Mario Lopez Says It's 'Dangerous' for Parents to Support Young Transgender Kids

According to Yahoo , Owens started the conversation by citing the example of actress Charlize Theron, who has spoken publicly about how she has followed her child Jackson's cues on what gender pronouns they use as a family. Owens positioned this kind of parenting as a "weird trend" to come out of Hollywood, then invited Lopez to share his thoughts.

"Im kind of blown away too," Lopez said. "Look, Im never one to tell anyone how to parent their kids obviously and I think if you come from a place of love, you really cant go wrong but at the same time, my God, if you're three years old and youre saying youre feeling a certain way or you think youre a boy or a girl or whatever the case may be, I just think it's dangerous as a parent to make this determination then, well, OK, then youre 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."

Lopez went on to erroneously conflate the conversation topic of gender identity with sexuality, saying: "When youre a kid ... you dont know anything about sexuality yet. Youre just a kid."

He wouldn't be the first person to equate the two subjects; anti-LGBT voices often do just that in order to suggest that issues relating to gender expression and different kinds of relationships aren't "age appropriate" for young children.

What Lopez failed to acknowledge, though, is just how dangerous it can be for trans and gender non-conforming children to not talk about how they feel, as it perpetuates the silence and stigma which can negatively affect their mental health and wellbeing: Studies have shown that trans teenagers are statistically far more likely to consider or attempt suicide.

In the same interview, Lopez also commented on the #MeToo movement, suggesting that a culture that believes victims of abuse could encourage women to use false accusations as a form of revenge. "God forbid you have a son out there and a girl may have felt a certain way about a situationdismissed, hurt, whatever, and is feeling vengeful and just decides to tell a certain story thats not even exactly true, come back and hurt that individual," he said, recycling another popular fallacy that a man's reputation is more important than a woman's safety.

Yikes, Mario Lopez.