'Is Lady Liberty a man?': Fox worries France 'pulled a fast one' with transgender Statue of Liberty

Fox News took time over the holiday weekend to assure viewers that a recent theory suggesting the State of Liberty was modeled after a man could not be true.

According to an upcoming Discovery Family channel program, French sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi may have used his brother as a model for the Statue of Liberty instead of his mother as most historians believe.

“Going through photos he had in his files of his brother, I started to look at the face more carefully, and it really did look to be like Liberty," author Elizabeth Mitchell told the New York Post.

But on Sunday, Fox & Friends spoke to New York University Professor Edward Berenson to assuage concerns that Lady Liberty could be a man presenting as a woman.

"Is Lady Liberty actually a man?" Fox News host Peter Doocy asked, sounding shocked.

"This guy [Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi], when he was in New York wrote his mother every single day," Berenson insisted. "If he wasn't going to do his mom and was going to do his brother instead, we'd have that in the correspondence."

"I just assume somebody was playing a prank on us," Doocy opined. "Are we supposed to think this French guy was pulling a fast one the U.S., 'Hey, I'm going to say it's a woman but it's really going to be a guy. And they're not going to be able to figure it out for a really long time.'"

"I really doubt it," Berenson comforted Doocy. "This was not a tongue-in-cheek gift. This was a real serious business. He loved the United States, he loved American liberty."

"Is it possible the Statue of Liberty transcends both masculinity and femininity?" co-host Anna Kooiman wondered. "That it's just a symbol of liberty?"

"I think there's no question she's a woman," Berenson replied. "But she's very powerful woman."

"There's no question that she's a tough lady," he added. "She's a lady."

Watch the video below from Fox News, broadcast July 3, 2016.