial** rate of political change. Yes, I've (thankfully briefly) dealt with exactly the extreme types who want the "extreme" end of progressiveness at any cost. No, I don't think tearing them down helps at all.
Maybe I'm being unfairly harsh—I did after all skim and probably missed some important details—but I had to know what exactly it was about *just* the title that was setting off my alarms and unfortunately did not find sufficient evidence to allay my fears. I feel like talking civilly would definitely go a long way to solving most of our problems in this day and age, but I also recognise that's exactly what the people in power DON'T want.
*Appel has reservations about adopting "queer" as an all-purpose designation for anyone who doesn't consider themselves cisgender or straight, which is making writing this just a bit wordy.
**A cis white gay friend once took me to task about doing exactly what Appel did and withholding my vote because I didn't like the options, because "political progress is glacial"—and at the time, this was true! Then along came Lil' Donnie, and suddenly many of my friends have to keep checking the news to see if they still have rights. Definitely haven't withheld a vote since, particularly for local affairs.
November 11, 2025
This book left me alternately infuriated and devastated, but more than anything it was so incredibly gratifying to read. What an insane time we have been through, and now Ben Appel is here to share his view of these crazy times.
Raised in a Christian cult in the 80's, Appel saw adults speak in tongues and heard women in the cult described as handmaidens. Then when his mother finally tired of this and left the cult, he was launched into public middle school (ugh, imagine!), where he was horribly bullied for having feminine mannerisms. Appel effectively depicts the agony and horror of feeling like there is something so deeply wrong with you that you pray to God to change you, including those stomach-lurching moments when he's casually told that "everyone" thinks he's gay. In response to this torment, he erases all feminine affects from his personality. He also develops scrupulosity, a form of OCD that takes the form of incessant prayer and perfectionism—and he turns to drugs and alcohol. By the time he is a young adult he is an addict; after a bout with psychosis, he finally goes sober and begins working as a hairdresser, slowly climbing back up from the brink and putting himself together.
Eventually he falls in love, and, after working on the Marriage Equality project, is able to marry his boyfriend. He is surprised how much the legalization of gay marriage affects him; he feels justified and accepted in a way that he never could have predicted. Wanting to ride on this feeling and share it with others—and also work toward making sure no gender-non-conforming child ever feels as unacceptable as he did—he continues with his activism, working on transgender rights and finally going to Columbia University to pursue a career in social justice.
What he finds at Columbia, though, is shocking. It's the late 2010's, and the university is in the throes of Queer Theory and Critical Race Theory. If you've ever wondered what's been happening over the last several years that made everything seem to fall apart, from Abolish the Police to Queers for Palestine to cancel culture, but you don't want to hear it from a Republican or a Trumper, Appel offers so much insight, having been in the trenches while the forces were gathering. Even if you are on the far left, you may appreciate understanding what this movement looked like to someone like Appel, a Democrat, a Liberal, and a gay man, who had real goals of legislation, true liberal values, and acceptance for gender-non-conforming children (and adults) in mind.
I found this book impossible to put down! It was gripping and personable and fascinating and shocking. I spent a couple days on the couch, not wanting to do anything but read it.
Raised in a Christian cult in the 80's, Appel saw adults speak in tongues and heard women in the cult described as handmaidens. Then when his mother finally tired of this and left the cult, he was launched into public middle school (ugh, imagine!), where he was horribly bullied for having feminine mannerisms. Appel effectively depicts the agony and horror of feeling like there is something so deeply wrong with you that you pray to God to change you, including those stomach-lurching moments when he's casually told that "everyone" thinks he's gay. In response to this torment, he erases all feminine affects from his personality. He also develops scrupulosity, a form of OCD that takes the form of incessant prayer and perfectionism—and he turns to drugs and alcohol. By the time he is a young adult he is an addict; after a bout with psychosis, he finally goes sober and begins working as a hairdresser, slowly climbing back up from the brink and putting himself together.
Eventually he falls in love, and, after working on the Marriage Equality project, is able to marry his boyfriend. He is surprised how much the legalization of gay marriage affects him; he feels justified and accepted in a way that he never could have predicted. Wanting to ride on this feeling and share it with others—and also work toward making sure no gender-non-conforming child ever feels as unacceptable as he did—he continues with his activism, working on transgender rights and finally going to Columbia University to pursue a career in social justice.
