Spotify’s Joe Rogan and guest Meghan Murphy spread anti-trans vitriol and lie about COVID-19 vaccines

Rogan lied that COVID-19 vaccines are “gene therapy” and falsely suggested people who have already contracted the virus should not get vaccines

Special Programs LGBTQ

Written by Alex Paterson

Published 08/27/21 12:21 PM EDT

Spotify’s Joe Rogan and anti-trans writer Meghan Murphy peddled extreme rhetoric about trans people and spread false claims about coronavirus vaccines during the August 20 edition of The Joe Rogan Experience. Responding to whether targeted, anti-trans attacks are acceptable on his show, Rogan said, “You can say whatever you want. We're on Spotify.”

Murphy is an anti-trans author who has made a career of spreading anti-trans vitriol, and 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.

During the podcast, Rogan falsely asserted that mRNA vaccines are “really gene therapy” and lied that it is “not logical, it’s not rational, and it's not supported by science” to advise people with natural immunity to get a coronavirus vaccine.

He also said that trans women “use male tactics and male behavior as they invade feminist spaces” and “dominate them like men do,” while Murphy claimed that being trans is a “mental illness.”

Rogan has frequently used his platform to spread conspiracy theories, espouse COVID-19 misinformation, and promote smears against trans people. In 2020, Rogan dedicated two episodes of his show to giving anti-trans writers Abigail Shrier and Debra Soh a platform to spread misinformation. Following this, Spotify employees reportedly threatened to strike if episodes of Rogan’s podcast that promoted debunked conspiracy theories or anti-trans hate were not edited or removed from the platform. Spotify CEO Daniel Ek has defended keeping Rogan’s dangerous rhetoric on the platform several times.

The Joe Rogan Experience is broadcast exclusively on Spotify and was the most popular podcast on the platform in 2020. As The Washington Post has noted, “With an estimated 11 million listeners per episode, Rogan reaches nearly four times as many people as prime-time cable hosts such as Sean Hannity of Fox News Channel and Rachel Maddow of MSNBC.”

Rogan and Murphy spread dangerous misinformation about coronavirus vaccines, falsely claiming they are “really gene therapy”

During the August 20 show, Rogan and Murphy lambasted vaccine mandates, and Rogan lied that mRNA vaccines are “not really a vaccine in the traditional sense” but rather “gene therapy.” In reality, as explained in Forbes, “mRNA vaccines are not gene therapy because they are not designed to alter or change your genes in any way.”

Rogan also falsely asserted that people who are unvaccinated and were previously infected with COVID-19 -- and therefore have some natural immunity -- do not need to be vaccinated. Rogan said that it is “not logical, it’s not rational, and it's not supported by science” to advise people with natural immunity to get a coronavirus vaccine, to which Murphy replied, “No, none of it makes sense.”

Based on current findings, this claim is false. As the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has stated, “COVID-19 vaccines offer better protection than natural immunity alone and ... vaccines, even after prior infection, help prevent reinfections.” Moreover, according to an August 26 Science article on newly released data from a large Israeli study, “people who had SARS-CoV-2 previously and then received one dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccine were more highly protected against reinfection than those who once had the virus and were still unvaccinated.”

From the August 20, 2021, edition of Spotify's The Joe Rogan Experience

JOE ROGAN (HOST): Well, here’s my main problem with it. There’s a lot of people that have gone through COVID already, and they have natural immunity. And they’re telling them they have to be vaccinated too. But that's not logical, it’s not rational, and it's not supported by science. This doesn’t make sense.

MEGHAN MURPHY (GUEST): No, none of it makes sense.

…

ROGAN: It's not really a vaccine in the traditional sense. A vaccine is where they take a dead virus, and they turn it into a vaccine. And they inject it into your body so that your body fights off -- it develops antibodies, and your body understands what that is, whether it's the measles or polio, it knows how to fight it off. This is really gene therapy. It's a different thing. It’s tricking your body into producing spike protein and making these antibodies for COVID.

Murphy said being trans is a “mental illness” and claimed that trans women are “predators" who “get off” on making other women feel uncomfortable

Throughout the interview, Rogan and Murphy targeted trans people. Rogan asserted that “men transitioning to women use male tactics and male behavior as they invade feminist spaces,” “tend to be more assertive,” and “dominate whenever possible if left unchecked.” Additionally, Murphy claimed that trans women “get off on” making other women “feel uncomfortable” and called trans women “delusional” and “predatorial,” saying, “They know they’re making women uncomfortable, and they’re doing it anyway.”

