FRC President Tony Perkins. (FRC)

Commenting on transgenderism -- the notion that a biological male or female can magically claim they are the opposite sex -- Family Research Council President Tony Perkins said the idea is "lunacy," a denial of biology and genetics, and that when we tell kids it is okay to identifty as something contrary to reality, we are allowing them to hurt themselves.

Perkins made his remarks during his Washington Watch radio program on May 14. A listener had called in and made the point that if a biological man can somehow claim he is female, then what hindrance is there to a man claiming he is a cat?

Perkins said, “Excellent point.... I know they’ll mock at that idea, but look, if you are a male—genetically you are a male, biologically you’re a male—and you say, ‘Well, I’m not a male. I’m a female.’ I mean, what’s to keep you from saying that you’re an animal?”

“Think about this for a minute," said Perkins. "Someone says, ‘Well, look, I’m a bird-man, all right? I’m a bird-man and I’m going to jump off this building and fly.’"

"Do you have a responsibility to stop that person from jumping off that building?" said Perkins. "I mean, you know that they don’t have feathers. And they can’t fly. But you would hurt their feelings if you said, ‘No wait, Fred, you’re not a bird-man. You’re a man but you’re not a bird, and you can’t fly.’"

"But out of respect for not hurting his feelings, you go ahead and you let him jump -- and that was the end of Fred," said the Family Research Council president.

Transgender teenager Jazz Jennings. (YouTube)

He continued, “That’s, again, the lunacy, because the reality is when we allow kids, people, to identify with something other than reality, it is ultimately hurting themselves.”

Up until 2012, the American Psychiatric Association, defined transgender as a mental illness, a “gender identity disorder.” This is the same APA that used to define homosexuality as a mental disorder, until it reportedly caved to pressure from gay activists in 1973 and changed the diagnosis to "sexual orientation disturbance."

Today, the APA refers to transgender as "gender dysphoria."

The World Health Organization has described transgender as a "mental illness" for decades, but it also reportedly is set to change that definition in its 2018 International Classification of Diseases (ICD).