What he finds at Columbia, though, is shocking. It's the late 2010's, and the university is in the throes of Queer Theory and Critical Race Theory. If you've ever wondered what's been happening over the last several years that made everything seem to fall apart, from Abolish the Police to Queers for Palestine to cancel culture, but you don't want to hear it from a Republican or a Trumper, Appel offers so much insight, having been in the trenches while the forces were gathering. Even if you are on the far left, you may appreciate understanding what this movement looked like to someone like Appel, a Democrat, a Liberal, and a gay man, who had real goals of legislation, true liberal values, and acceptance for gender-non-conforming children (and adults) in mind.
I found this book impossible to put down! It was gripping and personable and fascinating and shocking. I spent a couple days on the couch, not wanting to do anything but read it.
December 17, 2025
This might be the best non-fiction book to give someone new to the history of gender ideology. Ben's memoir unfolds alongside the trans movement. And he starts as a true believer who has moments of doubt that start to add up. It turns out he was the perfect person to witness this phenomenon - being raised in a cult until he was 12, being shamed for being gay, and going back to university in his 30's makes for a real human connection to these things happening in the wider world. For myself, I've known most of, if not all, the points that Ben makes but he did do a great job of explaining a core post-modern tenant for this non-philosopher: that words make reality. p.145 criminalization of homosexual acts... [constructed] the heterosexual/homosexual binary.... Homosexual acts were no longer deviant acts which people, for one reason or another, partook in; rather they were now ... a distinct type of deviant person: a homosexual. The invention of the word thus invented the individual.
My only complaint is that Ben still seems unaware, or unwilling to admit, that his own experiences and opportunities were shaped by this elevating of the marginal/suffering/minority thru what we call social justice. Certainly being gay and escaping a Christian cult opened sympathy doors for him - he got into prestigious programs and was offered a full ride scholarship - so he enjoyed the fruits of DEI until it turned on him for being the Cis White that is in the book's title. And when he brings up feeling suicidal (the actual moment I can absolutely relate to - being pinned to the floor; the weight of what's happening so crushing your body can't counter it. But further describing the thoughts as suicidal is naked emotional manipulation) I can't help but notice that Ben is using the same appeal that 'trans' kids have been coached to say to their parents: "This distress is so high, it makes me want to kill myself."
In that way, I see again how feminists don't admit that carving out exceptions and privileges for the 'vulnerable' sex class that is woman, created and rewarded victimhood culture long before we gave it that name. We're in a movement that helped us, until it hurt us.
My only complaint is that Ben still seems unaware, or unwilling to admit, that his own experiences and opportunities were shaped by this elevating of the marginal/suffering/minority thru what we call social justice. Certainly being gay and escaping a Christian cult opened sympathy doors for him - he got into prestigious programs and was offered a full ride scholarship - so he enjoyed the fruits of DEI until it turned on him for being the Cis White that is in the book's title. And when he brings up feeling suicidal (the actual moment I can absolutely relate to - being pinned to the floor; the weight of what's happening so crushing your body can't counter it. But further describing the thoughts as suicidal is naked emotional manipulation) I can't help but notice that Ben is using the same appeal that 'trans' kids have been coached to say to their parents: "This distress is so high, it makes me want to kill myself."
In that way, I see again how feminists don't admit that carving out exceptions and privileges for the 'vulnerable' sex class that is woman, created and rewarded victimhood culture long before we gave it that name. We're in a movement that helped us, until it hurt us.
March 3, 2026
Unsurprisingly, Ben is still in a cult - the cult of transphobia. He likes to pretend that him previously wanting to be a "radical activist" for LGBTQ rights makes him objective and the supreme arbiter on LBGTQ issues, but the reality is that his journey paints the opposite picture. The far-left and far-right are both composed of dumb people, but this also means that it doesn't take "facts" to get them to switch side, it just takes even dumber lies. In Ben's case, he wanted to support LGBTQ rights. This itself doesn't make him far-left, but Ben considered himself a "radical progressive" who wanted to be an activist after escaping his family's religious cult.
What this basically means is that Ben didn't put real thought into why he wanted to support LGBTQ rights, and he did so for the wrong reasons. Him switching to being an anti-LBGTQ bigot isn't surprising, it's the inevitable outcome of someone who was always easily misled by others and is incapable of deep, introspective thinking.
The fact that he characterizes supporting trans people as being a "cult" is because he is incapable of realizing that other people support LBGTQ rights because they ACTUALLY support them and have thought about why they do so. He assumes everyone is just like he was - blindly doing whatever he was told was the right thing. In short, he wanted to be a radical leftist because he lacked introspection, and he thinks others are just like he was because he STILL lacks introspection. He's still just as gullible as ever, and now he's been trapped in a cult.
