Ben Shapiro Tells Yeshiva U. Students Being Transgender Is ‘Mental Illness’

Ben Shapiro, the 32-year-old right-wing pundit and leading target of online anti-Semites, won over a crowd of mostly Orthodox students at Yeshiva University with jabs at transgender people, liberals and non-Orthodox Jews.
Shapiro spoke of the importance of being a mensch, but was less kind when it came to describing his televised encounter with a transgender activist a year and half ago.
He went on to lay out his worldview on transgender people.
“Transgender people are unfortunately suffering from a significant mental illness that is deeply harmful, and it’s not a solution to pretend that transgender people are the sex that they think they are in their head,” Shapiro said in the Monday speech. “Biology is biology; men can’t magically become women, and women can’t magically become men.”
The former Brietbart News columnist, who later turned on the pro-Trump line the publication had taken under Steve Bannon, warned against “humoring the delusions” of transgender people, because by doing that “you are exacerbating their mental illness.”
The audience responded with cheers.
Shapiro, explaining why, in his view, most Jewish Americans vote for the Democratic Party, noted that Orthodox Jews stick to Republican values because of their religious adherence.
“Torah Judaism does not support social justice,” Shapiro said. “The Torah explicitly says that poor people should not be preferred over rich people.”
When asked later on during the question-and-answer session how he can still be a mensch while using such harsh language, Shapiro responded brusquely, “You cannot hurt people’s feelings with fact.”
Contact Nathan Guttman at [email protected]
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a Passover gift today!
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Most Popular
- 1
News Student protesters being deported are not ‘martyrs and heroes,’ says former antisemitism envoy
- 2
Opinion My Jewish moms group ousted me because I work for J Street. Is this what communal life has come to?
- 3
News Who is Alan Garber, the Jewish Harvard president who stood up to Trump over antisemitism?
- 4
Fast Forward Suspected arsonist intended to beat Gov. Josh Shapiro with a sledgehammer, investigators say
In Case You Missed It
-
Books What is ‘Zionism without Zion?’ New history asks, but can’t answer
-
Fast Forward Shapiro recites Priestly Blessing given to him by fire chaplain after Passover arson
-
Opinion Israel just threw another wrench in the peace process — and possibly doomed the last hostages
-
Culture In the new Fantastic Four trailer, a glimpse of Yancy Street’s Yiddishkeit
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.