Joe Rogan has clarified his stance on transgender MMA fighters after previously being criticised for his comments on the topic – having once said one trans star was a ‘f***ing man’.
Rogan became the centre of a heated debate when he spoke out against Fallon Fox, who was the first openly trans MMA fighter to professionally compete inside the octagon – followed more recently by the second, featherweight Alana McLaughlin, who made her debut last September.
Speaking about Fox on his podcast a few years back, Rogan said: “She calls herself a woman but... I tend to disagree. And she used to be a man but now [...] she's a transgender which is [the] official term that means you've gone through it, right? And she wants to be able to fight women in MMA. I say no f***ing way.
"I say if you had a d**k at one point in time, you also have all the bone structure that comes with having a d**k. You have bigger hands, you have bigger shoulder joints. You’re a f***ing man. That’s a man, OK?”
In the wake of his comments, Fox called for his podcast to be cancelled, saying he was being ‘transphobic’ in his argument.
But Rogan has since stated he has no ‘problem’ with the trans community, explaining he is ‘fine’ with the idea of trans fighters as long as their opponents know what’s in store.
Speaking recently on The Tim Dillon Show, Rogan said: “Well, the trans MMA thing was big. But it wasn’t, it wasn’t valid.
“It was people that don’t want any criticism whatsoever about trans people. And I was like, ‘Look, I don’t have a problem with trans people, right, I have a problem with someone pretending that they’re a biological woman and fighting women.’
“Once you say you’re trans and everybody says, ‘Okay, I’ll fight her’ - fine. I’m fine with that.”
He continued: “And in fact MMA is one of the best places for that because you know exactly who your opponent is. Unlike like this swimmer. Was it UPenn? Is that what it is? The swimmer that’s like lapping all these biological women, that’s f***ed because they don’t have a choice they have to compete.”
Earlier this week, Rogan came under fire for allegedly promoting Covid-19 misinformation, with a group of 270 doctors, science teachers and physicians signing a letter asking for The Joe Rogan Experience podcast to be disciplined.
This move comes after he interviewed controversial virologist Dr Robert Malone, who made wild and unfounded claims about the vaccine, and has been banned from Twitter for his promotion of misleading information.
The letter reads: “With an estimated 11 million listeners per episode, JRE, which is hosted exclusively on Spotify, is the world’s largest podcast and has tremendous influence.
“Spotify has a responsibility to mitigate the spread of misinformation on its platform, though the company presently has no misinformation policy.”
Rogan’s podcast is the most popular in the world and has around 11 million listeners to every episode.
Featured Image Credit: YouTube/The Joe Rogan Experience
Jess Hardiman