Statistically, do you know what happens when someone finally realizes the conspiracy theory they followed all their life was wrong? The answer is that they subscribe to a new conspiracy theory. LGBTQ rights aren't a conspiracy theory, but it was Ben's conspiratorial thinking that led him specifically to that path in life and it's the same thinking that leads him to the much worse place he is in now. Case in point - he subscribes to debunked conspiracy theories like Autogynephilia.
What this basically means is that Ben didn't put real thought into why he wanted to support LGBTQ rights, and he did so for the wrong reasons. Him switching to being an anti-LBGTQ bigot isn't surprising, it's the inevitable outcome of someone who was always easily misled by others and is incapable of deep, introspective thinking.
The fact that he characterizes supporting trans people as being a "cult" is because he is incapable of realizing that other people support LBGTQ rights because they ACTUALLY support them and have thought about why they do so. He assumes everyone is just like he was - blindly doing whatever he was told was the right thing. In short, he wanted to be a radical leftist because he lacked introspection, and he thinks others are just like he was because he STILL lacks introspection. He's still just as gullible as ever, and now he's been trapped in a cult.
Statistically, do you know what happens when someone finally realizes the conspiracy theory they followed all their life was wrong? The answer is that they subscribe to a new conspiracy theory. LGBTQ rights aren't a conspiracy theory, but it was Ben's conspiratorial thinking that led him specifically to that path in life and it's the same thinking that leads him to the much worse place he is in now. Case in point - he subscribes to debunked conspiracy theories like Autogynephilia.
March 19, 2026
This book isn’t brave, and it isn’t insightful — it’s just lazy.
Cis White Gay markets itself as a fearless challenge to gender “orthodoxy,” but what it actually delivers is a string of half-formed arguments, sweeping generalizations, and recycled talking points dressed up as intellectual rebellion. Appel mistakes contrarianism for depth, and provocation for substance.
The writing leans heavily on anecdote while making grand, confident claims it never bothers to support. Complex, nuanced issues are flattened into caricatures, as if reducing them makes the author seem clearer rather than simply less rigorous.
What makes the whole project feel especially hollow is how eagerly Appel aligns himself with the most reactionary corners of the conversation — the anti-trans activists and “LGB not T” crowd whose politics revolve around drawing hard lines around who gets to belong. There’s a palpable sense that this isn’t just critique, but an attempt to secure proximity to a more “acceptable” version of queerness — one that mirrors the status quo rather than challenges it.
That underlying need for validation runs through the book. Instead of offering a genuinely independent perspective, it often reads like a prolonged bid for approval from audiences already predisposed to agree. The result is less “gender heretic” and more a kind of intellectual pick-me performance — reaching for recognition that never quite lands.
And that’s where the “rage bait” label sticks. Nearly every chapter feels engineered to provoke rather than persuade — to generate heat, clicks, and controversy without doing the hard work of actually saying something new or meaningful.
There are brief glimpses of a more interesting book when Appel sticks to his own story, but those moments are quickly buried under a need to generalize and antagonize.
At the end of the day, this isn’t a bold critique — it’s a shallow performance of one. Loud, reductive, and intellectually flimsy.
Cis White Gay markets itself as a fearless challenge to gender “orthodoxy,” but what it actually delivers is a string of half-formed arguments, sweeping generalizations, and recycled talking points dressed up as intellectual rebellion. Appel mistakes contrarianism for depth, and provocation for substance.
The writing leans heavily on anecdote while making grand, confident claims it never bothers to support. Complex, nuanced issues are flattened into caricatures, as if reducing them makes the author seem clearer rather than simply less rigorous.
What makes the whole project feel especially hollow is how eagerly Appel aligns himself with the most reactionary corners of the conversation — the anti-trans activists and “LGB not T” crowd whose politics revolve around drawing hard lines around who gets to belong. There’s a palpable sense that this isn’t just critique, but an attempt to secure proximity to a more “acceptable” version of queerness — one that mirrors the status quo rather than challenges it.
That underlying need for validation runs through the book. Instead of offering a genuinely independent perspective, it often reads like a prolonged bid for approval from audiences already predisposed to agree. The result is less “gender heretic” and more a kind of intellectual pick-me performance — reaching for recognition that never quite lands.
And that’s where the “rage bait” label sticks. Nearly every chapter feels engineered to provoke rather than persuade — to generate heat, clicks, and controversy without doing the hard work of actually saying something new or meaningful.
There are brief glimpses of a more interesting book when Appel sticks to his own story, but those moments are quickly buried under a need to generalize and antagonize.
At the end of the day, this isn’t a bold critique — it’s a shallow performance of one. Loud, reductive, and intellectually flimsy.
