Daily Wire co-founder and editor emeritus Ben Shapiro spoke at Florida State University on Monday evening, fielding audience questions on topics from transgenderism to the ongoing criminal trials of Kyle Rittenhouse and the men who killed Ahmaud Arbery.
The event consisted of a speech from Shapiro and then a lengthy question-and-answer period where members of the audience were given the opportunity to get Shapiro’s opinion and analysis or attempt to stump the conservative commentator and debater. Here are the best moments from the night:
“What is a woman?”
A woman challenged Shapiro’s views on transgenderism, citing a variety of medical associations that had apparently agreed that sex and gender are completely separable. The woman asked Shapiro why “you believe you are right” given the “medical consensus for sex and gender being two different concepts?”
“Sex and gender are two different concepts, but gender is tied to biology. One of the big problems you see in the argument in favor of trans rights is this notion that gender and sex are completely separable. They are not completely separable,” Shapiro began. “If they are completely separable, then this means identifying people by their subjective gender really has no relevance as to whether they are a male or a female. Male and female are biological terms, so using terminology like male and female to describe a self-perception of maleness or femaleness is sort of a bizarre way of arguing whether a thing is a man or a woman.”
“So here’s my question – it’s an argument my friend Matt Walsh likes to make – what is a woman? Define what a woman is without reference to the word woman, please?” he asked.
The woman accused Shapiro of making a logical fallacy, a red herring, and continued to push back on his argument by returning to the “consensus” reached by the medical associations.
“Anyone who suggests that gender has no reference to biology, it’s not connected in any way to biology, is just full of s***,” Shapiro eventually said.
“If any doctor denies to me that there is a dichotomy between male and female, a sexual dichotomy between male and female, they are ignorant and they are letting their politics get in the way of their science. Anybody who suggests to you, for example, that there is such a thing as a pregnant male is not a doctor. They are an activist,” he said.
WATCH: @benshapiro and leftist clash over transgenderism pic.twitter.com/S3apDkh1QY
— The Daily Wire (@realDailyWire) November 16, 2021
Is banning Critical Race Theory in schools anti-free speech?
A male student asked Shapiro if Republicans’ support for banning the teaching of Critical Race Theory from schools contradicted their belief in free speech. The man’s question was based off of legislation currently working its way through the Florida state legislature, however, Shapiro gave a general answer to the question, explaining when Critical Race Theory is an acceptable topic of education, and where and how it should be limited. Shapiro said:
It depends on what level of education we are talking about. If we are talking about the idea that Critical Race Theory can be taught as one of many theories on college campuses, I have no problem with it. Marxism is taught at one of many theories on college campuses. If the idea is we are going to be teaching Critical Race Theory, which is not taught as one of many theories, it’s taught as a framework for understanding the world and it is a lens through which we are to view history, this is something that the founders of Critical Race Theory openly acknowledge. They suggest that Critical Race Theory has a praxis component, meaning it’s a practice component, that is designed in order to indoctrinate kids into a particular type of thinking about how America’s institutions work. Do I think that the taxpayers of the state of Florida have an obligation to subsidize the indoctrination of their children in that? No. And I think that public education as an institution is dedicated not merely to the idea that you send your kids to school and the teachers dump whatever they want on your kids. I think the idea is the parents delegate their power to educate their children to the states via the public schools, and then they have the authority and should have the authority to determine what framework is being taught. And the anti-American framework of Critical Race Theory which is unrooted in actual history ought not be taught in America’s public schools.
.@benshapiro answers the question on if it's anti-free speech to ban critical race theory pic.twitter.com/9OA29nX9Ub
— The Daily Wire (@realDailyWire) November 16, 2021
Shapiro Destroys Marxist student
Shapiro pressed one of his questioners of the night, another male student, to reconsider his heroes after the student admitted to touting a flag promoting former soviet dictators Joseph Stalin and Vladimir Lenin before the event.
“If you’re going to go Marxist, then please, find a better Marxist to emulate than Lenin or Stalin, mass murderers,” Shapiro said.
The student responded claiming that “the Soviet Union, during World War II, saved the world.”
“If it had not been for Stalin, World War II never would have started because it was the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact that allowed the Nazi Germans to believe they could invade Eastern Europe,” Shapiro corrected him.
.@benshapiro questions a student who repped a Stalin/Lenin flag: "If you're gonna go marxist, then please find a better marxist to emulate than Lenin or Stalin. Mass murderers." pic.twitter.com/V7M9lr4Nxf
— The Daily Wire (@realDailyWire) November 16, 2021
Shapiro analyzes ongoing trials over Kyle Rittenhouse and Ahmaud Arbery
Another student asked Shapiro for his analysis of the ongoing trials of Rittenhouse and over the death of Arbery. Shapiro demurred on making a prediction of the outcome in either case, “I’m not going to try and predict what will happen because you cannot predict what juries are going to do.”
Shapiro opined on the Rittenhouse trial first, asserting that Rittenhouse should be acquitted.
“He clearly acted in self-defense,” Shapiro said. “that doesn’t mean I would send my 17-year-old over to Kenosha, Wisconsin, in order to protect property and provide medical aid to people, but it does mean that the shootings that he committed were in self-defense. The evidence is pretty much as clear as day on that one.”
Shapiro then gave a legal analysis of the case against Travis McMichael, Gregory McMichael, and William Bryan over the killing of Arbery last year.
“The main question in the Arbery case is going to come down to, legally speaking, whether the McDaniels, who are the defendants in this particular case, whether they had the capacity under the citizens arrest law of Georgia to arrest Arbery,” Shapiro said.
“The question is going to be whether that [attempted] citizens arrest was lawful or not,” Shapiro says. “Once you get down to the end of it … where they’re road blocking him and they are trying to keep him from running away and Arbery runs between the cars, now you essentially have a case of almost mutual self-defense, right? It’s actually a really terrible case in which Arbery sees these guys chasing him in trucks – why’s he going to pull over, right? – and so he tries to run, he goes for the gun, they shoot him.”
“From their perspective, they’re trying to give a citizens arrest, they have to shoot him in self-defense. From his perspective, he’s trying to run away and they’re blocking him and trying to falsely imprison him and so he’s acting in self-defense,” he continued. “the only way to solve that legal conundrum is whether they were in, in fact, under the belief that they were attempting to arrest him, a citizens arrest, and they had good cause. It has to be by the preponderance of the evidence.”
.@benshapiro gives his thoughts on the Arbery and Rittenhouse trials pic.twitter.com/EPSou76IMB
— The Daily Wire (@realDailyWire) November 16, 2021
Shapiro is 5 feet 9 inches. Fact check: true.
One of the funniest moments of the night came when a college student accused Shapiro of lying about his height, claiming that Shapiro is actually 5 feet 5 inches tall. Shapiro brought the student, who happened to be 5 feet 9 inches like Shapiro, up on stage to stand beside him as the audience erupted in laughter.
Can confirm, @benshapiro is in fact 5'9 pic.twitter.com/Dw79Psckpx
— The Daily Wire (@realDailyWire) November 16, 2021
Related: ‘Greatest. Moment. Evah.’: Critic Challenges Shapiro On His Height. Shapiro Calls Him Up On Stage