When Couric asked Carson to clarify his comments, the retired doctor compared\u00a0people\u00a0coming out as transgender to those\u00a0wishing to change their ethnicity or nation of origin. He argued that being transgender is like a Swede reading a book on Afghanistan, deciding to \u201cfeel\u201d that he or she is\u00a0actually from that country and then accusing critics of racism.<\/p>\n
According to Carson, the same logic applies to both situations.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are biological markers that tell us whether we are a male or a female, and just because you wake up one day and you say, \u2018I think I\u2019m the other one,\u2019 that doesn\u2019t change it. Just, a leopard can\u2019t change its spots.\u201d<\/p>\n
Couric countered that the many transgender people she has interviewed have said that from the beginning of their consciousness, they had felt as if they were trapped in the wrong body.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not as if they woke up one day and decided, \u2018I\u2019m going to be a male or I\u2019m going to be a female,\u2019 \u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u201cBut it doesn\u2019t change their genetics,\u201d Carson countered. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t change their biology because of the way that they feel. Now if they want to pursue whatever they need to pursue in order to get where they need to be, that\u2019s fine. But the way that you feel that morning does not physically change who you are.\u201d<\/p>\n When asked if there should be tolerance for the transgender community, Carson said \u201cof course\u201d but also said that tolerance \u201cgoes in both directions.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOur Constitution protects everybody in every group to have equal rights, but nobody has extra rights,\u201d he said. \u201cNobody gets to redefine everything for everybody else and then make them comply to it. That\u2019s not tolerance.\u201d<\/p>\n Activists in the LGBT community have criticized Carson several times for hispositions on various issues<\/a>. He once said that transgender people should get their own bathroom because it \u201cis not fair for them to make everybody else uncomfortable.\u201d And during his primary campaign, Carson infamously argued that prisons prove that homosexuality is a choice.<\/p>\n![\"cf61621615cd6046c3fd338b46c82711\"](\"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/cf61621615cd6046c3fd338b46c82711.jpg\")
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