The lieutenant governor of North Carolina said transgender women should be arrested if they use women’s bathrooms.
Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, who also is the frontrunner in the Republican primary for governor, made the remarks at a campaign stop in Cary, according to an NBC News report.
“We’re going to defend women in this state,” he said. “That means if you’re a man on Friday night and all of the sudden on Saturday, you feel like a woman and you want to go in the women’s bathroom in the mall, you will be arrested — or whatever we got to do to you.”
Those remarks were not the first time Mr. Robinson had derided biological men who identify as female and their use of women’s bathroom facilities, NBC reported.
At an event in Greenville, the network said, Mr. Robinson said people who “are confused” about their sex can “find a corner outside somewhere to go” to the bathroom.
“We’re not tearing society down because of this,” he said.
Mr. Robinson faces off with two other North Carolina Republicans in next month’s gubernatorial primary — state Treasurer Dale Folwell and attorney Bill Graham — both of whom criticized his remarks as hateful.