A controversial doctor and Republican activist has been ousted from the Texas Senate after he went on an angry tirade about gender reassignment procedures for minors, calling its advocates “pedophiles.”
Houston doctor Steven Hotze, 72, used his time speaking before the Senate State Affairs Committee to denounce the proposed transgender legislation, arguing that its “pedophilia promoters sexualize children to groom them.”
His angry comments led to a tense back-and-forth with Texas Democratic state senator José Menéndez, where the two men began arguing on the floor of the legislature.
Despite making several outlandish comments, including saying that gender reassignment surgeons should be drowned, Hotze was only thrown out of session after he violated Senate rules on oaths.
In addition to running his medical practice, Hotze is a conservative radio host and alleged conspiracy theorist who has launched lawsuits against HIV drugs and claims that birth control pills make women “less attractive to men.”
Houston physician Steven Hotze, left, was ousted from the Texas Senate on Thursday after an angry tirade, including calling gender reassignment surgeons “pedophiles.”
The two men lashed out during a hearing to discuss Texas Senate Bill 14, which would legislate on “gender transition, gender reassignment or gender dysphoria” among minors, according to legislate.
Coming out to support the bill, Hotze said she believed the legislation would “protect children from abuse by the transgender medical industry.”
He went on to label transgender advocates as having an “evil, perverted, immoral lifestyle.”
“These child molesters must be punished,” Hotze said.
“These pedophiles are now promoting transgender drugs for sex change and sexual mutilation surgery on children.”
Amid references to various Bible verses, the doctor repeated his claim that advocates for transgender people are “pedophiles.”
However, the doctor then surprisingly said that those assisting in gender reassignment procedures would be ‘better to put a millstone around your neck and jump into the sea and drown’.
“The idea that a man can claim to be a woman, or vice versa, is absurd and unscientific,” he added. It is a perversion of the natural order given by God.
Texas State Senator José Menéndez, pictured, became embroiled in a furious dispute with the doctor after his tirade.
Hotze has had several previous run-ins with LGBT advocates, including branding gay people ‘termites’ in 2016.
Hotze’s aggressive comments drew the ire of state Sen. Menendez, who seemed emotional when he criticized frequent references to transgender people as “pedophiles.”
The two men argue back and forth in the footage for several minutes, during which a voice believed to be Menendez could be heard whispering ‘Woof, woof, woof’ throughout.
He said: ‘Dr Hotze, I know you are a doctor and a professional. He would just ask that you refrain from calling people pedophiles, because I don’t think the doctors who have gone before us today are pedophiles.
“By definition, they are pedophiles,” Hotze responded.
Menendez said that while the doctor may “have his reasons” for coming out in favor of the legislation, he added: “I don’t think it’s appropriate for you to call people you don’t know pedophiles.”
“But I know,” Hotze argued.
‘I have trans friends, I have trans staff members, I have trans members of my community, and what do you do when you call them [pedophiles]it’s very painful for them,” Menendez said, before Hotze again responded with “That’s what they are.”
After interrupting himself several times, the state senator said: “(Trans people) are not pedophiles, they are living as themselves.”
This prompted Hotze to yell sharply, “That’s nonsense,” at which point Republican state senator and committee chairman Bryan Hughes expelled him from the session.
Hotze’s foul-mouthed tirade is not his first encounter with LGBT advocates.
According to the Houston Chroniclethe doctor compared homosexuals to “termites” at a conservative conference in 2016, arguing that they “corrode the very moral fabric of our country’s foundation.”
He publicly backed Donald Trump’s discredited claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen and is reportedly indicted on two counts for his alleged role in a “voter fraud” investigation fiasco that led PI to arrest an air conditioning repairman at gunpoint.