The National Center for Transgender Equality and other pro-transgender groups hit back at former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee after comments the Republican presidential aspirant had made about transgender people at a conference earlier this year came to light.
The video of Huckabee’s speech to the National Religious Broadcasters Convention (NRBC), held in Nashville, Tenn., in February, was posted to YouTube by the conservative news outlet World Net Daily, whereupon reporters from Buzz Feed watched the videos and first reported on the comments. A visit to the YouTube page that used to carry the video now bears a message reading: “This video has been removed as a violation of YouTube’s policy against spam, scams, and commercially deceptive content.”
In his speech to the NRBC, Huckabee joked about transgender people, saying he wished he could have used the excuse to be able to shower with the girls in high school gym class, saying, “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.'” Huckabee also railed against transgender nondiscrimination protections in public accommodations, telling the audience, “For those who do not think 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.”
Mara Keisling, the executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality, did not mince words, calling Huckabee’s comments “really disgusting.”
“It is an absolute disgrace what Mike Huckabee keeps joking about, about grown men and teenage boys sneaking into the high school girls’ showers to do whatever they think is appropriate,” Keisling said. “It is an absolute shame, for someone who used to be a serious minister and a serious politician, what he has sunk to. He’s running for president pretty much to sell books or something. But this kind of comment is even below the lowest of that.
“He’s either being a creepy polemicist, or just a straight-up pervert,” Keisling said of Huckabee. “This is just so beneath the dignity of a grown adult. Shame on him.”
When asked why conservative groups who oppose transgender rights obsess so much over restrooms and shower facilities, Keisling added that the bigger question should be why the political Right is obsessed with sexualizing teenage girls.
“This is a total, intentional misrepresentation of these laws that protect trans people,” Keisling said. “No trans person anywhere in the county is permitted to do anything as creepy as Mike Huckabee wants to do. And he would be arrested for what he says he wants to do. And so would anyone else. This is not a transgender problem, this is a creepy old politician problem.”
Emily Martin, with the National Women’s Law Center, also pushed back against Huckabee’s screed, saying, “The idea that trans women aren’t real women, and that trans men aren’t real men, is out of touch, behind the times, and is nothing more than a justification for discrimination.”
The Human Rights Campaign also issued a statement implying that Huckabee’s comments did not stray far from some of his other offensive comments about the LGBT community.
“This is hardly surprising to those of us who remember the Mike Huckabee that likened being LGBT to drug abuse,” said JoDee Winterhof, HRC’s vice president for policy and political affairs. “He may have launched his campaign in Hope, but his mockery of transgender citizens is a clear indicator that Huckabee’s vision for America is one that tolerates hate.”
Justine Lindsay, the NFL's first out transgender cheerleader, recently revealed that she was fired this year, a decision she alleges was motivated by transphobia and Donald Trump's election as president.
"I was cut because I'm trans," Lindsay said in an Instagram Live with Gaye Magazine. "I don't wanna hear nobody saying, 'She didn't wanna come back.' Why the hell would I not wanna come back to an organization that I've been a part of for three years? That makes no sense to me. So I was cut. I was devastated. It stung. I was hurt."
Lindsay, who made history as the NFL's first transgender cheerleader when she tried out and made the Carolina Panthers's TopCats squad in 2022, told the magazine that her teammates "know the truth" about the decision to cut her from the squad.
The Trump administration is working to bring a transgender woman back to the United States after immigration officials wrongly deported her in violation of a federal judge's order.
Britania Uriostegui Rios, a Mexican transgender woman who came to the U.S. in 2003 and later became a lawful permanent resident, lost that status in 2023 after pleading guilty to felony assault with a deadly weapon, according to The Guardian.
She received a suspended sentence for the assault conviction, then was sent to a men's immigration detention facility as officials prepared to deport her to Mexico.
A new survey finds that many LGBTQ Americans -- especially transgender and nonbinary people -- have altered their lives in response to a wave of anti-LGBTQ laws and rhetoric sweeping the country, with many reporting serious harm to their mental health and overall wellbeing.
Conducted from May 29 to June 13 by NORC’s AmeriSpeak panel for the Movement Advancement Project, the online survey polled 1,055 LGBTQ adults nationwide, including 111 who identified as transgender or nonbinary.
Operated by NORC at the University of Chicago, AmeriSpeak is a probability-based panel designed to reflect the U.S. household population. Randomly selected households are contacted through mail, email, phone, or in-person interviews.
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The National Center for Transgender Equality and other pro-transgender groups hit back at former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee after comments the Republican presidential aspirant had made about transgender people at a conference earlier this year came to light.
The video of Huckabee’s speech to the National Religious Broadcasters Convention (NRBC), held in Nashville, Tenn., in February, was posted to YouTube by the conservative news outlet World Net Daily, whereupon reporters from Buzz Feed watched the videos and first reported on the comments. A visit to the YouTube page that used to carry the video now bears a message reading: “This video has been removed as a violation of YouTube’s policy against spam, scams, and commercially deceptive content.”
In his speech to the NRBC, Huckabee joked about transgender people, saying he wished he could have used the excuse to be able to shower with the girls in high school gym class, saying, “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.'” Huckabee also railed against transgender nondiscrimination protections in public accommodations, telling the audience, “For those who do not think 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.”
Mara Keisling, the executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality, did not mince words, calling Huckabee’s comments “really disgusting.”
“It is an absolute disgrace what Mike Huckabee keeps joking about, about grown men and teenage boys sneaking into the high school girls’ showers to do whatever they think is appropriate,” Keisling said. “It is an absolute shame, for someone who used to be a serious minister and a serious politician, what he has sunk to. He’s running for president pretty much to sell books or something. But this kind of comment is even below the lowest of that.
“He’s either being a creepy polemicist, or just a straight-up pervert,” Keisling said of Huckabee. “This is just so beneath the dignity of a grown adult. Shame on him.”
When asked why conservative groups who oppose transgender rights obsess so much over restrooms and shower facilities, Keisling added that the bigger question should be why the political Right is obsessed with sexualizing teenage girls.
“This is a total, intentional misrepresentation of these laws that protect trans people,” Keisling said. “No trans person anywhere in the county is permitted to do anything as creepy as Mike Huckabee wants to do. And he would be arrested for what he says he wants to do. And so would anyone else. This is not a transgender problem, this is a creepy old politician problem.”
Emily Martin, with the National Women’s Law Center, also pushed back against Huckabee’s screed, saying, “The idea that trans women aren’t real women, and that trans men aren’t real men, is out of touch, behind the times, and is nothing more than a justification for discrimination.”
The Human Rights Campaign also issued a statement implying that Huckabee’s comments did not stray far from some of his other offensive comments about the LGBT community.
“This is hardly surprising to those of us who remember the Mike Huckabee that likened being LGBT to drug abuse,” said JoDee Winterhof, HRC’s vice president for policy and political affairs. “He may have launched his campaign in Hope, but his mockery of transgender citizens is a clear indicator that Huckabee’s vision for America is one that tolerates hate.”
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