"During a recent meeting with local staff in San Francisco, I made reference to the fact that I had heard from many women’s groups about the difficulty they were having with women’s shelters..."

"... because sometimes men would claim to be women, and that HUD’s policy required the shelter to accept — without question — the word of whoever came in, regardless of what their manifested physical characteristics appeared to be. This made many of the women feel unsafe, and one of the groups described a situation to me in which 'big hairy men' would come in and have to be accepted into the women’s shelter even though it made the women in the facility very uncomfortable. My point was that we have to permit policies that take into consideration the rights of everybody, including those women — many of which have suffered at the hands of male domestic abusers — who believe there are men who might hurt them.... Our society is in danger when we pick one issue (such as gender identity) and say it does not matter how it impacts others because this one issue should override every other common-sense consideration. I think we have to look out for everyone, and we need to use our intellectual capabilities to find common good rather than attempting to always stir up controversy through identity politics."

Said Ben Carson, quoted in "As Democrats call for his resignation, HUD Secretary Ben Carson defends his controversial comments about transgender people" (WaPo). From the article:

As HUD secretary, he has also repeatedly mocked transgender people in internal meetings in Washington, according to a government official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations in which the person was involved....

In early 2017, shortly after Carson took charge of the agency, the HUD website removed links to documents that guided emergency shelters on how best to comply with agency regulations and serve transgender people facing homelessness. It also withdrew proposals that would have required HUD-funded emergency shelters to post notices informing people of LGTBQ rights and protections.

In May, the agency introduced a proposal that would allow federally funded shelters to deny people admission on religious grounds or force transgender women to share bathrooms and sleeping quarters with men....

Read that carefully. It doesn't say federally funded shelters are now forced to house transgender women with men. It says federally funded shelters are not forced to house transgender women with women. The shelters are freed to make their own call.

Carson continued to defend his position Friday during an appearance on Fox New’s Tucker Carlson Tonight by claiming he’s being “persecuted” for “sticking to Biblical principles.”...

“If someone decides to change his or her gender, does that mean that that person’s gender automatically changes?” Carlson asked Carson, a retired neurosurgeon. “In order words, if I say I’m a woman, am I?”

“Obviously it doesn’t,” Carson responded. “You know, if I wake up tomorrow and I feel like I’m Chinese, it doesn’t necessarily make me Chinese.”

The feeling-Chinese analogy is straight out of Dave Chappelle's latest show (and the funniest and uncoincidentally most offensive thing in it):



ADDED: I could not understand the part about "sticking to Biblical principles." It looks to me as though Carson's main principles were: 1. Decentralized, context-specific decisionmaking is better than a clear federal rule, 2. The fears and safety of women in shelters deserve consideration.

Googling, I found the relevant text at The Daily Caller. Tucker Carlson asked Carson, "What’s that like being dismissed as a bigot?" Carson answered:

You know, they have already made up their mind that I hate transgender people, which is completely untrue. You know, the Bible tells us that we have to love everybody and that Jesus died for everybody. And you truly believe that, but it also tells you that if you stick to Biblical principles you will be persecuted, so I am not surprised at that either. But it doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t always continue to try to do what is right and let the chips fall where they may.

It's not perfectly clear that Carson was only talking about how he personally, in his own mind, copes with criticism. That was the question and it was at least the beginning of the answer. But the line "if you stick to Biblical principles you will be persecuted" introduces the possibility that he thinks withholding special protections for transgender people is something the Bible is telling him to do.