Pat Robertson’s transgender comments, recently uttered on his normally somewhat controversial 700 Club, represent a totally Opposite Day style break from what we’ve come to expect from the sweater demons preaching religious figure .
In the spirit of giving credit where credit is due, Pat Robertson’s transgender comments deserve recognition amidst what is generally widespread opposition in certain caucuses to grant the T in the LGBT community basic, non-humiliating life circumstances.
Bill O’Reilly, who is less conservative than Pat Robertson on certain key issues, has (for instance) suggested that transgender kids are really cunning perverts wishing to gain unfettered access to the opposite sex for illicit reasons.
And another transgender child allowed into the Girl Scouts in Colorado with the local council’s blessing enraged some conservatives, who mounted a boycott of Girl Scout Cookies . (To which we’d say that if you’re beating up on the Girl Scouts, maybe you need to check yourself.)
So back to Pat Robertson, who is often (but not always) a good gauge of American Evangelical moral panic.
Robertson had a question about transgender co-workers and whether it is wrong to refer to two transgender females as females as their official gender has legally changed.
Robertson candidly admits that he doesn’t “really understand all that,” but adds:
“I think there are men who are in a woman’s body… I don’t think there’s any sin associated with that. I don’t condemn somebody for doing that.”
Robertson’s co-host suggests that the asker, David, doesn’t know the co-workers’ hearts nor whether they really are women trapped in men’s bodies, to which the 700 Club host replies:
“It’s not for you to decide or judge.”
Watch above as Pat Robertson’s transgender comments quietly subvert the standard conservative line on this issue.