Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, responded last month to the Obama administration’s efforts to enforce transgender rights in public schools by declaring that he doesn’t want his young daughters “taking showers with little boys.”

Asked by Robert George in a November 25 interview on the EWTN network about a Department of Education ruling that an Illinois school district should have provided a transgender girl access to the girls’ locker room at her school, Cruz said it was a “ridiculous” decision made by “zealots.”

“Well, look,” he said. “This is ridiculous. It shows just how radical and extreme the current administration is. You know, I’m the father of two little girls. Caroline and Catherine are seven and five. I don’t want my daughters taking showers with little boys, I don’t want them when they’re in junior high or high school. And it’s absurd, no parents do. And these are zealots.”

He then pivoted to his pledge to do away with the Common Core standards initiative and abolish the Department of Education entirely.