On the June 10 edition of his Spotify podcast, host Joe Rogan and his guest, anti-trans writer Meghan Murphy, spread extreme rhetoric about trans people, with Murphy falsely claiming that being trans is a “mental illness.” This bigoted rhetoric appears to violate Spotify’s platform rules, which prohibit “dehumanizing statements about a person or group” based on “gender identity.”

Murphy is an anti-trans author who has made a career of spreading anti-trans vitriol. She was banned from Twitter in 2018 for misgendering and deadnaming trans people, which are forms of harassment that involve using a trans person's former name or incorrect pronouns and are a violation of the platform’s hateful conduct policy. 

She previously appeared on The Joe Rogan Experience in August 2021. During that episode, Murphy claimed that trans women “get off on” making other women “feel uncomfortable” and called trans women “delusional” and “predatorial.”

Rogan has faced widespread backlash for the commentary on his Spotify-exclusive podcast, where he has spread medical misinformation, bigotry, and right-wing lies. But Spotify has determined that its platform rules do not prohibit the numerous dangerous and unfounded claims spread on The Joe Rogan Experience. For example, Rogan has repeatedly suggested that social acceptance of trans people is a sign of “civilizations collapsing,” has claimed that the omicron variant of the coronavirus is “essentially like a cold,” and has falsely asserted that mRNA coronavirus vaccines are “really gene therapy.”

Murphy baselessly claimed that being trans is a “mental illness” and fearmongered that people identify as “trans women specifically so that they can act like bullies” 

During the course of the June 10 interview, Murphy spread extreme rhetoric about trans people. She baselessly claimed that “for some people” being trans is “a mental illness and we’re not allowed to say that.” She also misgendered several trans people, including reality TV star Caitlyn Jenner, skateboarder Lillian Gallagher, journalist Gabriel Mac, and University of Pennsylvania swimmer Lia Thomas.

Rogan and Murphy also denigrated an unnamed trans woman they saw a video of at a pro-choice rally, with Rogan demeaning the person’s voice, saying, “They weren't even trying to hide. I mean, it was such a masculine voice.” 

Murphy then went on to baselessly claim that some people identify as “trans women specifically so that they can act like bullies.” She also attacked trans women who use public accommodations that align with their gender identity, saying if “you know that you're making people feel uncomfortable and you're doing it anyway? Like, you're an asshole and you're a pervert.”

Rogan suggested that trans people are a sign that “civilization is near the end” and Murphy denied the existence of nonbinary people

At one point during the episode, Rogan and Murphy repeatedly disparaged nonbinary people. Rogan denigrated a nonbinary person he knows, claiming they are a “hustler” who identify as nonbinary only to “bang woke chicks.” Murphy replied, “There’s no such thing as nonbinary. That's not a real concept.”

Rogan also suggested that trans people are a sign of civilizations collapsing, saying, “For some reason when a civilization is near the end, they become obsessed with gender.” This bizarre theory has been an ongoing fixation for Rogan. In September 2020, he discussed this claim with The Spectator’s Douglas Murray, who asserted that trans issues “will be seen to be a late-empire, a bad sign of things falling apart.” Rogan has repeated this claim in several episodes of his podcast since, including on September 24, 2020; September 15, 2021; January 20, 2022; and January 25, 2022.