Joe Rogan has become the next personality to give their opinion on the Lia Thomas debate with some scathing comments towards the transgender athlete’s recent success.
During an episode of The Joe Rogan Experience Rogan and Yannis Pappas discussed the Lia Thomas debate, with a strong stance against transgender athletes competing in women’s sports.
He said: “'What it is now is an assault on women’s sports.”
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“And the idea that anyone would think it’s fair that someone who was number 4 – 6 – 2 as a man, 462 in the nation, is number 1 as a woman a year later. And that’s fair.”
Thomas, who competes at the University of Pennsylvania sparked debate as she became the first transgender athlete to win a National Collegiate Athlete Association (NCAA) title, winning the 500-yard freestyle final.
Rogan would go on to state that Thomas’ win would cause even further outrage.
He continued; “That might be the woke straw that breaks society’s camel’s back. People are – Women are so frustrated because if you – or parents if your daughter is competing and they’re competing against trans women it’s not fair.”
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“It's not fair no matter what anybody says. There’s this nonsense idea of like ‘well there's outliers.’ There’s outliers and then there’s biological males.
“There's a reason why we have a distinction between men and women's sports.”
Thomas had been allowed to compete this season as she had been taking testosterone suppression treatment for over a year now.
This isn’t the first time Rogan has chimed in on the transgender athlete debate, giving his opinion on MMA fighter, Fallon Fox in 2012.
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He had stated: “'She calls herself a woman but... I tend to disagree. And, uh, she, um... she used to be a man but now she has had, she's a transgender which is (the) official term that means you've gone through it, right? And she wants to be able to fight women in MMA. I say no f****** way.”
However, Rogan had a change of heart when it came to MMA star Alana McLaughing competing in the sport, and backed the transgender fighter.
Speaking on The Tim Dillon Show, Rogan said: “Well, the trans MMA thing was big. But it wasn’t, it wasn’t valid.
“It was people that don’t want any criticism whatsoever about trans people. And I was like, ‘Look, I don’t have a problem with trans people, right, I have a problem with someone pretending that they’re a biological woman and fighting women.’
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“Once you say you’re trans and everybody says, ‘Okay, I’ll fight her’ -- fine. I’m fine with that.
“And, in fact, MMA is one of the best places for that because you know exactly who your opponent is.”
Lia Thomas hit out against her harshest critics last month, claiming that her treatment hasn't been warranted at all.
She told Sports Illustrated: “The very simple answer is that I'm not a man.”
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"I'm a woman, so I belong on the women's team. Trans people deserve that same respect every other athlete gets.”
Jayden Collins