Mike Huckabee: I wish I lied about being transgender in high school to shower with girls

Comments about the transgender community made by presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee have come back to haunt the southern populist.

A video of Huckabee addressing the 2015 National Religious Broadcaster Convention in Nashville, Tennessee in February is making its way around the web after being posted by World Net Daily and shared by BuzzFeed. During his remarks, Huckabee shared his beliefs on transgender Americans.

"Now I wish that someone told me when I was in high school that I could have felt like a woman when it came time to take showers in PE," the Republican candidate said. "I'm pretty sure that I would have found my feminine side and said: 'Coach, I think I'd rather shower with the girls today.' You're laughing because it sounds so ridiculous doesn't it?"

The 59-year-old candidate also criticised the increasing acceptance of the transgender community in the US.

"For those who do not think that we are under threat, simply recognise that the fact that we are now in city after city watching ordinances say that your seven-year-old daughter, if she goes into the restroom cannot be offended and you can't be offended if she's greeted there by a 42-year-old man who feels more like a woman than he does a man."

He added that there was "something inherently wrong about forcing little children to be part of this social experiment".

Huckabee's comments come on the heels of the coming out of Caitlyn Jenner, formerly known as Bruce Jenner. Jenner, a former gold-medal-winning Olympian, recently revealed she is a transgender Republican and now graces the cover of Vanity Fair as Caitlyn Jenner.

The Washington Post noted that Huckabee's comments come across as "a little out of date, perhaps even bigoted", adding that the remarks firmly takes the candidate back to 2004, when they might have been more accepted.

Huckabee also received heavy criticism from Twitter users, many of whom called him a hypocrite for defending admitted child molester Josh Duggar, of 19 Kids and Counting fame.

The Republican candidate has yet to comment about his previous remarks.