Ted Cruz Responds to Caitlyn Jenner With Transphobic Fearmongering

Ted Cruz continues to spread misinformation about the transgender community.

The Republican candidate called "bathroom bills" -- legislation that forbids trans people from using bathrooms that correspond with their gender identity -- "common sense" Sunday on CNN's State of the Union.

"It doesn't make sense for grown adult men -- strangers -- to be alone in a restroom with a little girl," he told interviewer Jake Tapper.

Tapper had asked Cruz to respond to a recent statement from Caitlyn Jenner. Last week, the trans Olympian and reality star attempted to educate Cruz and Donald Trump after using a restroom at Trump Hotel in New York. In the past, the I Am Cait star told The Advocate she would like to serve as a "trans ambassador" to Cruz should he become president.

"Thank you, Donald. I really appreciate it," Jenner said in a video after using the women's restroom. "And by the way Ted, nobody got molested."

Unfortunately, Cruz did not get the point of the message.

"This is the height of political correctness," Cruz responded. "And frankly, the concern is not the Caitlyn Jenners of the world. But if the law is such that any man if he feels like it can go in a women's restroom and you can't ask him to leave, that opens the door for predators."

When Tapper pushed back against the "child molestor" argument and pointed out how such laws and rhetoric might demonize the transgender community, Cruz brushed the point aside.

"But the law doesn't specify transgender," Cruz said. "It's just whatever you feel like at the given moment."

In a statement, the Human Rights Campaign blasted Cruz's remarks and debunked the myth of the bathroom predator.

"After invoking the importance of the Bill of Rights, Ted Cruz had the gall to spread vicious lies about transgender people and laws that deny us critical freedoms," Jay Brown, the LGBT group's communications director. "Ted Cruz's fear-mongering campaign about attacks in restrooms has never been documented in the decades that more than 100 local non-discrimination protections have existed."

On April 21, Cruz posted an ad on YouTube calling Trump "one of the PC police" for stating transgender people should use whichever restroom they feel is appropriate. Trump has since said that though he disagrees with anti-LGBT laws such as those passed in North Carolina, he would not overturn them.

In Cruz's attack ad, he implied transgender women are men "pretending" to be women and plays upon the debunked claim that transgender people are really "predators" seeking to assault women and children in public restrooms. This scare tactic was used in his home state of Texas to defeat Houston's equal rights ordinance known as HERO.

Watch Cruz discuss trans issues at 5:20 in the CNN interview below.