Fox News Host Apologizes For 'Ignorant Statement'

Fox News host Clayton Morris apologized over the weekend for making what he admitted were "ignorant" and "stupid" comments about gender.

Morris was one of several Fox News personalities who mocked Facebook's introduction of new gender options for users last month. After Elisabeth Hasselbeck referred to him as "the male," he joked that he had changed his gender on Facebook to indicate "intersex."

Morris addressed the comments on "Fox & Friends Saturday," while discussing a controversy at a high school proposing a single graduation robe color for both male and female students. Co-host Anna Kooiman said that the color of gowns could be an issue for transgender students.

"There are millions of Americans and children who are born with the sexual organs who are not there or are not fully developed and therefore don't define themselves by a particular gender," Morris added. "It's not as black and white as we would like to make it. Just pick whatever color gown you want."

He told his co-hosts to imagine being the parent of an intersex child affected by a high school's decision, and objected to one Twitter user who complained about people getting "offended." Morris continued, going on to apologize for his earlier Facebook comments:

Just put yourself in the shoes of those children, though, who have to deal with that. Look, I made a pretty ignorant statement a few weeks ago, we were talking about the Facebook story where they added a bunch of different gender-identifying things. And I made sort of an offhanded comment and I regretted it later because now, 'Wait a second. There are people who are actually dealing with this and I'm an idiot for saying something stupid like that.' So before you open your mouth, just think about it a little bit.

(h/t Media Matters)