Cis White Gay: The Making of a Gender Heretic, Ben Appel

Description

Cis White Gay: The Making of a Gender Heretic
by Ben Appel (Author)
Hardcover – November 4, 2025

In this fearless and deeply personal memoir, Ben Appel—born into a strict Christian covenant community and raised to believe his queerness was a sin—traces his journey from cult survivor to outspoken critic of ideological conformity.

Growing up in the Lamb of God community in Maryland, Appel’s childhood was marked by repression and shame. Cast out after his parents’ separation, he sought refuge in faith, addiction, and later, the promise of liberation through activism. But when he enters the world of progressive academia at Columbia University, he finds himself facing a new kind of orthodoxy—one that demands allegiance to dogma rather than honest inquiry.

Cis White Gay examines the perils of purity culture on both the religious and political left, and the cost of speaking one’s truth in communities that prize ideological unity over individuality. Combining memoir, cultural critique, and sharp self-reflection, Appel explores the intersections of faith, sexuality, identity, and the search for belonging.

Unflinching, provocative, and ultimately redemptive, this is the story of a man who learns that true freedom lies not in conformity—but in the courage to think, speak, and live for himself.