Did this litter-aly happen? On the October 11 episode of his Joe Rogan Experience Spotify podcast, Rogan claimed that a school “had to install a litter box in the girls room because there is a girl who’s a furry, who identifies as an animal.” He went on to assert that “her mother badgered the school until they agreed to put a litter box in one of the stalls.” And in case you were wondering what one might do in a litter box, Rogan got quite litter-all by adding, “So this girl goes into the litter room or to the girl’s room and urinates or whatever — I don’t know if she poops in it, that’s pretty gross.” Later on, Rogan dumped even more on this, saying, “Use a [expletive] bathroom. It’s sanitary. It’s much better. Like, you want your house to smell like human pee?” Yeah, if this were indeed happening, then you’d think the local health department might have an issue with such arrangements. If this were happening, that is.

So how did Rogan find out about all of this and what evidence did he provide to support this story? Well, apparently, according to Rogan, “My friend, his wife is a schoolteacher, and she works at” the said school. But Rogan did not give the actual names of the people involved or the name of the school or the location of the school. In fact, he didn’t give too many more details beyond what you can see in the video accompanying the following tweet:

So essentially all Rogan left you with was this happened at my-friend’s-wife’s-school. Hmm, does that sound a little like the my-cousin’s-friend’s-balls-got-swollen-after-he-got-the-Covid-19-vaccine claim that Nicki Minaj had made about a year ago, which I covered for Forbes back in September 2021? It ended up being practically impossible to verify that ballsy claim since Minaj never really specified the name of the person who owned the testicles or made that person or his testicles available for interviews. Similarly, you’ve got to take Rogan’s story with a litter box full of salt until he provides more specifics that can allow everyone to actually double-check what he had said.

During the episode, Rogan’s guest, Tulsi Gabbard, who served in the U.S. House of Representatives for Hawaii’s 2nd congressional district from 2013 to 2021, listened to Rogan’s catty story without really questioning any of the assertions. In fact, later in the episode, Gabbard said, “There are no boundaries anymore” to which Rogan responded with, “Right. The teachers in the school and the school itself should have said no to the parent.”

Speaking of no boundaries, these days there seems to be no boundaries as to what personalities and politicians can claim on podcasts, radio, TV, social media, and other platforms without providing hard evidence versus hardly no evidence. Rogan hasn’t been the only person to make such litter box claims. Looks like a number of politicians have been littering the airwaves with such furry-ious assertions. In fact, Tyler Kingkade, an investigative reporter for NBC News, put together “a thread of the 20 politicians who’ve falsely claimed this year that schools are accommodating who kids identify as cats, putting little boxes on campus for them [sic],” in his words:

That thread included statements from U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colorado), as you can see above, and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia), as you can see below:

Litter boxes in schools bathrooms and hallways could be health code violations. But again, where is the evidence that such accommodations are being made in schools. And where is the evidence that there is a “growing crisis” in schools of people identifying as cats using a litter box in a hallway, as a Tennessee state lawmaker claimed in the video accompanying Kingkade’s tweet below:

There is certainly no shortages of crises in the U.S. right now, ranging from the Covid-19 pandemic to the obesity epidemic to mass shootings to pollution and climate change. With all that, this is what legislators are spending their taxpayer-supported time talking about right now? And, once again, where exactly is the evidence supporting such cat-astrophic claims?

If you really think that schools are providing litter boxes and allowing kids to take dumps in them in an unsanitary manner, why not contact public health officials? Have them investigate and collect real evidence on what is really occurring. It should be too difficult to investigate. An investigator can ask, “Is that a litter box?” And then if so, “what is it doing in the hallway?” Let science lead the way on what to do. And if you truly believe that all of this has become a “crisis,” maybe commission a study on it. That way you can get enough data to determine whether any real legislative action is necessary and maybe even get it into the scientific litter-ature.

Bruce Y. Lee, Senior Contributor

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