While speaking at a religious convention in Nashville earlier this year, Mike Huckabee’s trademark candor reached a new level of absurdity, as he joked about wishing he “could have felt like a woman” back in high school…in order to get access to female locker rooms.
“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,” Huckabee said on stage at the 2015 National Religious Broadcasters Convention back in February. “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 remarks, reported by BuzzFeed on Tuesday, were meant to warn the crowd about Americans’ growing tolerance of the transgender community and support for laws protecting transgender people’s access to the restroom of their choice.
“For those who do not think that we are under threat, simply recognize the fact that we are now in city after city watching ordinances say that your seven-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,” he said.
For more on the conservative assault on where transgender people use the bathroom, check out our primer here.