The Making of A Gender Heretic, with Ben Appel

The Unspeakeasy With Meghan Daum

Meghan Daum

Society & Culture

4.8 • 784 Ratings

🗓️ 10 November 2025

⏱️ 77 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This week, Ben Appel joins me to talk about his new book, Cis White Gay: The Making of a Gender Heretic, a memoir about leaving one kind of cult only to stumble into another. Raised in a rigid Christian community, Ben found refuge in the gay rights movement and, later, the Ivy League—until "allyship" started to look less like solidarity and more like a loyalty oath.

We discuss

• Why he chose the deliberately provocative title Cis, White, Gay — and what reactions revealed about current identity politics.

• How queer "community" has become increasingly moralized, hierarchical, and policed — and what gets lost when dissent is framed as betrayal.

• The difference between taste and taboo — and how aesthetic preferences are now treated as political statements.

• Why "representation" has replaced excellence as the highest cultural virtue.

• How literary gatekeeping operates today — from publishers and prize committees to informal online watchdogs.

• The loneliness of ideological nonconformity in queer and creative circles.

• The professional and social costs of questioning orthodoxy — including lost friendships, lost opportunities, and subtle blacklisting.

Guest Bio:
Ben Appel is a writer and commentator whose memoir, Cis White Gay, traces his path from a strict Christian sect to progressive activism—and his break with movement orthodoxy; he's written for outlets like Newsweek, UnHerd, and more, and publishes on Substack.

Become a paying subscriber to The Unspeakeasy and get lots of perks, including access to monthly hangouts for Founding Members. https://www.theunspeakablepodcast.com/

I'm teaching a Zoom writing workshop in Memoir and Personal Essay, Jan 6 through Feb 24, 2026. Apply by Dec 5. https://www.theunspeakablepodcast.com/p/next-writing-course-starts-jan-6

The Unspeakeasy 2026 retreat schedule has been announced! https://theunspeakeasy.com/retreats

Order my book, The Catastrophe Hour: Selected Essays, on Amazon or directly from the publisher https://www.nyrb.com/products/the-catastrophe-hour.

Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm going for it.
0:01.1	I'm going to say what I really, really think.
0:02.8	And once you do that and you don't die, and even if you are accused of something and it feels
0:09.4	awful, but you don't spontaneously combust and the sky doesn't fall, after that period,
0:15.6	you do get stronger.
0:29.0	Welcome to the unspeak easy podcast. I'm your host, Megan Down. Before I introduce my guest,
0:35.6	Ben Appel, I have a couple of quick announcements. The first is that I'm teaching a writing workshop early next year. This is one of those small classes on
0:40.0	Zoom, no more than 12 students in personal essay and memoir, and it's running for eight consecutive
0:48.1	Tuesdays, January 6th through February 24th from 3 to 5 p.m. Eastern Time. You do have to apply some me 12
0:59.0	double-spaced pages. The application deadline is December 5th. And you can get all the
1:04.8	information by going to the substack post I have about it, which is linked here on the show
1:09.2	notes, or you can go to the unspeakable
1:11.9	podcast.com to find that. I can also tell you that dates for our 2026 unspeak-easy
1:20.3	retreats have been announced. We've got one coming up in Los Angeles in the spring and several
1:26.8	on the East Coast in the fall,
1:28.9	including a three-night women's writing retreat and the Catskills and a two-night big co-ed
1:35.6	retreat in the Hudson Valley. Registration is only open at this time for the April retreat in
1:42.7	L.A. That's a women's retreat, but we will get the others
1:45.9	open before the end of the year. And in the meantime, you can check everything out and save the dates.
1:51.0	Go to the unspeak easy.com to find out more. My guest, Ben Appel, has been on the podcast.
1:59.9	More than once, definitely twice, maybe more than twice.
2:03.1	He's been covering culture war and especially gender and trans issues for the last few years,
	...

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