Media Matters found that the right dominates the online ecosystem, seeping into supposedly nonpolitical spaces — including sports. UFC commentator Joe Rogan, whose Joe Rogan Experience boasts the largest following of any podcast with 39.9 million subscribers, is among the MMA influencers who host a number of right-leaning podcasts. While the show is categorized as comedy, Rogan frequently hosts right-wing media figures and spreads right-wing narratives. [Media Matters, 3/4/25]

UFC President Dana White is a Trump ally and donor who has repeatedly used the organization to benefit the president’s political ambitions. MMA journalist Karim Zidan reported in September 2020 that “White, along with a select group of UFC fighter[s], spent the last few months advocating for the incumbent president in an attempt to ensure his re-election. From campaign rallies and bus tours, to TV appearances and ad spots, the UFC went to great lengths to campaign for Trump.” White also directly endorsed Trump at the 2020 Republican National Convention. [The Guardian, 8/23/20; Bloody Elbow, 11/11/20; The New York Times, 5/12/20]

UFC fighters and figures have routinely used right-wing and social media as a home for bigotry. Finding allies in conservative media, UFC figures such as current fighters Colby Covington and Bryce Mitchell and retired fighters Tito Ortiz and Tim Kennedy have promoted conspiracy theories and bigoted anti-LGBTQ rhetoric. [Media Matters 6/13/24]

On Fox News’ The Ingraham Angle, UFC fighter Colby Covington attacked USA Boxing for its trans-inclusive policies in 2024. Covington said that “biological men shouldn’t be allowed to compete in women’s sports” because “when they dig up their bones in 200 years, their bones won't leave pronouns.” [Fox News, The Ingraham Angle, 1/3/24; Media Matters, 2/21/24]

UFC influencer Nina-Marie Daniele suggested that the participation of “biological men” in sports was “removing the free will of women.” [Twitter/X, 7/20/24] 

While interviewing Canadian professor Gad Saad, Rogan asked, “Are we willing to have all female sports dominated by men who believe that they're women? That's crazy, that doesn't make any sense.” [The Joe Rogan Experience, 1/28/25]

Fox’s OutKick host Charly Arnolt argued that trans women should be excluded from women's sports and said former University of Pennsylvania swimmer Lia Thomas “makes you sick to your stomach.” Discussing an image of Thomas standing on a podium, Arnolt said, “And you just look at this and it makes you sick to your stomach, because here you have a woman standing next to a biological man.” Later she continued, “The horrors extend past competition.” [Twitter/X, 2/13/25]

In 2024, UFC fighter Julian Erosa challenged Lia Thomas to a fight, saying, “I wanted to call out Lia Thomas.” Repeatedly misgendering Thomas, Erosa continued, “I wanted to encourage her, encourage him, to transition from women’s swimming into women’s MMA, then I’ll transition to become a woman and beat that dude’s ass.” [Pink News, 3/26/24]

Interviewing podcaster Theo Von, Joe Rogan claimed, “There's people that are perverts for sure and pretend to be trans so they can go to women's rooms,” and suggested attacking them. After Von suggested that being trans is a “loophole” for predators, Rogan said, “When I was a kid, if a guy had a beard and a dress tried to go into the women's room, men would go in there and beat the fuck out of them. They wouldn't let that happen. They would say, oh, that guy's a pervert.” [YouTube, The Joe Rogan Experience, 1/9/25]

Interviewing MAGA troll Alex Stein, retired UFC fighter turned right-wing influencer Jake Shields challenged trans men to fight him, saying, “I would crush 10 t-------.” Shields continued saying, “If they ever step up, it would be so funny. People are tuning in to watch it, they're going to think it's going be fun, and then they're going to see me just lay out some chick. But this is the one exception, we'll hit a girl just to prove a point because it needs to be done.” [Rumble, Fight Back Podcast, 1/16/25]

Last month, Shields restated his support for a 2023 post “asking his followers whether they supported public executions for ‘anyone who helps a child transition? This would include doctors, therapists, teachers, guidance counsellors, etc.’” Interviewing podcaster Amrou Fudl, known as “Myron Gaines,” Shields said, “I actually did get banned for a week because I posted something about, I think, anyone that a trans, that helps trans kids, you know, the doctors, the this, the therapists that encourage them into it. ... I said publicly executed.” He continued, “We'll have to blank that part off of YouTube but I agree with it, man. You should — if you're turning a kid, it's the same thing, it's like child molestation to me. You're literally taking them and you're ruining a child's life.” [Bloody Elbow, 5/2/23; Rumble, Fight Back, 3/16/25; New York Post, 6/9/23]

