A Kansas state lawmaker is on the hot seat after publicly complaining about sharing the women's restroom with a "huge" transgender colleague.
Republican state Rep. Cheryl Helmer stood by her comments on Tuesday, even going as far as to describe her colleague as a potential threat to young children visiting the Kansas Statehouse, according to an email to a University of Kansas grad student.
"Now, personally I do not appreciate the huge transgender female who is now in our restrooms in the Capitol," Helmer wrote in the email.
The grad student released the email to the Kansas Reflector, a nonprofit news organization, CBS News reported.
In the email, Helmer was also defending a bill she had co-sponsored that would make it a felony for doctors to provide hormones or gender transition surgery to anyone under 18.
The representative also took shots at her fellow lawmaker, Rep. Stephanie Byers, the first elected transgender Kansas lawmaker, for what she said is an "in your face" approach to discussing transgender rights.
House Minority Leader Tom Sawyer shared his thoughts on Helmer, as others in his party and LGBTQ rights lobbyists called for her to be censured.
"If Rep. Helmer is so brazenly bigoted in documented, recorded correspondence with the general public, it isn't hard to imagine what she says behind closed doors," Sawyer said in a statement.
Republican lawmakers have been working to bypass Gov. Laura Kelly's veto of a ban on transgender athletes in girls' and women's K-12 and college sports. But, following Helmer's comments, Byers is questioning the real reason they are trying to pass these laws.
"This is how we know these bills aren't really about athletics," Byers tweeted.
Helmer has made comments about transgender rights before, and as early as Monday, she said that parents shouldn't be allowed to change their child's gender.
"You can't lop a penis off and then expect, you know, a little boy to now live his life," she said. "He'll be in regret for the rest of his life."
This followed suit as on Tuesday, Byers said that the comments from Helmer were nothing new.
"We know this has been going on in offices, and back rooms and conversations since the day I was elected," Byers said Tuesday. "The shocking part is that it came out, that someone actually said it."
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