Right-wing pundit and podcaster Ben Shapiro’s appearance on Jubilee’s Surrounded debate show didn’t go well for him.
Each episode of the YouTube show Surrounded features a guest sitting in the middle of a circle with 25 people surrounding them. They all hold opposing views to that person – in this case Shapiro was confronted by individuals with broadly liberal and left-wing views.
The circle members take turns to debate with the guest on specific points, but they can get stopped if more than half the circle hold up a red flag.
Shapiro was confronted by a man called Shane, who asked the podcaster for his views on abortion and trans rights.
Shane told Shapiro that he was a trans who is adversely affected by abortion rights because he has a vagina, to which the podcaster replied that he had “no interest in your genitalia”.
Shane said: “Clearly you are. It’s kind of an obsession you guys have. In most of the content you have, you attack my community constantly and you don’t even realise that guys like me exist, who share a lot of similarities to you.”
He went on to say he had been married to a woman for 20 years, leading Shapiro to acknowledge that Shane “exists” but disagreed with his claim that he was “a male”.
Shane wasn’t giving up and said: “As a transgender man, I have seen your side of the political debate, never having the conversation of what American freedom is. Why am I not allowed to live my American freedom as a man?”
Shapiro was clearly flustered by the pace of Shane’s questions and comments, leading to him to stutter in his responses, arguing that Shane was “moving around terminology very wildly.”
Shane countered by saying he was using the same tactics that Shapiro himself uses in debates. “I know how you work, so how does it feel to have it in your face? All of us are struggling and you want to focus on trans people, you want to focus on a Black woman when this is clearly a glass-cliff situation.
“America is falling apart so let’s give it to a woman right when it’s falling apart… look at where we’re at. People like me have to live with the consequences of your rhetoric.”
Shane spoke for four-and-a-half minutes before the circle voted to remove him from the debating chair. He refused to shake Shapiro’s hand as he left.
A clip of the discussion has gone viral on TikTok, attracting almost five million views, while on X/Twitter many people praised Shane’s talking points and laughed at how Shapiro was “demolished”.
Prominent LGBTQ+ journalist Alejandra Caraballo also shared a clip of the interaction on X, captioning it: “Ben Shapiro is completely eviscerated live in front of an audience by a trans man.” It’s been viewed over two million times.
Shapiro is well-known as a supporter of Donald Trump and an opponent of LGBTQ+ rights, previously saying that “homosexual activity is a sin” as well as comparing being transgender to a mental illness.
He described actor Elliot Page’s coming-out announcement as “creepy… disgusting [and] pathetic.”
You can watch the full episode of Ben Shapiro on Jubilee’s Surrounded here.
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