The Harry Potter films, written by J.K. Rowling, grossed over $7.7 billion and gained a large following on social media, with the most viewed TikTok, currently sitting at 2.2 billion views, related to Harry Potter. J.K. Rowling’s success with the Harry Potter series has caused her to become one of the most successful authors. Despite her accomplished book series, she is looked down upon in the Harry Potter fandom because of her harmful transphobic beliefs. She once wrote, “When you throw open the doors of bathrooms and changing rooms to any man who believes or feels he’s a woman… you open the door to any and all men who wish to come inside.” This comment was made in response to Scotland’s gender recognition bill, which allowed transgenders to go into their correct bathrooms. Her once-welcoming community had become a toxic and unwelcoming environment. The backlash of her statement is similar to the backlash Joe Rogan and Patrick Bet-David have received from making deceitful remarks about teaching LGBTQ topics in schools on their podcast, Valuetainment. Patrick Bet-David and Joe Rogan’s arguments about LGBTQ youth and teachers were untrue, harmful, and undermined the progress that LGBTQ youth have gone through. 

I. No, Teachers are not Teaching Kids to Embrace Sexual Activities 

At the start of this short clip, Patrick Bet-David explains to Joe Rogan how schools across the country are teaching 11-year-olds how to engage in sexual activities: “How good are you at giving [a sexual activity]? … that’s what they are teaching in schools right now.” Only thirty seconds later, Bet-David says that sexual books are “recommended reading by the teachers.” Rogan agrees with Bet-David’s words and adds that the reason for an increase in LGBTQ+ teenagers is because of what kids are being taught in schools: “What you are seeing with these d-transitioners is that these kids got encouraged early.” Rogan brings up people who have experimented with their gender as an example that teachers have negatively affected the innocence of children and that more children have become LGBTQ. Their arguments allude that LGBTQ+ people are the ones to blame for children learning how to engage in sexual activities. 

During the time of filming this video,  Bet-David and Rogan lived in the state of Flordia, where children aged 10-14 learn about “internal and external influence, accessing information, interpersonal communication, decision making, goal setting, self-management, advocacy, character education, substance use, and abuse” in their health classes. All of these topics are not about or encourage performing sexual activities, despite what Bet-David claimed about the supposed new material schools are teaching. 

II. Teachers do not have an agenda to brainwash children into being LGBTQ

Only a minute in, Joe Rogan said that some teachers are trying to make children gay and that it is “celebrated” to teach LGBTQ topics in schools. He later proposed that school districts claim “it’s normal” and that children “should learn about this at an early age.” He later said that displaying the pride flag is to prove someone is on the “right team.” However, Rogan says that he is not homophobic, he just thinks kids are being pushed in a “specific direction” to be gay. Rogan and Bet-David then discuss the harmful effects of Democrats becoming teachers: “When you confront [Democrats] with facts, they deny it […] Do you think there’s a part of the political party that they feel like just because [they] are Democrat, [they] have to agree with everything they are pitching?” Rogan argues that the teachers are a part of the “progressive mindset that is essentially a cult” and indoctrinating children. Bet-David and Rogan’s declaration that teachers are encouraging kids to be gay is problematic and untrue.

Rogan declared that all teachers are celebrated for being gay despite people who have gotten fired for talking about their sexual orientation. A Floridian teacher told her kids that she is 

pansexual, her students created art for her, and she hung the art up on the door. The school district she worked for found out about her artwork and told her to remove the art, she refused and was promptly fired over the phone. After backlash on social media, the school district claimed she “did not follow the state-mandated curriculum.” The teacher’s firing was due to the bill known as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill that is most prevalent in Florida. The bill stated, “Classroom instruction by school personnel or third parties on sexual orientation or gender identity may not occur in kindergarten through grade 3 or in a manner that is not age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students [under] state standards.” DeSantis, the Floridian governor, referred to teaching students about LGBTQ issues as “woke gender ideology.” He followed this up by asserting that teaching kids that “they can be whatever they want to be” was “inappropriate” for children. DeSantis paints LGBTQ people as harmful, which could make young queer teens feel uneasy about who they are, Rogan and Bet-David are doing the same thing as DeSantis; they are making young teens feel guilty. The next claim that democratic teachers are a cult is completely untrue, according to Britannica, a popular encyclopædia website, a cult is a “small religious group that is not part of a larger and more accepted religion and that has beliefs regarded by many people as extreme or dangerous.” The definition of the Democrat Party is, “Democratic Party, in the United States, one of the two major political parties, the other being the Republican Party.” Cults and political parties are not similar, showing that facts do not back Rogan and Bet-David’s words. The claim that being transgender is not natural is a highly discussed topic, and the American Psychology Association makes a clear definition: “Sex is assigned at birth, refers to one’s biological status as either male or female, and is associated primarily with physical attributes such as chromosomes, hormone prevalence, and external and internal anatomy. Gender refers to the socially constructed roles, behaviors, activities, and attributes that a given society considers appropriate for boys and men or girls and women. These influence the ways that people act, interact, and feel about themselves.” Sex, which Bet-David and Rogan talk about, mainly describes one’s chromosomes and not gender, which is one’s socially constructed behaviors. Gender itself is a concept fabricated by humans, and transgender people have existed for years, as they have been shown in, “many indigenous, Western, and Eastern cultures and societies.” Rogan and Bet-David’s views are not well-researched and were made to upset parents wary about teachers and schools.

