Ben Carson's transphobic remarks stunned staff and prompted an employee to walk out in protest: report

Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson made comments that were widely interpreted as transphobic and stunned staffers at a San Francisco agency office this week, the Washington Post reported Thursday.

Staffers reportedly told the Post that the brain surgeon turned Trump administration official warned about "big, hairy men" entering women's shelters and said that society no longer understands the distinction between men and women — remarks that were taken as insults to the trans community. The report continued:

Carson’s remarks visibly shocked and upset many of the roughly 50 HUD staffers who attended Tuesday’s meeting, and prompted at least one woman to walk out in protest, the staffers said.

It also seems this wasn't the first time:

But he has repeatedly mocked transgender people in internal meetings in Washington, according to a government official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations in which the person was involved.

"His overall tone is dismissive and joking about these people," the official said. "It's disrespectful of the people we are trying to serve."

The Post noted that Carson made similarly disparaging comments during his 2016 campaign for president, calling trans people "abnormal." He has also compared same-sex marriage to bestiality in the past.

GLAAD, an organization that addresses how the LGBT community is portrayed in the media, has previously criticized Carson's fearmongering about trans people posing a danger in shelters.

“It is because of derogatory myths like this, which have been debunked time and time again, that the transgender community faces disproportionate levels of discrimination and homelessness,” said Sarah Kate Ellis, president and CEO of GLAAD in response to related comments in 2018. “Today’s blatant and factually inaccurate anti-transgender rhetoric is the latest in a long line of uninformed and biased statements about LGBTQ people that make Dr. Carson unfit to be the head of the Department of Housing and Urban Development.”

A HUD official issued a statement to the Post trying to defend Carson, saying that he doesn't use "derogatory language to refer to transgendered individuals" — but this statement itself erroneously used the word "transgendered," when the accepted term in this context is simply "transgender." It should be of little surprise, though, that one of Carson's officials would lack the knowledge or sensitivity to competently defend him from being called out on transphobic bigotry.