Though he spoke at the 2015 National Religious Broadcasters Convention back in February, presidential candidate Mike Huckabee is just now making headlines for some transphobic comments he made at the time, in light of Caitlyn Jenner’s big reveal earlier this week.
At the convention, the governor of Arkansas, 59, slammed legislation permitting transgender people to use the bathrooms of the gender they associate with.
“We’re in city after city watching ordinances that 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,” Huckabee exclaimed during his impassioned speech.
He went on to quip, “Now I wish someone had told me in high school that I could have felt like a woman when it came time to take showers in P.E. I’m pretty sure I would have found my feminine side and said, ‘Coach, I think I’d rather shower with the girls today.’”
The audience clapped and laughed, which only fueled Huckabee’s fervor.
“You’re laughing because it sounds so ridiculous, doesn’t it?” he said. “And yet today we’re the ones who are ridiculed and scorned because we point out the obvious, that there’s something inherently wrong with forcing little children to be part of this social experiment. I’m not against anybody, I’d just like for somebody to bring their brain to work someday and not leave it on the bedstand when they show up to govern.”
The comments were first picked by BuzzFeed with many other outlets taking note. Huckabee’s name then became a top trending topic in the U.S. on Twitter.
These rehashed quotes come after Huckabee voiced his support of Josh Duggar in the wake of his recently uncovered child molestation scandal.
“Janet and I want to affirm our support for the Duggar family,” the presidential hopeful said in a statement on Facebook in May. “Josh’s actions when he was an underage teen are as he described them himself, ‘inexcusable,’ but that doesn’t mean ‘unforgivable.’”