III. No, seven-year-olds do not have gender-affirming procedures. 

The next argument made by Joe Rogan states that seven-year-olds are regularly going through gender-affirming surgeries: “Now all of the sudden you’re allowing seven-year-olds to say ‘I am a girl,’ or  ‘I am a boy,’ cut off my breasts and put me on testosterone.” Joe Rogan goes on to talk about transgender youth and reports that it is “craziness.” Rogan’s claims make America seem like an accepting place for transgender youth. Still, the US has difficult restrictions on what gender-affirming care teens can receive.  Rogan’s statements of transphobia are not uncommon, people like Matt Walsh, a YouTuber who is known for being problematic, told a trans woman, “It’s possible that you could fool someone […] I see a man 100%.” Walsh and Rogan’s words both contained discrimination and are harmful for the youth of today.

The only gender-affirming care available to 14-year-olds and older is hormone blockers. The gender-affirming surgeries Rogan described are only available to a select few 15 to 17-year-olds. A transgender man, Gabe Poulos, had breast removal surgery as a teen and has been on sex hormones for seven years. He said he is happy that he was able to get gender-affirming care at a young age: “Transitioning under the roof with your parents so they can go through it with you, that’s beneficial…I’m so much happier now.” His words show that transgender health care can change everything for someone.  According to the Trevor Project, an organization that specializes in helping LGBTQ+, transgender kids’ families that have used the correct pronouns “cut suicide rates by half” compared to those who did not have their pronouns respected. The increase in respecting LGBTQ+ has not always been a common thing. In 1974, homosexuality and transgenderism were classified as a mental disorder, and only recently the World Health Organization recently changed its regulations so that gender incongruence will now be classified as a sexual health condition. Gender incongruence is “characterized by a marked and persistent incongruence between an individual’s experienced gender and the assigned sex. Despite there being change for transgender teens, this hatred is still shown with different bills and laws that are being proposed. South Carolina proposed a law where transgender children under 18 would have to wait to receive gender-affirming surgeries. They claim the ban is for health reasons: “Sex hormones — estrogen or testosterone — starting at age 14. This is often a lifelong treatment. Long-term risks may include infertility and weight gain, along with strokes in trans women and high blood pressure in trans men.” With all of the discrimination that LGBTQ+ people face, 42% of LGBTQ youth considered attempting suicide in the past year and 75% of LGBTQ youth have experienced discrimination in schools 

IV. Joe Rogan 

One of the two speakers in this video, Joe Rogan, is a podcaster and comedian who was recently disgraced for his Netflix comedy special that contained numerous sexist, fatphobic, homophobic, transphobic, and anti-vax comments. Over the 12 years of the filming of his podcast, he said the n-word 24 times and alleged his podcast is about “preserving the voices of straight white men.” Spotify had Rogan remove about a dozen episodes, which contained harmful material. An example of him being problematic was when he encouraged his audience to take antibiotics while sick with COVID-19. A doctor with the YouTube username Doctor Mike discusses the pros and cons of each medication Joe Rogan recommended, and all the antibiotics Rogan was not effective in fighting COVID-19 as COVID is a virus and the antibiotics are taken to fight bacterial infections. VOX, a publication website that often discusses famous people, declared, “[H]undreds of health experts complained that he was frequently spreading COVID-19 misinformation through his massively popular podcast.” Joe Rogan often makes untrue and harmful statements, so his comments should be met with distrust.

V. Patrick Bet-David

The second speaker in the video, Patrick Bet-David, is a podcaster with similar beliefs to Joe Rogan. He once said that the COVID-19 stimulus “doesn’t work” and teaches employees bad habits and an “A player” employee would be offended if a higher-up gave them money. Bet-David believes nobody should have been given money, they had to work for it. He often makes homophobic comments: “What do I need to do to convert you to be gay? … You don’t think I can convert you to be gay? […] I think lgbtq is a religion and you choose which religion you want to be in.” Bet-David compared homosexuality to religion, showing that he doesn’t respect LGBTQ+ people very much.

Patrick Bet-David’s first defense was that the COVID-19 stimulus did more harm than good because it taught employees how to be lazy. When he made this claim, a company he worked for suggested giving $45 million to employees so they did not quit during the pandemic and he shot this suggestion down. The COVID stimulus helped Americans by reducing poverty and keeping people afloat during the pandemic. According to the U.S. Government Accountability Office, “From April 2020 to December 2021, the federal government made direct COVID-19 stimulus payments to individuals totaling $931 billion.” The COVID stimulus helped move 11.7 million people out of poverty in 2020 and greatly contributed to keeping the economy alive during the lockdown. Bet-David makes uneducated claims about the COVID-19 vaccines and transgender youth.

Conclusion

The announcements made by Joe Rogan and Patrick Bet-David are harmful and undermine the progress that LGBTQ people have gone through. After only a few minutes spent researching their proposals, the facts completely crumbled their arguments and showed their statements were made to mask their hatred for the LGBTQ+ community. Rogan and Bet-David are not the only ones who share the hatred, transphobic remarks are something transgender people have to face every day. Despite this setback, the future is bright for young LGBTQ teens, as progress has been made to help them continue thriving and living outside of the norms.