In an episode of his eponymous podcast published on Tuesday, Joe Rogan said allowing men to compete against women in sports via the “trans athlete thing” amounts to a “fucking crime” committed against females in athletics.
While speaking with physician, author, and podcast host Peter Attia, Rogan rejected the ideological notion of sex as being somehow fluid and socially determined.
Rogan said, “That’s why we should have the difference between females and males competing against each other, which is why … this trans athlete thing — fucking blows my mind how many people go along with this. It just blows my mind.”
Rogan used the example of Lia Thomas — a man describing himself as a woman and allowed to compete against women in collegiate swimming competitions — as illustrative of widespread acceptance of deception and immorality.
Transgender woman Lia Thomas (L) of the University of Pennsylvania stands on the podium after winning the 500-yard freestyle as other medalists (L-R) Emma Weyant, Erica Sullivan and Brooke Forde pose for a photo at the NCAA Division I Women’s Swimming & Diving Championship on March 17, 2022 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Justin Casterline/Getty Images)
He remarked:
Lia Thomas is still the number one swimmer in the world and it’s a biological male — period — end of discussion. It’s madness, and not only that – hasn’t even gotten penis removed and has sex with women, apparently — the whole thing is so crazy, that you can call yourself a woman and then you’re a woman.
This has nothing to do with trans rights. It just has to do with humans. There’s a reason why we make a distinction, why men are not allowed to compete in the women’s division, but if you just decide you’re a woman and you compete in the woman’s division, and no one’s even allowed to regulate what that means, and if you have any problem with that, you’re transphobic.
It has nothing to do with transphobic. We’re talking about fairness in sports. It’s crazy. It is absolutely crazy that this is still going on.
Rogan described the rejection of sex distinctions in sports as ‘a fucking crime’ in reference to Lia Thomas’s inclusion in women’s swimming competitions. He highlighted physical advantages men have over women related to testosterone:
What they’ve done to those other girls that are competing against her, it’s just a fucking crime. It’s horrible.
Imagine if you’re a biological woman, you are working your ass off, you are fully dedicated to being the best of the best, you’re dotting all your i’s and crossing all your t’s, you are watching your diet, you’re watching your recovery, you are fucking trying, and this person who just decides they’re a woman with testosterone flowing through their body for their entire life just dominates you.
It’s fucking maddening that we have gotten into this ideological battle, this cultural end-of-the-road ideological battle, but we’re allowing that, and where people will step up and virtue signal and defend this as if it has anything to do with being compassionate and considerate and trans rights or LBGTQ+AI — whatever the fuck it is — rights.
It’s nonsense. We are a society that needs a real problem, and we are fixating on these fucking very strange issues and deciding that we’re going to correct all the inequities and inequality in the world by allowing these people to express their truth.
You’re encouraging mental illness. You’re encouraging virtue signaling. You’re encouraging mass ideology, [and] this ideological capture of an entire culture where people know things aren’t true — you know it’s not right, you know it’s not accurate, you know it’s not scientifically true — nd yet people have to espouse these certain things because if they don’t, they’ll be labeled transphobic.
He concluded, “It’s fucking wild. I never thought it was going to happen.”
Follow Robert Kraychik on Twitter @rkraychik.