Joe Rogan vs. transgender people

Joe Rogan is an American entertainer and one of the most influential figures in promoting and platforming conservative and anti-transgender views. Rogan is the host of The Joe Rogan Experience, which has disproportionately presented anti-trans beliefs and guests.

Background

Joseph James Rogan was born on August 11, 1967 in Newark, New Jersey. Rogan’s Catholic parents divorced when Rogan was five. Rogan lived in San Francisco and Gainesville, Florida before moving to Newton Upper Falls, Massachusetts. Rogan got involved in martial arts competitions as a teen and continued until age 21.

After graduating high school in 1985, Rogan briefly attended University of Massachusetts Boston. In 1988, Rogan began performing stand-up comedy, moving to New York City in 1990 to pursue it. In 1994 Rogan moved to Los Angeles and began acting while continuing stand-up, soon becoming a regular at The Comedy Store. Rogan starred in the sitcom NewsRadio from 1995 to 1999 and continued developing possible shows. In 1997, Rogan began a professional relationship with UFC as an interviewer and color commentator.

Rogan was an early online adopter among comedians, uploading blog posts and later video clips at joerogan.com starting in 1999. In 2000, Rogan released a comedy album. From 2001 to 2006 Rogan hosted reality show Fear Factor, and in 2003 Rogan co-hosted one season of The Man Show. In 2007 Rogan released a second stand-up special.

Rogan and Jessica Ditzel married in 2009 and have three children, one of whom is from Ditzel’s previous relationship. Rogan relocated to Austin, Texas in 2020 and opened the nightclub Comedy Mothership there in 2022.

The Joe Rogan Experience

In 2009, Rogan and Brian Redban began a podcast later titled The Joe Rogan Experience. In 2011, the podcast was picked up by SiriusXM. In 2020, Rogan made a deal with Spotify to move all but 42 episodes to their platform, with exclusive episodes starting in 2021. In 2022, about 70 additional episodes containing racially insensitive language were removed.

The podcast quickly became a key platform for laundering right-wing and anti-transgender extremism into mainstream media. A 2018 report by Data & Society found that the show was part of a network of YouTube channels logrolling alt-right and intellectual dark web extremism: “By connecting to and interacting with one another through YouTube videos, influencers with mainstream audiences lend their credibility to openly white nationalist and other extremist content creators.” Rogan dismissed the report as “guilt by association.”

See this list of selected conservative and anti-transgender guests. Themes of Rogan’s anti-trans guests include evolutionary psychology, biological essentialism, maintaining sex segregation (especially regarding transgender athletes), and attacks on policies and healthcare supporting trans and gender diverse youth. In contrast, the show has had far fewer guests with moderate or progressive views about trans people.

References

Lewis, Rebecca (September 18, 2018). Alternative Influence: Broadcasting the Reactionary Right on YouTube. Data & Society https://datasociety.net/library/alternative-influence/ [PDF]

Ellis, Philip (July 22, 2020). Joe Rogan Is Spreading Transphobic Hate Speech and It’s Putting Lives in Danger. Men’s Health https://www.menshealth.com/entertainment/a33391944/joe-rogan-abigail-shrier-interview-transphobia/

Shatto, Rachel (January 31, 2022). Joe Rogan Continues to Spew Anti-Trans Rhetoric on His Spotify Podcast. The Advocate https://www.advocate.com/news/2022/1/31/joe-rogan-continues-spew-anti-trans-rhetoric-his-spotify-podcast

Factora, James (January 31, 2022). Joe Rogan, Who Is Literally On Testosterone, Says Trans People Will Cause Societal Collapse. them. https://www.them.us/story/joe-rogan-trans-people-societal-collapse-testosterone-jordan-peterson

Factora, James (November 10, 2022). Nightmare Pairing Joe Rogan and Matt Walsh Compared Transness to Being in a Cult. them. https://www.them.us/story/joe-rogan-matt-walsh-transphobia