Joe Rogan has acknowledged spreading misinformation after he suggested that elementary schools were installing litter boxes for students who “identify” as furries.

The sensationalist urban legend was rooted in the right’s continued attacks on trans and gender non-conforming youth.

Rogan, the Colorado congresswoman Lauren Boebert, and the Minnesota Republican gubernatorial candidate Scott Jensen all swore they had heard stories of schools across the US changing their bathroom policies to accommodate wannabe felines. But an NBC News investigation determined this was untrue. The furries-in-kindergarten myth was repeated by at least 20 candidates and officials this year, the report found, but none of the school districts mentioned actually offered litter boxes for student use. (Though officials in Colorado’s Jefferson county school district said in 2017 they did keep litter in closets as an “emergency go bucket”, in the event that a student needed to relieve themselves while in emergency lockdown.)

But the story still spread. Ericka Menchen-Trevino, a professor at American University’s School of Communication, explained to the Guardian why she believed these rumors were catnip to some parents. “This story put together a few things that some people already believe are true: that people’s assertions of identity, especially [for] children, are out of control, and that our schools are out of control for allowing it,” she said. “It fits very well with some people’s prior beliefs, and they don’t need to fact-check [because] it’s right in line with what they believe.”

Joan Donovan, research director for Harvard Kennedy’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy, added that the fake story gained traction “because it allows [politicians] to dog-whistle their transphobia without having to say the quiet part out loud.

“What was once a transphobic joke about ‘what’s next, kids identifying as cats?’ became a soft target for hoaxers who knew audiences were already primed to believe outrageous things,” she added.

Rogan originally referenced the story on-air to the former Hawaii representative Tulsi Gabbard as a blind item revealed to him by a “friend’s wife”. This woman was supposedly a teacher at a school that offered litter boxes in the girls’ restroom alongside toilets.

Then came the backtrack: “The kitty litter boxes is a weird one,” the ex-Fear Factor host admitted on his wildly popular podcast, The Joe Rogan Experience. “I fed into that and let me – I should probably clarify that a bit.” Rogan explained that the “friend’s wife” now taught at a “another school” and he could not verify that her previous job now had litter boxes. “I don’t think they actually did it,” he said.

Michelle A Amazeen, an associate professor who studies misinformation and director of Boston University’s Communication Research Center, said that these types of bogus rumors typically trickled up from fringe sites that lack credibility. “This story exemplifies the intertwined nature of digital, social and mainstream news media,” she said. “The fact that mainstream news outlets are covering this preposterous story – even if only to debunk wacko political candidates who are stating it as fact – gives the story reinforcement and seeming credibility.”

And Amazeen is not optimistic that Rogan’s disavowal of his words – plus factcheckers who reveal it’s totally false – will do much to stop its spread. “Fake news spreads farther and faster than retractions,” she said. “The story advances [conservative] fears about gender non-conformity and lack of control over what’s happening in our schools.”

Even as Rogan walked his statements back, the Senate candidate Don Bolduc of New Hampshire continued to peddle the trope this week, describing the “furries and fuzzies’’ peeing in litter boxes at the state’s private Pinkerton Academy.

Pinkerton Academy denied his claims that they use litter boxes in school or allow children to lick themselves and each other. “We want to assure our community that Mr Bolduc’s statements are entirely untrue,” representatives for the school, which costs $14,238 a year, said on social media.

While the hysteria over litter boxes in grade school may seem comical at first, it deeply disturbed Yotam Ophir, an assistant professor of communication at the University at Buffalo.

“My concern here is that throughout history when dangerous political leaders wanted to promote propaganda at the expense of vulnerable populations, a key strategy was to compare populations to animals,” he said. “Even if Joe Rogan doesn’t say it explicitly, what I hear as someone who studies propaganda is that he’s suggesting that [members of] the LGBTQ+ community are unnatural, almost non-human. We know from the past that people feel much more comfortable attacking humans when they don’t see them as humans any more.”

Dr Sharon Roberts is the co-founder of FurScience.com, a group of academics who study the furry community. She had not heard that Joe Rogan had retracted his statement until reached by the Guardian but said: “That’s great news. I hope this positive action – his correcting the record – gets as much attention as the misinformation and leads to more public interest in the examination of evidence-based research on the furry fandom.”

This misinformation, Roberts says, stems from a misunderstanding of what furries are. “Furries identify with animals, not as animals; most don’t have fursuits, they’re into artwork, cosplaying, going to conventions and interacting online with like-minded people,” she said. “Perhaps surprising to outsiders who may not understand the nuances of the community, the furry fandom is typically a safe place –sometimes the only safe place – for people of all genders, sexual orientations and those who are neurodiverse to be accepted by peers who celebrate their best, most authentic selves.”

According to CNN, between 100,000 and 1 million people are part of the furry fandom. A FurScience.com study found that most furries “create for themselves an anthropomorphized animal character (fursona) with whom they identify and can function as an avatar”, and some, though not all, dress up in “elaborate costumes”. More than 75% of furries are under the age of 25, the group reported, and 60% “agree that they felt prejudice against furries from society”.

As she previously told NBC News, Dr Roberts noted one crucial fact; she has never “seen or heard of” furries using litterboxes – anywhere. “While I can’t say for certain that no one has ever asked for a litter box, I can say that the aggregate data and the underlying logic of what a furry is don’t support the suggestion,” Roberts added. “Furries are human.”