One day after former Olympian Bruce Jenner announced that she would now like to be known as Caitlyn Jenner, right-wing tabloid site World Net Daily released a video taken back in February featuring Presidential Candidate Mike Huckabee joking about how he wished he'd pretended to be transgendered in High School.
From The Hill...
“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 [after gym class],” Huckabee said in the video.
“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,’ ” he joked. “You’re laughing because it sounds so ridiculous, doesn’t it?"
Huckabee made the comments while speaking to the National Religious Broadcasters Convention about the notion of transgendered people using showers and restrooms for the gender with which they identify. Of course, his commentary comes with the requisite amount of right-wing self-victimization and fear-mongering.
“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,” Huckabee said.
Now we all know that empathy for others -- particularly anyone who doesn't fit into the category of hetero-white-Christian-nutjob -- isn't a strong suit for conservatives. Neither is self-reflection. If they were, if Huckabee had thought for a second about exactly what he was saying, he probably wouldn't have let that joke into the free air. Here are a few statistics from the site Bullying Statistics.
- LGBT teens are two to three more times likely to commit suicide because of bullying.
- LGBT students are five times more likely to miss school because of bullying.
- 28% of LGBT youths end up dropping out of school altogether.
In fact, about 9 out of 10 LGBT teens have reported being bullied at school within the past year because of their sexual orientation, according to the most recent gay bullying statistics. Out of those numbers, almost half have reported being physically harassed followed by another quarter who reported actually being physically assaulted. Unfortunately most teens who experience bullying of any kind are reluctant to share their experience or report the incident to a teacher or trusted adult. Even more unfortunate are the gay statistics that report a lack of response among those teachers and school administration. According to a recent statistic, out of the students that did report a harassment or bullying situation because of their sexuality, about one third of the school staff didn't do anything to resolve the issue.
And there's more. According to website
Mental Health America, bullied LGBT youth are twice as likely to experiment with drugs and alcohol, 2 1/2 times as likely to inflict self harm, end up with lower GPAs, and only 37% report being happy in school.
The unmitigated gall in Huckabee's lamenting about little girls having to share a bathroom with a female identified transgendered person is beyond astounding when you consider his strident defense of sexual predator Josh Duggar (of TLC's "19 Kids and Counting"). I also find it quite ironic that Caitlyn, who is a Republican (at least she was when she was Bruce) seems to be finding much more love and support for her transformation from liberal Democrats than from her own party.
Being Gay myself I know what it's like to be bullied in school (and this was back in the days BEFORE social media), and while it's not something I'd wish on anyone, I actually do wish that Huckabee could go back in time and experience life as a trans person for just a day. Perhaps if he got just a taste of the bullying that LGBT youth are subjected to on a daily basis, he'd be -- if not more supportive -- at least less likely to make puerile jokes about being transgendered.