Dr. Debra Soh on the Joe Rogan Experience #1147, fact-checked

What the evidence shows: The "one in five" figure traces to a Haupert et al. study (Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy, published online 2016 / in print 2017), which used two U.S. census-based quota samples of single American adults (n=3,905 and n=4,813) and found that 21.9% and 21.2%, respectively, reported having engaged in an agreed-upon, sexually non-exclusive relationship at some point in their lives. A 2021 follow-up study from the same research group (Moors et al., Frontiers in Psychology), using a similar national sample of single U.S. adults, reproduced a comparable range (19.6-21.9%) for lifetime consensual non-monogamy, while finding a narrower 10.7% rate for polyamory specifically. Both studies sampled only single adults, not the general American population, and coupled adults were not surveyed, so the figure describes lifetime experience among singles rather than "Americans" broadly. With that caveat, Soh's statement is a reasonably accurate paraphrase of a real, peer-reviewed, replicated finding rather than a fabricated or outlying statistic.

What the evidence shows: James Damore's July 2017 internal Google memo, which led to his firing, cited published psychology research on population-level average differences between men and women in personality traits, interests, and occupational preferences; research of that kind does exist in the literature. However, Scientific American published two pieces disputing how the memo used that research: a September 2018 article by Maryam Zaringhalam and Jess Wade says the memo relied on 'misappropriating scientific studies' and 'continued a tradition of cherry picking' from science used historically to justify excluding women from technical roles, and a separate piece by John Horgan argues the memo's evolutionary-psychology reasoning about sex differences amounts to advancing gender stereotypes rather than settled science. Neither piece disputes that the underlying studies exist; both argue Damore's application of that research to explain workplace gender gaps was scientifically unsound and selective. No consensus retraction of the specific cited studies occurred, so the dispute centers on interpretation and application rather than whether the research existed. This makes the claim that the memo 'cited actual studies' accurate but incomplete, since prominent science commentary judged Damore's framing and conclusions to be cherry-picked and overstated.

What the evidence shows: Older "desistance" follow-up studies of clinic-referred gender-nonconforming boys, including a 2021 study of 139 boys assessed between 1975 and 2009, found that about 88 percent no longer met criteria for gender dysphoria by young adulthood, and among those with data, roughly 47 to 64 percent reported same-sex or bisexual attraction or behavior rather than persisting as transgender. These figures are the empirical basis for claims like Soh's. However, "all the studies ever done" overstates the state of the evidence: the cited study itself cautions that its boys were assessed under an older treatment era, before pre-pubertal social transition or puberty blockers were standard practice, and that its findings reflect one snapshot in time rather than settled adult outcomes. A 2022 systematic literature review of the desistance research found the underlying quantitative studies were uniformly poor quality and concluded the concept of "desistance" should no longer be used in clinical work or research. The evidence is therefore mixed: some historical studies do show elevated rates of later same-sex attraction among gender-nonconforming boys, but this is not the settled, universal scientific consensus Soh describes, and the methodology of the underlying research has been widely disputed by subsequent scholarship.

What the evidence shows: Soh's claim reflects a set of older longitudinal "desistance" studies (e.g., Wallien & Cohen-Kettenis, 2008) reporting that a majority of children referred for childhood gender dysphoria no longer identified as trans by adolescence; in that study of 77 children, only 27% were classified as persisting and 43% as desisted, while 30% of the original sample were lost to follow-up or did not respond, a group some critics say was effectively folded into the widely cited approximately 80% "desistance" figure rather than excluded. A 2018 peer-reviewed review confirms the ~80% desistance figure derives from a set of about 10 prospective childhood follow-up studies, but also notes this research base says little about adolescent-onset gender dysphoria, which is common in current treatment-seeking samples and may follow a different course. More recent prospective research applying stricter DSM-5 diagnostic criteria to adolescents finds substantially higher persistence: a 2013-2018 Australian cohort study found that among 66 followed youth formally diagnosed with gender dysphoria, 90.9% had persisted on a transgender-affirming pathway at 4-9 year follow-up. Status: mixed/outdated -- the "most kids outgrow it" claim derives from real but methodologically contested older studies of childhood-onset cases, and does not match persistence rates found in more rigorously diagnosed, largely adolescent-referred recent cohorts.

What the evidence shows: Rogan describes an episode in which some YouTube creators' ad income suddenly fell to about 30% of prior levels with no clear explanation of the rules. This matches the well-documented 2017 "adpocalypse," when major advertisers including General Motors, Audi and McDonald's pulled campaigns after reports that ads were running alongside extremist and hateful videos, prompting YouTube to change how it placed ads with little advance notice to creators. NPR reported in April 2017 that ad rates for video producers had fallen as much as 75% within two weeks, and quoted a British animator, David Firth, saying YouTube "decided that there are a whole new set of rules for what you can and you cannot put an advert on and make money off... and they didn't tell anyone," which directly supports the 'no clear guidelines' part of Rogan's claim. The specific 30% figure Rogan cites is plausible as a description of some creators' experience during that period, but the cited source documents drops of up to 75%, not a uniform 30% cut, so the exact percentage should be read as Rogan's rough recollection rather than a verified statistic. The core elements of the claim, sudden unexplained revenue cuts and unclear guidelines during the 2017 YouTube ad boycott, are well supported by the available source.

What the evidence shows: Blood quantum requirements for tribal enrollment do exist and vary widely by tribe rather than following a single national standard; some tribes require as little as one-eighth, one-sixteenth, or one-thirty-second Indian blood, others require one-half or one-quarter, and many have no minimum blood quantum requirement at all, relying instead on lineal descent from a base roll. The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, for example, has required a minimum of one-sixteenth blood quantum since 1931, so Rogan's one-sixteenth figure matches at least one real, prominent tribal standard. However, the U.S. Department of the Interior and the Bureau of Indian Affairs both state there is no uniform federal or tribal blood quantum standard: each tribe sets its own membership criteria in its own governing documents, and eligibility for federal or tribal benefit programs differs program to program on top of that. Presenting one-sixteenth as a general rule 'in some places' is therefore directionally correct but understates how much thresholds actually differ across tribes, and no evidence was found regarding a comparable rule in Canada. Rogan's own hedging ('I think,' 'I'm not sure') signals the claim was offered as a rough impression rather than a researched figure.