Actor Mario Lopez is facing criticism after making controversial comments regarding children’s gender identities in an interview on Candace Owens’ PragerU show.
The “Saved By the Bell” star called it “dangerous” for parents to let their kids choose their own gender as their minds are not yet advanced enough to understand what that decision implies.
Mario Lopez Receives Backlash for Saying Kids Are Too Young to Choose Their Own Gender
Owens referenced the bizarre Hollywood trend of celebrities like Charlize Theron letting their kids “pick their gender.”
“And this is strange to me,” she remarked. “They say, ‘Oh, I looked at my child and my child was swimming in a bathtub and looked up and said, ‘Mommy, I’m a boy’ and that’s weird.”
As a former nanny, Owens says she knows kids don’t always mean what they say, nor do they have the “mental authority” to grasp what it means to identify as transgender.
“I’m kind of blown away, too,” said Lopez in agreement. “Look, I’m never one to tell anyone how to parent their kids obviously, and I think if you come from a place of love, you really can’t go wrong.”
“But at the same time, my God, if you’re three years old and you’re saying you’re feeling a certain way or you think you’re a boy or a girl or whatever the case may be, I just think it’s dangerous as a parent to make this determination,” he continued. “Then, well, okay, then you’re going to a boy or a girl, whatever the case may be … It’s sort of alarming and my gosh, I just think about the repercussions later on.”
The 45-year-old entertainment host explained that when you’re that young “you don’t know anything about sexuality yet, you’re just a kid.”
Owens likened a kid identifying as anything other than their biological gender to calling themselves a mermaid, adding that parents who allow such bizarre behavior “narcissistic.”
“I think parents need to allow their kids to be kids but at the same time, you gotta be the adult in the situation,” Lopez replied. “Pause with that, and I think the formative years is when you start having those discussions and really start making these ‘declarations.'”
The father of three added that his kids don’t hang out with transgender or ‘nonbinary’ kids.
“They don’t kick it with those kids,” he told Owens.
Lopez has faced extreme backlash on social media after his comments were publicized.
“It’s dangerous for anyone to watch Mario Lopez going forward,” read one tweet, with many Twitter users sharing those sentiments.
His Wikipedia page was even changed to refer to him as a “transphobic & misogynistic American actor and entertainment journalist.”
Lopez has not yet responded to the criticism, but PragerU tweeted the following in reply in this morning:
“Evidently it’s now ‘scandalous’ to say that a child probably shouldn’t be making their own life-altering decisions at 3 years old.”
Evidently it’s now *scandalous* to say that a child probably shouldn’t be making their own life-altering decisions at 3 years old.
♂️
Mario Lopez and Candace Owens discuss.@MarioLopezExtra @RealCandaceO pic.twitter.com/2Wdc79SrjW— PragerU (@prageru) July 31, 2019
