Spotify’s Joe Rogan and guest Megan Murphy spread vile anti-trans hate, with Murphy falsely claiming that being trans is a mental illness
Rogan and Murphy appeared to violate Spotify’s platform rules prohibiting “dehumanizing statements about a person” based on their gender identity
Written by Alex Paterson
Published
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.
Citation From the June 10, 2022, edition of Spotify's The Joe Rogan Experience
JOE ROGAN (HOST): How could you know that some people aren't born and they feel like they're in the wrong body? Like some boys who are born and they feel like, I — I'm supposed to be a girl.
MEGHAN MURPHY (GUEST): Doesn't matter. So you feel like you're supposed to be a girl. You're not. You’re a boy. Like, so what? Like, I know. I think that for some people, then it's — it's a mental illness and we're not allowed to say that. Like, if you're a male —
ROGAN: But is it absolutely a mental illness? Here's the question. If someone is born male, but they feel in every fiber of their being that they're supposed to be a woman and they're healthy every other way. How — is that really mental illness or is there some wiring that should be male and is female? Some not-understood mechanism that makes someone feel like they're a woman or feel like they're a boy?
MURPHY: OK, so mental condition. Then don't call it mental illness. Call it a mental condition.
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.”
Citation From the June 10, 2022, edition of Spotify's The Joe Rogan Experience
JOE ROGAN (HOST): There was a fucking anti-abortion, or anti- — pro-choice rally, and this trans woman was screaming with the deepest voice, “Keep your laws out of my pussy.”
MEGHAN MURPHY (GUEST): Oh my God.
ROGAN: It was so wild.
MURPHY: And that's just, like, domineering behavior. Like, I don't —
ROGAN: It was — they weren't even trying to hide. I mean, it was such a masculine voice.
MURPHY: Well, and that’s — I’m like, I don't believe that you believe it . Like those — I'm like, you don't think you're a woman. Give me a break. You're just being a bully.
…
MURPHY: But I do — I think a lot of men, you know, identify as women or trans women specifically so that they can act like bullies. Not all of them. Some people just want to be themselves and that's fine. Go be yourself. I don't care. But like, so that you can insert yourself into spaces and conversation and take over. I think that the kind of men who identify as women or trans women who go into women's change rooms or bathrooms, or like the — there was that guy at the spa in —
ROGAN: Yeah, in LA.
MURPHY: LA. You know, I think that they're, they want to make women feel uncomfortable. You know that you're making women feel — you're parading around naked in a change room, in a women's change room or like a woman-only spa, 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.”
Citation From the June 10, 2022, edition of Spotify's The Joe Rogan Experience
JOE ROGAN (HOST): The nonbinary thing’s the weirdest one because you could just jump on board.
MEGHAN MURPHY (GUEST): It's so stupid.
ROGAN: You could just say I'm nonbinary.
MURPHY: Well anybody is nonbinary.
ROGAN: We know this guy who's nonbinary and he fucks all these girls.
MURPHY: You’re like, so you're a heterosexual man then, huh?
ROGAN: He’s a hustler. H-U-S-T-L-E-R. Hustler. He found the thing, like, that's how you get in and bang woke chicks.
MURPHY: Ew. I would never want to fuck a nonbinary man.
ROGAN: I mean, maybe he's really nonbinary. I don't know.
MURPHY: There’s no such thing as nonbinary. That's not a real concept. What does that mean?
ROGAN: He's not a man. He's not a woman. [Unintelligible].
MURPHY: That's impossible. Everybody is a man or a woman.
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.
Citation From the June 10, 2022, edition of Spotify's The Joe Rogan Experience
JOE ROGAN (HOST): How could you know that some people aren't born and they feel like they're in the wrong body? Like some boys who are born and they feel like, I — I'm supposed to be a girl.
MEGHAN MURPHY (GUEST): Doesn't matter. So you feel like you're supposed to be a girl. You're not. You’re a boy. Like, so what? Like, I know. I think that for some people, then it's — it's a mental illness and we're not allowed to say that. Like, if you're a male —
ROGAN: But is it absolutely a mental illness? Here's the question. If someone is born male, but they feel in every fiber of their being that they're supposed to be a woman and they're healthy every other way. How — is that really mental illness or is there some wiring that should be male and is female? Some not-understood mechanism that makes someone feel like they're a woman or feel like they're a boy?
MURPHY: OK, so mental condition. Then don't call it mental illness. Call it a mental condition.