Mutual beacons of controversy Joe Rogan and Jordan Peterson seemed pretty tight on a lot of issues earlier this year when the former guested on the latter’s podcast. They both cater to a far-right audience (and Peterson defended Rogan after scientists urged him to stop spreading Covid misinformation, a mess that led to Spotify warnings), but Rogan’s not about to let every single Peterson stance fly without comment.
The issue that broke the Rogan’s back has been brewing for a few months, it seems, and involves Peterson’s deadnaming of trans Oscar winner Elliot Page. “Remember when pride was a sin?” Peterson tweeted. “And Ellen Page just had her breasts removed by a criminal physician.” And for that, Peterson got suspended from Twitter, even though he also apparently got triggered and quit the social media platform (so much back and forth) due to backlash over his remarks about a Sports Illustrated cover model. Well, Rogan isn’t here for Peterson refusing to recognize Page’s chosen name and apparently believes that it’s a dumb hill to die on.
“He’s kicked off Twitter right now,” Rogan declared (via Mediaite). “I think that was the number one thing. The deadnaming.” Rogan continued while explaining, “My friend Brian Simpson had a very good thing to say about that. He was like, ‘I come to you for like heavy duty intellectual sh*t.’ He goes, ‘Not for this.’ Like this is not a thing to be getting offended about.”
From there, Rogan didn’t see why Peterson wouldn’t leave Elliot Page alone and why he was so dang offended by something that doesn’t even affect him. “Like everybody’s in favor of everybody doing whatever they want to do, as long as it doesn’t hurt anybody until it gets to gender and then people start getting weird,” the host declared.
“Weird” is certainly one way to describe Peterson’s behavior. What’s quite wild is how — when Peterson visited Rogan in early 2022 — he compared being transgender to “satanic ritual abuse.” Fast forward to now, and Rogan’s making his perspective on Peterson’s deadnaming clear.
Previously, Peterson released a video, in which he acknowledged the Twitter suspension. He called it “impossible” to use Elliot’s chosen name, and he added, “[T]he suspension will not be lifted until I delete the ‘hateful’ tweet in question, and I would rather die than do that.”
Meanwhile, Elliot Page simply keeps ignoring Jordan Peterson.
(Via Mediaite)