March 19, 2026
Fantastic book and very timely for current political circumstances. He articulated so many things I have been stewing about with regards to gender ideology and where queer ideology is headed. How did supporting gay rights somehow move into supporting children transitioning genders, anti-Americanism, extreme-Islamism, calling any disagreement "violence," and so many other areas? He really delves into where the Democratic party has steered so far left and as a result how many lifelong Democrats find themselves politically homeless and why. A particular quote that I loved that sums up the book well:
-"I wanted to live in reality. I wanted to be part of the world. And if there were aspects of the world that I thought might need changing, then I would work within the bounds of shared empirical reality to try and bring that change about, rather than demanding everyone else bend reality to my whims" (p.149).
-"I wanted to live in reality. I wanted to be part of the world. And if there were aspects of the world that I thought might need changing, then I would work within the bounds of shared empirical reality to try and bring that change about, rather than demanding everyone else bend reality to my whims" (p.149).
December 2, 2025
Ben Appel’s Cis White Gay: The Making of a Gender Heretic is a sharp, courageous memoir that questions the ideological rigidity of both the religious right and the progressive left. Raised in a strict Christian community, Appel escapes one form of dogma only to encounter another this time cloaked in the language of inclusion. With clarity, wit, and emotional honesty, he unpacks how identity politics can become its own form of orthodoxy, where dissent is punished and nuance erased. What makes the book so compelling is Appel’s refusal to posture; instead, he offers a deeply personal account of navigating shame, belonging, and the limits of ideological purity. It’s a timely and necessary reflection on how liberation can curdle into conformity and why intellectual honesty matters more than ever.
April 3, 2026
4/5
I thoroughly enjoyed this cautionary autobiography which explores what can happen when our convictions inadvertently seal us into echo chambers. Leaving one cult to find himself entrenched in another, and never fully in the good graces of either, Ben has walked a difficult path and learned many hard truths along the way. His recollections are important to read in the modern era of misleading headlines and the propensity for extremists of either political leaning to attempt to control the narrative through misinformation and oversimplification of complex topics - or, even more simply, through denial of objective truths. The emergence of tribalism, dogmatism, and fierce persecution of even the slightest objection (regardless of political persuasion) has led to the death of nuanced discussion. Ben learned this the hard way and warns us here about the writing on the wall.
I thoroughly enjoyed this cautionary autobiography which explores what can happen when our convictions inadvertently seal us into echo chambers. Leaving one cult to find himself entrenched in another, and never fully in the good graces of either, Ben has walked a difficult path and learned many hard truths along the way. His recollections are important to read in the modern era of misleading headlines and the propensity for extremists of either political leaning to attempt to control the narrative through misinformation and oversimplification of complex topics - or, even more simply, through denial of objective truths. The emergence of tribalism, dogmatism, and fierce persecution of even the slightest objection (regardless of political persuasion) has led to the death of nuanced discussion. Ben learned this the hard way and warns us here about the writing on the wall.
March 20, 2026
A brave book. I’m glad it was written. I did find it a bit uneven. In some places, it was very dry academic writing that was tedious to get through. I preferred when it was narrative nonfiction. I also found the preachy attitude about Trump to be off-putting. The author handled many polarizing topics with nuance, but then decided to call Trump names and make cruel declarations about his character without facts. It seemed hypocritical, since the author didn’t like being judged as a “cis white male” just because that was the popular thing to do. His comments about Trump seemed to just be bandwagon hopping.
December 5, 2025
The book was an exceptional memoir and, at its core, is about the liberation and struggles of being a free, heterodoxical thinker. Critical theory, queer theory, and gender ideology / genderism is still strong in our academic and cultural institutions, and if you wish to rigorously engage with these philosophies and ideologies -- or the people who espouse them, sometimes more unknowingly rather than not -- then this book is a must-read.
December 12, 2025
I like cult survivor memoirs, and this is one of the best since the author escaped multiple, unrelated cults, over the course of years, in order to become able to think, speak and live authentically. If you think cults are only religious, you'll learn better. It's a human pattern that arises is many contexts and is often deadly dangerous. The pattern includes control of thought, speech and action and in order to break it a person has to become brave whatever that takes. Ben Appel did.
March 26, 2026
This is a brave, inspiring read, and one of those rare books that I can say not only held my attention on every page, but actually changed my mind, raised my awareness and influenced my ideas. I'll be recommending it to everyone I know - an important, timely read that demands your attention.
November 24, 2025
The similarities between the rigid dogmas of the Christian cult and the trans cult are eerie. Ben Appel has survived both and tells about it. Worth reading.
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