Transgender ‘Threat’ Mike Huckabee Comments Spark Backlash
Transgender “threat” comments by Mike Huckabee has sparked heated debate. The Republican presidential candidate and former Arkansas governor suggested that an increased acceptance of transgender “rights” could lead to problems in public restrooms.
Mike Huckabee transgender threat comments were uttered during a speech which was recorded and shared by BuzzFeed, that when he was a teenager, he would likely have lied about his gender identity in order to sneak a peek at women in the restroom.
“Now, I wish that someone told me that when I was in high school that I could have felt like a woman when it came time to take showers in PE. I’m pretty sure that I would have found my feminine side and said, ‘Coach, I think I’d rather shower with the girls today.’ “
The transgender threat comments made by Mike Huckabee immediately sparked a solid round of laughter by the audience.
“You’re laughing because it sounds so ridiculous doesn’t it?” Huckabee asked the crowd.
Huckabee’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider about the clip.
The Mike Huckabee transgender threat comments were reportedly made during a National Religious Broadcasters Convention in Nashville, Tennessee, earlier this year.
“For those who do not think that we are under threat, simply recognize that the fact that we are now in city after city watching ordinances say that your 7-year-old daughter, if she goes into the restroom, cannot be offended, and you can’t be offended, if she’s greeted there by a 42-year-old man who feels more like a woman than he does a man,” Mike Huckabee also said when referencing transgender issue.
The Republican presidential candidate recently released a new book entitled, God, Guns, Grits and Gravy. The GOP politician is also a Baptist minister and former Fox News host. Mike Huckabee left Fox News in January so he could once again run for president.
“And yet today, we’re the ones who are ridiculed and scorned because we point out the obvious,” Huckabee said when stating that Christians and conservatives are often ridiculed for their views. “That there’s something inherently wrong with forcing little children to be a part of this social experiment.”
A Harris poll conducted in February, 2015, found that about 40 percent of Americans show discomfort with a transgender person supervising children. More than one-third of those polled said they would feel discomfort playing on a sports team that included a transgender athlete. The same poll also showed “higher levels of discomfort” in the South, which is true of virtually all LGBT-issue related questions.
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[Photo by Scott Olson / Getty Images News]
