Joe Rogan gives sharp retort after guest laments transgender ‘oppression’
Podcaster Joe Rogan had a sharp rejoinder to "Jackass" star and comedian Steve-O on Wednesday about the transgender ideology debate and whether the community is by and large oppressed.
Rogan and Steve-O, who have both worked in comedy, spoke on "The Joe Rogan Experience" about the nature of comedy to deal with the morbid and the controversial. Rogan noted that one Native American tribe, the Lakota, had a sacred clown known as a Heyoka, describing it as "a member of the community that was supposed to make fun of everything. And if you couldn't make fun of anything, then you knew something was wrong with that thing. Because if there's a thing that you can't joke around about, that thing has been compromised."
Rogan continued, "If there's a thing that you can't make fun of, that thing is usually bulls---, and if that thing is trans people, like, then you are ignoring that there's a glaring hole in this narrative that you're trying to push and whether or not people are accepting that narrative."
Steve-O later talked about how he, after a life of doing crazy stunts for laughs, had considered temporarily getting breast implants for a 1-hour comedy routine. Shortly before getting the operation, however, he met a transgender person whose life experience made him back off.
"They described to me a level of oppression that genuinely f---ing broke my heart. They said, ‘Hey, let me tell you, like, I am not allowed to use the bathroom at my own place of work.’"
"That's not true," Rogan said. "They're just not allowed to use the bathroom that doesn't align with their biological sex."
Rogan added further, "Listen, I genuinely think there's people that feel like they are in the wrong biological sex. But there's also people that are f---ing perverts, and they have a thing called autogynephilia, and what that is, is they get a turn-on by pretending to be a woman. They get excited by it, and they want to be around women, and they're creeps," he said.
Steve-O agreed, saying he understands that is a real scenario and this is a complex debate.
"Here's what's not complex," Rogan retorted. "What [are] your chromosomes?"
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He went on to blast the "mental gymnastics that seemingly intelligent people do" to justify allowing biological men to compete in women’s sports.
"Speaking as a man who has daughters, like there are creeps," Rogan said. "And if you give a creep, and I'm not saying all trans people are creeps, but a lot of these f---ing people that are in trouble for going into women's bathrooms dressed as a woman, with a f---ing beard and a hard-on, are just that."
Conversely, Rogan said, people are not concerned about biological women who identify as men entering male spaces like bathrooms because there is no concern about biological men being victimized. He reiterated his point arguing that biological men cannot claim they are being oppressed merely for not being given a hall pass to women’s bathrooms.
"You make a very, very good point," Steve-O replied.