In a speech on the House floor Friday, Iowa Congressman Steve King likened the use of taxpayer money on U.S. service members' hormone therapies and gender reassignment surgeries to the castration of Ottoman Empire slaves, according to the Hill.

The political news website reported that King's remarks came after the House rejected his bid to stop the Defense Department from paying for service members' gender transitions. Coverage for those costs began during the Obama administration, according to the Hill.

"What they did in order to keep them from reproducing was that they did reassignment surgery on those slaves they had captured, that they had put into their Janissary troops," King said, referring to elite Ottoman soldiers. The Ottoman Empire held power in modern-day Turkey and other regions along the Mediterranean and Black seas for centuries until just after World War I, according to Encyclopedia Brittanica's website.

"And today, we're here thinking somehow we're going to make the military better by letting people line up at their recruitment center who have planned that they want to do sexual reassignment surgery, know that it's expensive, and believe 'if I can just get into any branch of the United States services — to the Army, the Navy, the Air Force, the Marines; maybe become a Navy SEAL — and then submit to sexual reassignment surgery and then go from a man to a woman,'" King said, according to the Hill.

On Wednesday, before King's comments, One Iowa, an LGBT advocacy group, had condemned his proposed amendments to the National Defense Authorization Act to ban the use of Pentagon funds for transitions.

“With these amendments, Rep. King is telling transgender Iowans, specifically transgender service members and veterans, that they are not welcome in the U.S. military and their service is not valued," One Iowa executive director Daniel Hoffman-Zinnel said in the Wednesday news release.

On Saturday, Hoffman-Zinnel issued a statement calling King's statement "absolutely unacceptable," and faulting the congressman for showing "incredible disrespect" to transgender service members.

"Not only does he compare transgender troops to castrated slaves, but he insinuates that transgender people going into the service only do so to get free surgery," Hoffman-Zinnel said of King. "People join the military for a multitude of reasons, and the same goes for transgender individuals. To group all transgender people together and claim they all intend to somehow game the system is not only false, but contributes to harmful and untrue stereotypes transgender people face that contribute to harassment and violence."

King, an eighth-term Republican who represents northwestern Iowa, has been repeatedly criticized for things he's said about immigrants, gays, racial minorities and Muslims. But King is widely supported in his district, and he has easily fended off every challenger he's faced for his seat.