When nonfiction writer Ben Appel attended a non-traditional program at Columbia University, barely more than a decade separated him from the younger students who had already displaced gay with “queer” – and displayed open hatred of “cis gays” like himself. Ben knows what homophobia looks like, and recognized it in the “safe spaces” pervading campus culture. His introspective writing is informed by his experience in cults, as well as his recovery. He discusses the difference between slurs and validation trophies; victimhood as a component of identity; medicalizing homosexuality; feminism; and the ideological capture of minds and institutions.

Neither trans-exclusionary nor a radical feminist, author and philosopher Kathleen Stock has been branded a TERF and harassed out of her university, while simultaneously gaining recognition as one of world’s top thinkers. That’s because she thinks deeply and critically, and tells the truth. Whether it’s Corinna’s comparison of transgenderism with transracialism, or Nina’s assertion that right-on lefty dudes are misogynists, Stock has heard, and thought about, it all — and has eloquent responses. We discuss immersion in legal and cultural fictions, “bullshit theories of womanhood,” DARVO (Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim & Offender), child transition, online disembodiment, pronouns, “massive edifice(s) of bullshit,” women being terrible to women, and cowardice, especially in academia.