On Newsmax, retired UFC fighter Tito Ortiz endorsed a measure banning flying the LGBTQ pride flag on Huntington Beach city property, claiming the “normalcy” of pride is “weakening the country.” Ortiz stated: “They’re indoctrinating my kids in the school and putting stuff like this of the LGBTQ, the rainbow flag, in the schools and making it OK, making a normalcy for that. And when you do that, you’re weakening a country.” [Newsmax, National Report, 3/7/24]

Joe Rogan repeated a debunked hoax that schools were providing litterboxes for children who believe they are cats. Rogan said, “A buddy of mine who lives in Utah, his wife worked at a public school, and he told me that she told him that they were having a meeting because one of the parents had proposed putting a litter box in the bathroom because their kid thinks it's a cat.” Rogan continued, referencing the backlash he received in 2022 when he broached the subject, “And he told me that, I talked about it on podcast, and people started saying that that was transphobic.” [YouTube, The Joe Rogan Experience, 1/8/25; Media Matters, 10/13/22]

After Media Matters reported “an increase of more than 9,500% for retweets” with the anti-trans “groomer” slur on Jake Shields’ account in 2022, Shields complained, “Media matters put me on their anti LBGQT hate list I’ve never said anything anti gay just anti Pedo and groomer.” Shields continues to regularly use anti-trans and anti-LGBTQ slurs on podcasts and in social media posts, including recently writing, “I'll never pretend a t----- doesn't disgust me,” and calling Democratic California state Sen. Scott Wiener “a child groomer and a jew.” [Media Matters, 12/13/22; Twitter/X, 12/14/22, 5/9/24, 10/17/24; Rumble, Fight Back Podcast, 1/16/25, Twins Pod, 2/14/25]

Shields claimed there is a “major push” in public schools to “turn our kids trans and gay.” Shields alleged, “A lot of these kids are actually pretending like they're trans and stuff. So it's actually working.” [Rumble, Fight Back Podcast, 2/10/25]

Retired UFC fighter Tim Kennedy claimed “for the past 40 years, our institutions have been brainwashing our children,” including “a broken school system that is using the contagion of a mind virus like, you know, trans being taught to children.” [Newsmax, Finnerty, 2/13/25]

During a pre-match press conference on January 18, UFC fighter Sean Strickland launched into an anti-trans rant after a reporter asked him about his history of bigoted anti-LGBTQ comments. Strickland described being transgender as “a mental fucking illness” and called the reporter asking the question “an infection” and “the enemy.” [Bloody Elbow, 1/20/24]

Charly Arnolt defended Strickland, saying he was not attacking the LGBTQ community, but rather “voicing his beliefs as it concerns the LGBT community.” Arnolt then pivoted to attacking the “completely idiotic reporter ... who deserved the answer that he got.” “Sean Strickland is fantastic,” she concluded. “Obviously the UFC is doing something completely right.” [OutKick, OutKick The Morning, 1/22/24]

Strickland: “Could you picture someone waking up saying ‘I think im going to cut my cock off today, grow my hair out, get breast implants, take drugs so I sound like a cockless man and then I'm going to run for fucking congress and I'm going to win.’ My god Russia send the nukes it's time.” In response to the backlash, Strickland further attacked trans people, saying, “I'm just wondering how society hasn't put you in a mental institution yet.” [Twitter/X, 1/14/25, 1/14/25]

Bryce Mitchell called fellow Trump inauguration guest Caitlyn Jenner an anti-trans slur, arguing it was a “sin” to gender trans people correctly and “stoop down to that level.” [Rumble, ArkanSanity Podcast, 1/24/25]

Jake Shields argued that “the trans thing was a big deal” because “they want you to accept any lie.” His guest, comedian Leonarda Jonie, said, “It’s like they think that they know what the reality is, and they're so angry at the reality — they’re so angry at the natural system, and they can’t do anything about that so go ahead and project that anger onto the people who are calling out the reality.” [Rumble, Fight Back Podcast, 2/6/25]

Joe Rogan claimed that pro-trans activism is “enabling mental illness, and you’re enabling the potential for creeps to make their way into women’s locker rooms.” Rogan alleged that “perverts” are “wandering around women’s locker rooms,” and “if you say something against them, you’re a Nazi.” [YouTube, The Joe Rogan Experience, 2/10/25]

Jake Shields expressed support for the Trump administration's executive order redefining sex, saying, “Hopefully it shows that nonsense is coming to an end.” He then referenced the executive order barring trans Americans from military service, calling for “trans-only units” to be sent “to war first — send them over to Israel,” adding, “If I was in the military, I wouldn’t want some t----- backing me up.” [Rumble, Twins Pod, 2/14/25]

Joe Rogan suggested that support for trans athletes is propped up by “propaganda funded by our own government,” claiming, “People don’t really believe in these things.” Rogan continued, “The amount of people that think that transgender biological males should be competing against your daughter in sports is so fucking small.” [YouTube, The Joe Rogan Experience, 2/12/25]

