Ready to launch your business? Get started with the commerce platform made for entrepreneurs. Shopify is specially designed to help you start, run and grow your business with easy customizable themes that let you build your brand, marketing tools that get your products out there. Integrated shipping solutions that actually save you time. From startups to scaleups, online, in person, and on the go. Shopify is made for

entrepreneurs like you. Sign up for your $1 a month trial at Shopify.com slash setup.

Welcome to the Quillette podcast, hosted on alternate weeks by me, Jonathan Kay, and by Iona Italia. Quillette is where

Freethought lives. We are an independent grassroots platform for heterodox ideas and fearless

commentary. You are about to hear a free preview of this week's episode. To hear the full episode,

and to get access to all our podcasts and articles,

visit us at quillette.com and click the subscribe button. This week, we're going to dive back

into the culture war over gender, which, as my guest will explain, also manifests itself as a

civil war within the LGB&T communities.

That guest, gay writer Ben Appel, grew up in a Maryland-based Christian cult known as Lamb of God,

in which he was taught that homosexual acts and even mere homosexual thoughts were a pathway to hell.

In time, Ben developed an OCD-like fixation on the rituals of prayer, spending endless

hours begging God for forgiveness, a centuries-old Christian reflex known as scrupulosity.

Ironically, Ben's mental health problems only got worse after his family moved away from the Lamb of God cult, when Ben was 12 years old.

Suddenly, he was thrown into a large public school environment that his isolated Christian upbringing had never prepared him for.

In response to bullying from homophobic classmates, Ben became consumed with shame and crippling anxiety,

causing him to become even more compulsive about his prayer rituals.

Eventually, he self-medicated with alcohol and drugs, dropped out of college, and fell into

a spiral of addiction, psychosis, and suicidal ideation.

Once in his 20s, Ben went clean with the help

of a 12-step program and became more comfortable with his sexuality. When gay marriage was on the

Maryland ballot in the 2012 election, he became a gay rights activist and envisioned a career in the field.

...