From the August 20, 2021, edition of Spotify's The Joe Rogan Experience

MURPHY: The men transitioning to women has a really, really big and negative impact on women and girls.

ROGAN: I was going to get to that. This is the thing is that men transitioning to women use male tactics and male behavior as they invade feminist spaces. And that's one things that I have seen that women get really kind of freaked out by, is that trans women then join these women groups and dominate them like men do. They have male minds. They have, you know, years and years of having gonads and having testosterone flow through their body and all of the, you know, hypersexual things that come from that. And one thing that comes from being a biological male is they generally tend to be more aggressive. They tend to be more assertive. They tend to try to dominate whenever possible if left unchecked, and if their egos are not, you know, well-managed. But the big complaint that I hear from women, especially women that get labeled as TERFs, is that these trans women invade these traditionally just biological women groups and they sort of handle them like a man.

MURPHY: And, or they’re predators. I mean, like --

ROGAN: Right.

MURPHY: You know, yeah, or worse

ROGAN: Or worse.

MURPHY: I just, I wonder what kind of -- this is not the worst of all the examples by far, but what kind of man actually wants to go into a woman’s change room? Like, what would be your motivation for doing that?

ROGAN: Well, you could wish you were a woman and want to be a woman.

MURPHY: But you must have some inclination that this is going to make women feel uncomfortable, and I think they kind of get off on that. Like, what kind of man wants women to feel uncomfortable?

ROGAN: Maybe they want people to be accepting and want people to be open-minded to this and not have an issue with it at all.

MURPHY: I mean, that's very unconsiderate. Like, it’s like, OK, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, they just want to be accepted, and they want validation, and they genuinely believe they’re a women so they want to be treated like a woman, so they want to be in the change room with all the other women. But I think, I mean, who is actually that delusional?

ROGAN: Yeah.

MURPHY: Maybe some people. But I do -- I think that there’s something predatorial just in that, in the wanting to be in those spaces where they know that women don’t want them there. Like, where they know that they’re making women uncomfortable, and they’re doing it anyway.

Murphy also falsely claimed that being trans is “a form of mental illness” and asserted, “I don't even agree that gender dysphoria means there is such a thing as a trans woman.”

This harmful language appears to be acceptable on Spotify. YouTube, however, has a policy that prohibits videos from claiming that trans people are “physically or mentally inferior, deficient, or diseased.” It has inconsistently enforced this policy but has deleted some videos making similar claims.

From the August 20, 2021, edition of Spotify's The Joe Rogan Experience

MURPHY: I could buy that there is such a thing as gender dysphoria. So you have some kind of, like, mental condition or mental illness. I’m not trying to be mean, I swear to God. Like, people get triggered if you say a mental illness. But I’m like, you literally think you’re something that you’re not. You literally believe -- you are a male. You actually believe you’re a woman. That's a form of mental illness. Fine, it doesn’t mean you’re a bad person. And I don't care. If you want to dress in women’s clothes, if you want to wear makeup, if you want to get cosmetic surgeries, if you want to change your name, go for it. Do whatever makes you feel better. That’s fine. But I'm not going to lie to comfort you or whomever else. So, I don't even agree that gender dysphoria means there is such a thing as a trans woman. To me, I’m still -- this concept doesn't make any sense. What’s a trans woman? Does it mean -- do you have to be on hormones? Do you have to have a bunch of surgeries? Do you have to have a neo-vagina?

ROGAN: It's weird because it's very strict. You must accept that people are trans women. But then like what defines a trans woman is completely open to interpretation. It’s the person who decides whatever identity they identify with, male, female, whatever it is. It’s up to them.

Murphy also argued that people should refer to transgender women as “men” and misgender them, while Rogan said he would use the name and gender that a trans person wants. However, the two proceeded to repeatedly misgender and/or deadname several trans people, including Georgetown University politics fellow Charlotte Clymer, former Texas state high school wrestling champion Mack Beggs, Olympian weightlifter Laurel Hubbard, and reality TV star Caitlyn Jenner. At one point, Murphy explained that she “refuses” to refer to trans people in public by their correct pronouns because it “participates in this greater lie that if you identify as the opposite sex, that's what you are.”

