Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson said Saturday that he doesn't want the military dealing “with the transgender thing.”

Carson made his remarks during a “veterans and military town hall” in Waterloo, Iowa organized by the Concerned Veterans for American, MSNBC reported.

“I do not appreciate using our military as a laboratory for social experiments,” Carson said.

“We have too many important things to do when our men and women are out there fighting the enemy. The last thing we need to be doing is saying, 'What would it be like if we introduced several transgender people into this platoon?' Give me a break. Deal with the transgender thing somewhere else,” he said.

Carson added that he liked the military's now repealed Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy, which prohibited gay and bisexual troops from serving openly.

“Why do you have to go around flaunting your sexuality? It's not necessary. You don't need to talk about that. We need to talk about how we eliminate the enemy,” he said.