Jordan Peterson tells Joe Rogan being trans is a ‘contagion’ similar to ‘satanic ritual abuse’
Jordan Peterson told Joe Rogan claims that being trans is a “sociological contagion” similar to “satanic ritual abuse”. (YouTube/PowerfulJRE)
Jordan Peterson has claimed on Joe Rogan’s podcast that being trans is a “sociological contagion” comparable to “satanic ritual abuse”.
During his Spotify-exclusive podcast, Rogan questioned Peterson about his thoughts on what causes a person to be trans and feel “so compelled” by the “idea that they were born in the wrong body” to undergo gender-affirming surgery.
Peterson told him that being trans was a “sociological contagion” similar to “satanic ritual abuse accusations” that emerged in the 1980s. The right-wing commentator claimed he was familiar with the “literature on sociological contagion” and argued they are “very common”.
“And so one of them, for example, was the satanic ritual abuse accusations that emerged in daycares in the 1980s,” Peterson said.
He continued: “And that was a consequence of women going into the workforce en masse, leaving their children with strangers and starting to have pathological fantasies about it, especially if they were borderline schizophrenic.
“And those fantasies propagated into the population.”
“Satanic panic” was a societal fear of the occult that gripped the US and other parts of the world throughout the 1980s and into the early 90s. At the apex of this moral panic, false allegations of satanic ritual abuse at daycare centres spread across the US.
Later in the same episode, Rogan questioned Peterson about a bizarre theory that suggests that the acceptance of trans people is a sign of “civilisations collapsing”.
Rogan previously discussed this claim with The Spectator’s Douglas Murray in September 2020. Murray asserted that trans issues “will be seen to be a late-empire, a bad sign of things falling apart”.
Rogan asked Peterson if he was familiar with Murray’s work, who he said had an “amazing point about civilisations collapsing”. He claimed that civilisations “start collapsing” when they “become obsessed with gender”.
Peterson replied that the “disintegration of categories” was the main precursor to this collapse, not the “obsession with gender”.
“I think probably it’s not so much an obsession with gender, it’s a disintegration of categories as a precursor – like so it’s a marker for – if categories just dissolve, especially fundamental ones, the culture is dissolving because the culture is a structure of category,” he said.
Peterson continued: “That’s what it is. So in fact culture is a structure of category that we all share, so we see things the same way, so that’s why we can talk.
“I mean, not exactly the same way, because then we would have nothing to talk about, but roughly speaking, we have a bedrock of agreement. That’s the Bible, by the way.”
Joe Rogan’s podcast has faced widespread backlash over accusations of spreading COVID-19 misinformation
Neil Young’s music has been removed from Spotify after the platform refused to take down The Joe Rogan Experience amid the musician’s accusations that Rogan’s podcast platformed vaccine “misinformation”.
In a since-deleted letter, Young said he was furious because he believed Spotify had done nothing to “mitigate the spread of misinformation” on Rogan’s podcast.
He then gave the company an ultimatum: “They can have Rogan or Young. Not both.”
Spotify obtained exclusive streaming rights to Joe Rogan’s podcast in a reported $100 million licensing deal in 2020, Wall Street Journal reported.
But Spotify has seemingly sided with Rogan and has started removing Young’s content from the platform. A spokesperson for Spotify told BuzzFeed that the company wanted “all the world’s music and audio content to be available to Spotify users”.
“We have detailed content policies in place, and we’ve removed over 20,000 podcast episodes related to COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic,” they said. “We regret Neil’s decision to remove his music from Spotify, but hope to welcome him back soon.”
Joe Rogan performs during his appearance at The Ice House Comedy Club on 11 July 2018 in Pasadena, California. (Getty/Michael S Schwartz)
More than 270 doctors, physicians and science educators have signed an open letter to Spotify calling on the platform to take action against “false claims” spread on Rogan’s podcast.
The letter described The Joe Rogan Experience as “the world’s largest podcast” with an “estimated 11 million listeners per episode”. As such, they argued Rogan and the podcast have “tremendous influence” over listeners.
They accused Rogan of “repeatedly” spreading “misleading and false claims on his podcast”, “provoking distrust in science and medicine”.
Katrine Wallace, an epidemiologist at the University of Illinois Chicago school of public health, told Rolling Stone that she considers Rogan a “menace to public health” as he platforms anti-vaccine ideology on his podcast.
“These are fringe ideas not backed in science, and having it on a huge platform makes it seem there are two sides to this issue,” Wallace said. “And there are really not. The overwhelming evidence is the vaccine works, and it is safe.”
PinkNews has contacted Spotify for comment.
