Joe Rogan dragged over 'testosterone' argument after taking aim at Imane Khelif (2024)

Joe Rogan has been slammed online for taking a shot at Algerian boxer Imane Khelif.

This comes amid controversy surrounding Khelif’s biological sex as she earned her first-ever Olympic boxing medal on Saturday.

The Algerian is now guaranteed at least a bronze medal after she beat Hungary’s Anna Luca Hamori in all three rounds, declaring afterward ‘I am a woman.’

Khelif’s participation in Paris has been met with controversy after she was disqualified from the Women’s World Championships last year for failing International Boxing Association (IBA) gender eligibility rules.

Despite the fact that the 25-year-old has always competed in the women’s boxing division and has identified as female since birth, there’s been international discourse about whether or not Kelif should be allowed to compete in women’s sports, with many claiming she’s actually transgender.

Controversial podcast host Joe Rogan was among these critics, discussing the topic on his show The Joe Rogan Experience.

An online clip shows Rogan saying: ‘The problem is when you’re trying to get me to deny science and you start saying sh** like, “I’m a biological woman I should be able to compete with women in women’s sports.”’

The podcast host then played a clip of a commentator saying: ‘The relationship between natural testosterone and performance. There’s no relationship whatsoever between unaltered natural endgoneous testosterone and sport performance.

‘About 0.5% of elite male track and field athletes at the world championship level are below the women’s average of testosterone. Competing with men at 80 to 100 times more testosterone at no competitive disadvantage and that fact has not been picked up by the broader media landscape.’

After the clip played, Rogan said: ‘First of all, stop, stop, stop, put on the brakes. So here’s the problem with what she’s saying. First of all, there are many advantages to being biologically male. There’s larger lungs, there’s larger hearts, there’s a larger cardiovascular capacity, there’s the more of the ability to generate force because of larger stronger bodies.’

He continued: ‘Males with higher testosterone levels were significantly faster in the 20 and 30 meter sprint trialled compared to men with lower testosterone levels. Shut the f*** up, you’re lying.’

Of course, Rogan’s argument is instantly irrelevant given that the commentator was addressing hormone levels and his argument addressed biological sex, which is far more complicated than hormones.

Many users online took note of this bad argument, with some even pointing out that Rogan himself has admitted to using synthetic hormones.

@KGBlmfao wrote: ‘Joe Rogan is a low T male. He openly speaks about being on testosterone replacement. Joe Rogan is claiming that high T in women makes them a male. By his own logic, Joe Rogan is a biological woman presenting as a trans man.’

@FrankParker1 posted: ‘“High T in WOMAN makes them MALE.” That’s literally a contradiction in terms.’

@Seifou0507 agreed: _ ‘She’s a biological woman do your research.’

@Yslaboud said: ‘Everyone needs to come out and apologise.’

@abdenour.dk wrote: ‘I hope she sues them all for defamation.’

@fat*ss_panda posted: It’s literally a hormone thing that isn’t due to anything implied, it’s like a dude who has super high testosterone competing, it’s normal.

@Dave_spookyarms compared Khelif’s biological advantage to Michael Phelps’, writing: ‘Not trans. Born a woman with a uterus and a vagin* with a condition resulting in high testosterone. It’s the exact same as Michael Phelps having Marfan syndrome giving him long limbs being an advantage. Nobody was whining like little babies back then when he won 28 medals did they’

The International Olympics Committee (IOC) has confirmed that Khelif is biologically female. A spokesperson for the organisation said: ‘The Algerian boxer was born female, was registered female, lived her life as a female, boxed as a female, has a female passport.

‘This is not a transgender case. There has been some confusion that somehow it’s a man fighting a woman. This is just not the case. On that there is consensus, scientifically this is not a man fighting a woman.’

The IOC has also called the IBA’s original call into question, writing in a statement that Khelif and Taiwan’s Lin Yu-ting, who was also disqualified by the IBA, ‘victims of a sudden and arbitrary decision by the IBA.’

;Towards the end of the IBA World Championships in 2023, they were suddenly disqualified without any due process,’ the IOC said.

‘According to the IBA minutes available on their website, this decision was initially taken solely by the IBA secretary general and CEO. The IBA board only ratified it afterwards and only subsequently requested that a procedure to follow in similar cases in the future be established and reflected in the IBA Regulations. The minutes also say that the IBA should ‘establish a clear procedure on gender testing’.

‘The current aggression against these two athletes is based entirely on this arbitrary decision, which was taken without any proper procedure – especially considering that these athletes had been competing in top-level competition for many years.

‘Such an approach is contrary to good governance.’

Another spokesperson for the IOC added: ‘There are many women with higher levels of testosterone than men. So the idea that a testosterone test is a magic bullet is actually not true.’

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