Rogan responded that referring to trans people by their correct pronouns is a “new thing” that people “want to reinforce it to the point where it’s like doctrine.”

From the August 20, 2021, edition of Spotify's The Joe Rogan Experience

MURPHY: If a man identifies as a woman, you'll call him her or she?

ROGAN: If that's what she wants or he wants, yeah.

MURPHY: OK, so why is that?

ROGAN: Because that’s what they want. I don’t give a shit.

MURPHY: OK, but don’t you think --

ROGAN: I’ll change their name, if they want to be called Debbie. OK, Debbie.

MURPHY: The name doesn’t bother me that much. One on one, I would do that. If I was talking to a friend, and they identified as she, and they were a man, then I don’t feel like I would be super inclined to be like he, he, he.

ROGAN: Right, right, right. To make a statement about doing it.

MURPHY: Yeah. But I feel like in public it has wider repercussions, and I feel like it participates in this greater lie that if you identify as the opposite sex, that's what you are. And I feel also that it’s unnecessary. Because I feel like it plays into this idea that it’s offensive to say what I say, for example. So the fact that I called [Jessica] Yaniv him. Or you know, I refuse to use correct pronouns -- unless it’s on a personal level, then I don’t care. I’m not trying to be rude.

ROGAN: And you do for a point? You’re making a point.

MURPHY: Yeah, I'm doing it -- yeah, exactly. I feel like it sells out people who don't use correct pronouns. I feel like it plays into and reinforces this idea that it's offensive. And it's not offensive, you know. To call a man “he” isn’t offensive. To call a male a man isn’t offensive. You’re just stating a neutral fact. So I sort of feel like the more people that participate in that, the more it does make it seem like a crazy, offensive, hateful, really mean thing to say if you don’t use correct pronouns. And I feel like that's a standard that has been set by companies like Twitter.

...

It’s sort of seeped into journalism, for example, so people will report stories about pedophiles, and rapists, and abusers, and use their preferred pronouns because that's the polite thing to do. I feel like -- I’m not trying to be like, I came here to call you out. But I do, I think people don't understand why it matters sometimes. So they don’t understand why I am doing it, because they’re like, why don't you just be nice? Why don’t you just use the correct pronoun?

ROGAN: Right.

MURPHY: And it’s for me it's a much bigger thing than just a one-on-one interaction or a polite thing.

ROGAN: Well, it's certainly a new thing. And one of the problems with new things like this is people, they want to reinforce it to the point where it’s like doctrine. Where there is no getting around it. This is the rule, and you have to abide by that rule or you're a piece of shit.

At one point, Murphy said that she was “going to get arrested for saying” disparaging things about Clymer. Rogan assured her that Spotify was a safe space for this kind of vitriol, saying, “You can say whatever you want.We're on Spotify. Like YouTube’s not going to pull it. We are in a weird realm because Spotify is headquartered in Stockholm.”

(In accordance with the Trans Journalists Association style guide, Media Matters has replaced Charlotte Clymer’s incorrect pronouns in the transcript below.)

From the August 20, 2021, edition of Spotify's The Joe Rogan Experience

MURPHY: I mean, the other part of it that people don’t talk about is that a lot of these guys have fetishes. Some of them are mentally ill. Some of them are just liars, and they’re just trying to -- like Charlotte Clymer, do you know who [she] is?

ROGAN: No.

MURPHY: What was [her] name before [she] changed [her] name? I'm going to get arrested for saying this.

ROGAN: You can say whatever you want. We're on Spotify.

MURPHY: Oh thank you.

ROGAN: Like YouTube’s not going to pull it. We are in a weird realm because Spotify is headquartered in Stockholm.

MURPHY: I thought they were trying to get you canned.

ROGAN: No.

MURPHY: Oh those people don’t have power over you, huh?

ROGAN: They don’t have any power.

MURPHY: They sure thought they did. I found that very cute. I was like, oh, you guys are going to get Rogan pulled? Good for you.

ROGAN: It was a very small group of people that misrepresent my stance on things too, by the way. They characterized me in a very -- it’s a caricature of who I am versus the actual words that I say and why I say them. And take things out of context and try to pretend that I’m a anti-trans person or homophobic. None of those things are true.

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