Ben Carson says being transgender 'doesn't make any sense' — like leopard wanting to change its spots

Former Republican U.S. presidential candidate Dr. Ben Carson speaks during the second day of the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Ohio, U.S. on July 19, 2016.Reuters

Former Republican presidential candidate Dr. Ben Carson thinks being a transgender just "doesn't make any sense," likening their situation to a leopard wanting to change its spots.

"[Gender] is not based on your feelings, it's based on what you are," Carson tells The Hill. "Can a leopard change its spots? No. It can't because it feels like maybe it's a different creature. No, it's still a leopard. Sorry."

For the former neurosurgeon, anyone who wakes up thinking that they belong to a different sex just because they feel differently that day has lost their marbles.

Carson says a person who claims to have changed gender based on feelings has as much sense as a person who says, "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," he continues. "What we ought to do is utilise our brains, utilise 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."

This was not the first time Carson talked about LGBT issues. Just last month, Carson said members of the LGBT community were trying to get as many people as they could to join their bandwagon because they were not "comfortable with what they are doing."

"I personally believe that many people in the LGB[T] community don't feel comfortable with what they are doing, and that is why it is so important for them to get affirmation from everybody else and that is why they try to enforce everybody else to accept them and to say that this is what needs to be done," Carson said. "But there comes a time when people of faith have to be able to stand up for the Word of God."