Rogan decried federal money being used on “transgender monkey studies.” Rogan appeared to be referring to reports that the National Institutes of Health “awarded three projects for $477,121 starting in 2020 to Scripps Florida for research that included administering feminizing hormone therapy to monkeys to study whether the medication makes the monkeys more susceptible to HIV.” PolitiFact noted, “Transgender women are at high risk for contracting HIV, accounting for disproportionate numbers of new infections around the world, the World Health Organization said.” [YouTube, The Joe Rogan Experience, 3/6/25; PolitiFact, 11/18/24]

Bryce Mitchell went on a pro-Hitler rant in which he blamed “greedy Jews” for “gaying up the kids,” claiming “the first t----- surgery ever … happened to be in Germany before Hitler took over.” Mitchell continued, “You know the books that everyone makes fun of Hitler burning? You know what the books was? Queer books! Hitler burned queer books because he didn’t want a bunch of queers destroying his nation.” [YouTube, ArkanSanity Podcast, 1/24/25]

On Jake Shields’ Fight Back Podcast, Australian far-right figure Joel Davis said: “Weimar Germany was highly progressive, culturally speaking. It is where transgenderism was invented and proliferated for the first time. … The Jews were basically at the behest of all of these developments, and so Hitler was like ‘we don’t want Jewish finance, we don’t want Jewish degeneracy.’” [Rumble, Fight Back Podcast, 3/6/25; Yahoo News, 3/24/25]

In 2013, fighter Matt Mitrione was suspended by the UFC after calling Fallon Fox, the first openly trans MMA fighter, a “lying, sick, sociopathic, disgusting freak.” [ESPN, 4/8/13]

In 2014, Joe Rogan called Fox “a fucking man” and said “no fucking way” to her fighting other women. When journalist Parker Molloy fact-checked Rogan using the NCAA’s 2011 guidelines, which quoted UCLA pediatric Doctor Eric Vilain that “androgen deprivation and cross sex hormone treatment in male-to-female transsexuals reduces muscle mass,” Rogan’s fans “mounted a campaign of harassment” against Molloy, according to The Guardian. [The Guardian, 11/14/14; Vice, 11/6/14]

Right-wing figures still spread insulting and outright false claims about Fox. In 2020, Daily Wire host Matt Walsh slammed her as a “professional woman-beater.” In 2023, anti-trans personality Anastasia Maria Loupis spread a misleading photo which went viral while claiming Fox had “broken 2 female opponents’ skulls,” despite the picture displaying Fox next to a bloodied fighter who she never actually fought. [The Daily Wire, 1/21/20; Twitter/X, 4/6/23]

Speaking with former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio, Jake Shields recently bragged that he was “one of the early people criticizing the trans stuff,” declaring that “these pedophiles were with kids and that’s controversial.” Shields continued, saying, “It was really, really, really controversial back then. Now it’s like the norm.” [Rumble, Fight Back Podcast, 3/3/25]

In 2014, Dana White insinuated that a female fighter he saw at an awards show “looked like” a man “in a dress and heels,” arguing she was “not even a woman anymore.” After UFC fighter Ronda Rousey received backlash for insinuating fellow fighter Cristiane Justino was “not even a woman anymore” due to her alleged use of steroids, White defended Rousey “by comparing Justino's appearance to that of 37-year-old, male middleweight Wanderlei Silva and, at one point, stomping around the stage in a pantomime of Justino ‘in a dress and heels.’” [Bleacher Report, 4/24/14]

Years later, a photographer working for the gym of one of Justino’s opponents apologized after insultingly posting on Instagram, “This dude is tough as hell!” [MMAJunkie, 1/1/18]

In 2024, UFC fighter Kayla Harrison was targeted by online trolls who falsely accused her of being “a trans athlete.” The social media attacks on Harrison came after she won a fight against Holly Holm. [Pink News, 4/14/24]

UFC influencers also participated in targeted backlash against Algerian Olympic boxer Imane Khelif in 2024. Nina-Marie Daniele shared a post claiming “Beating women is now a spectator sport” and wrote, “This [is] absolutely DISGUSTING! Shame on the Olympic committee for allowing this! Imagine being a father and watching your daughter get beat up by a biological man.” The attacks on Khelif are unfounded, as her “passport, from a country where you cannot legally change your gender, identifies her as female.” [Twitter/X, 7/30/24; Media Matters, 8/2/24]

Tim Kennedy said it was “evil and disgusting to see women having to fight men in boxing during the Olympics.” In an apparent attack on Khelif, Kennedy continued, “Not a single trans athlete has lost thus far. The physical advantage clearly goes to a biological male when it comes to violence.” [Twitter/X, 7/30/24]