On his “Pray In Jesus Name” program recently, Colorado Republican state lawmaker and Religious Right activist Gordon Klingenschmitt declared that transgender individuals are literally possessed by demonic spirits, but that he could exorcise them of these demons if they would simply pray with him.

Klingenschmitt was discussing the declaration by the University of North Carolina system that it would not “enforce a law requiring transgender students to use restrooms corresponding to the sex on their birth certificates” when he declared that transgender people are possessed by a “demonic spirit of lying.”

“If a man feels like a woman inside,” Klingenschmitt stated, “it’s not because there’s actually a woman inside of him, it’s because there’s a demonic spirit of lying inside of him. And I’m sure he does feel like a woman. I’m sure those feelings are very real and yet, they’re lies. They’re very real lies.”

Those feelings are “coming from the devil,” Klingenschmitt explained, because transgender people have “allowed that demonic spirit to manifest inside of you,” which is causing them “to have the feelings that the devil wants you to have.”

“You will feel like a woman inside and there is a demon inside of you, causing you to feel that way,” he said. “And what you need is simply to renounce the spirit of lying … We can pray right now and Jesus Christ will come into your heart and give you freedom and give you deliverance and you will feel like a man again, the man that God made you to be.”