WATCH ABOVE: Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee draws fire for his comments on transgender people.
Proving what you say can always come back to haunt you, comments Republican presidential hopeful and former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee made months ago about gender-neutral washrooms are causing controversy.
Huckabee’s February comments about gender identity, when it comes to which washrooms transgender individuals use, are now causing quite a stir thanks to Caitlyn Jenner‘s appearance on the cover of Vanity Fair.
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When Jenner opened up to Diane Sawyer about her gender identity in April, she also revealed she’s a Republican. But her appearance on the magazine’s cover — her first appearance since undergoing her physical transition — has helped bring Huckabee’s comments to light.
Huckabee made the comments at the National Religious Broadcasters convention in Nashville, trying to explain the perceived risk of allowing transgender individuals to use washrooms and change rooms of the gender they are identifying with or to which they are transitioning.
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According to Buzzfeed, the video of his speech was only posted to YouTube by World Daily News on the weekend.
“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.”
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He reduced moves to create more gender neutral washrooms and spaces to a “social experiment” that is being forced upon children.
“I’m not against anybody. I’d just like for somebody to bring their brain to work some day and not leave it on the bed stand when they show up to govern.”
Huckabee is not alone in the Republican party in lacking acceptance for transgender individuals — or many other issues facing the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) community – but, Jenner isn’t necessarily alone in being trans and Republican. Support for transgender people is by no means absent within the GOP.
Former Minnesota Sen. Norm Coleman, in an April column for The Daily Beast, in response to Jenner coming out as transgender, detailed his relation with a former senior aide who was both a transgender woman and a Republican.
“One of my most trusted colleagues during my career in public service is a transgender woman, Susan Kimberly,” Coleman wrote.” I knew of Susan before her transition, when she served on the St. Paul City Council. After her transition, Susan returned to public service and she served as my Deputy Mayor and Chief of Staff while I was Mayor of St. Paul.” (Coleman was a Democrat when he was mayor of St. Paul, but served in the U.S. Senate for six years as a Republican.)
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He said Kimberly’s gender identity had nothing to do with how well she did her job and she was the “smartest and most capable person to do the job. … I’m proud that we served the people of Minnesota together for more than a decade.”
Coleman, now a lobbyist, said more than 70 per cent of Republican voters are in favour of workplace protections for transgender people but said the most states are still falling behind when it comes to anti-discrimination protections for LGBTQ people.
“It is my hope that, in the next Congress, Republicans and Democrats join together to add LGBT individuals to our nation’s anti-discrimination protections.”
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