YouTube removes Robert F Kennedy Jr video featuring bizarre claim that polluted water makes children transgender

YouTube has reportedly removed a conspiracy-laden interview between right-wing media figure Jordan Peterson and presidential hopeful Robert F Kennedy Jr.

During the interview, Mr Kennedy Jr repeated an infamous conspiracy theory made popular by Alex Jones, claiming that chemicals in the water were “turning the frogs gay.”

Mr Kennedy Jr took the conspiracy theory a step further and claimed that chemicals in the water were also making people transgender.

Mr Peterson complained about the removal, arguing that YouTube had “take upon itself to actively interfere with a presidential election campaign.”

“I think a lot of the problems we see in kids, particularly boys, it’s probably underappreciated on that how much of that is coming from chemical exposures, including a lot of the sexual dysphoria that we’re seeing,” Mr Kennedy Jr said during the interview.

He claimed that children were “swimming through a soup of toxic chemicals” many of which he claimed were “endocrine disruptors.”

“There’s atrazine throughout our water supply,” he said. “Atrazine, by the way, if you in a lab put atrazine in a tank full of frogs, it will chemically castrate and forcefully feminise every frog in there. And 10 per cent of the frogs, the male frogs will turn into fully viable females able to produce viable eggs if it’s doing that to frogs. It could, there’s a lot of other evidence that it’s doing to human beings as well.”

Despite running as a Democrat, Mr Kennedy Jr’s fandom is solidly right-wing, thanks in part to his conspiratorial beliefs regarding vaccines and gender.

He also complained that YouTube was acting as a “censor.”

YouTube, a private company, maintains its own use guidelines and can choose what it will and will not allow, including speech from presidential candidates and elected officials.

The podcast was originally posted earlier this month, but saw a spike in interest after Mr Kennedy Jr appeared on Joe Rogan’s podcast and repeated a number of conspiratorial claims concerning vaccines, 5G and Wi-Fi technologies, and ivermectin.

Twitter blew up shortly after, when Rogan challenged vaccines expert Dr Peter Hotez to debate Mr Kennedy Jr on his podcast.

Dr Hotez rejected the offer, stating he did not want to turn the misinformation Mr Kennedy Jr was repeating into a spectacle and further its reach.

Mr Kennedy Jr was previously banned on Instagram for spreading vaccine misinformation, but that ban was lifted after he announced his candidacy for president, according to Meta.