Dr. Ben Carson says turning transgender is like trying to alter one's own ethnicity and that identifying with neither the male or female sex "doesn't make any sense."
In an interview with
The Hill published Tuesday, Carson, a retired pediatric neurosurgeon and former GOP presidential candidate, told journalist Jonathan Easley:
"For someone to wake up and think that they belong to a different sex because they feel different that day is the same as if you woke up and said, 'I'm Afghani today because I saw a movie about that last night, and even though my genetics might not indicate that, that's the way I feel, and if you say that I'm not, then you're a racist.'
"It's the same kind of situation. What we ought to do is utilize our brains, utilize our common sense as human beings. We've known what men are and what women are for thousands of years. So we don't know anything, everything is relative — this doesn't make any sense."
Carson also compared transgender people to a leopard trying to change its spots.
"It can't because it feels like maybe it's a different creature. No. It's still a leopard. Sorry," Carson told Easely.
Carson's remarks — made in Cleveland as he attends the Republican National Convention — are likely to enrage LGBT groups, who have called him out before for other controversial proclamations.
In a 2013 interview with
Fox News's Sean Hannity, Carson said of same-sex marriage:
"Marriage is between a man and a woman. It's a well-established, fundamental pillar of society … So it's not something that's against gays. It's against anybody who wants to come along and change the fundamental definitions of pillars of society. It has significant ramifications."
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.