We KNEW this was gonna be a problem! Mario Lopez revealed what many believe to be his true feelings about young transgender people on the Candace Owens show last month. Someone dug around and found the clip in which the former Extra host/incoming Access Hollywood personality said he disagreed with the "trend" of celebrity Hollywood parents "letting" their children "decide" to transition at a young age. Oh wow -- see how many quotes we had to use there?!

We'd never heard of this conservative talk show host Owens and it's probably because she says things like what she said about Charlize Theron whose son Jackson, 7, doesn't identify as a boy: "Celebrities are coming out — and I know Charlize Theron did this a few weeks ago — and saying that their child is picking their gender." That opened the door for Mario to concur, saying:

    "Look, I’m never one to tell anyone how to parent their kids, obviously, and I think if you come from a place of love, you really can’t go wrong. But at the same time, my God, if you’re 3 years old and you’re saying you’re feeling a certain way, or you think you’re a boy or a girl or whatever the case may be, I just think it’s dangerous as a parent to make that determination then — ‘Okay, well then you’re going to be a boy or a girl,’ whatever the case may be. It’s sort of alarming and my gosh, I just think about the repercussions later on."

So ... thinking about the repercussions, Mario might be wishing he'd thought about the potential repercussions on his brand new job at Access Hollywood by saying something like this! God, what a dummy -- on so many levels! Mario, ever heard of Billy Bush?

And if that previous statement isn't bad enough, he dug an even deeper hole for himself by confusing gender identity with sexuality: "When you’re a kid … You don’t know anything about sexuality, you’re just a kid." Ummm ...

Then, a GENIUS statement about the #MeToo movement, "... people lie — and sometimes those people are women."

So social media is piling on -- from GLAAD to Queer Eye's Kamaro Brown, to Wade Davis and about a bazillion more people -- calling out the former Saved By the Bell star for his horribly transphobic and uneducated statements.

No on to his apology -- here's the statement he issued:

    "The comments I made were ignorant and insensitive, and I now have a deeper understanding of how hurtful they were. I have been and always will be an ardent supporter of the LGBTQ community, and I am going to use this opportunity to better educate myself. Moving forward I will be more informed and thoughtful."

You better move forward right quick, Mario!