Mario Lopez Catching Heat for Saying Letting Your Children Transition Genders Is ‘Dangerous’ and ‘Sort of Alarming’

Mario Lopez is making headlines after he spoke out about transgendered children, in particular Charlize Theron‘s child Jackson. The Access Hollywood host criticized Theron’s decision to allow Jackson, 7, to identify as a transgender girl when she was a toddler, calling it “dangerous.”

Lopez’s comments came during an appearance on The Candace Owens Show last month, where he spoke with the conservative talk show host about what Owens described as a “weird trend” coming out of Hollywood. She brought up Theron’s comment about Jackson to the Daily Mail in April in which she said, “I thought she was a boy, too, until she looked at me when she was 3 years old and said, ‘I am not a boy!’”

“My God, if you’re 3 years old, I just think it’s dangerous as a parent to make this determination then,” Lopez, 45, said. “It’s sort of alarming and my gosh, I just think about the repercussions later on.”

The Saved by the Bell star added that he thinks parents should let their children be children, but “at the same time, you got to be the adult in the situation.” He said that a child’s “formative years” are a much more appropriate time to have conversations about gender, as any time before that is “way too young” in his opinion.

Lopez has three children with his wife Courtney Laine Mazza: Gia, 8, and Dominic, 5, and a newborn son born earlier this month.

Owens also drew on personal experience and said she was train got understand “this new Hollywood mentality where they just think their children now have the mental authority.”

Back in April, Theron said that she was protective of her children. “So there you go! I have two beautiful daughters who, just like any parent, I want to protect and I want to see thrive. They were born who they are an exactly where in the world both of them get to find themselves as they grow up, and who they want to be, is not for me to decide,” she said at the time. “And I will do everything in my power for my kids to have that right and to be protected within that.”

Lopez’s words garnered a few strong reactions on social media.

Theron adopted Jackson in 2012 and adopted daughter August in 2015. She credited her mother for teaching her to be a tolerant and accepting person.

“You know, I grew up in a country where people lived with half-truths and lies and whispers and nobody said anything outright, and I was raised very specifically not to be like that,” she told Daily Mail. “I was taught by my mom that you have to speak up; you have to be able to know that, when this life is over, you’ll have lived the truth you’re comfortable with, and that nothing negative can come from that.”

Photo credit: Frazer Harrison / Staff / Getty