Mark Green withdraws his nomination for Army secretary

Green, currently a state senator in Tennessee, faced rising opposition from LGBT activists and Democrats for his past comments about transgender people.

In 2016, Green told a tea party group, “if you poll the psychiatrists, they’re going to tell you that transgender is a disease.” In 2013, Green blasted President Barack Obama for supporting what he said were “‘transvestites in uniform.”

Green, who is a former Army doctor, is also a self-identified “creationist” who has delivered a lecture arguing against the theory of evolution.

Green had defended himself from criticism in a Facebook post last week, writing that the “liberal left has cut and spliced my words about terrorism and ISIS, blatantly falsifying what I’ve said.”