Texas Republican says he blocked a transgender bathroom bill because he didn't want 'a single suicide on his hands'

The Texas legislature could still vote on the bathroom bill during a special session, but that isn't a certainty

A Texas Republican refused to move on a bathroom bill for fear of transgender Texans killing themselves (Getty)

The Republican Speaker of the Texas House of Representatives has been an ally for transgender people in the state as the governor there pushes for a controversial bathroom bill.

Joe Straus pushed back on Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s efforts to pass a bill that was widely viewed as discriminatory toward transgender people during this past legislative session. Mr Straus has frequently criticized the bathroom bill as bad for Texas business, but his comments published recently in the New Yorker magazine go further than is usual critique.

“I’m not a lawyer, but I am a Texan,” the powerful leader of the Republican controlled Texas House says he said when the lieutenant governor’s office approached him toward the end of the session, saying that he would need to pass a bathroom bill. “I’m disgusted by all this. Tell the lieutenant governor I don’t want the suicide of a single Texan on my hands.”

Opponents of the bathroom bill argued that it would allow schools and localities to discriminate against people based upon gender, and that that would impact the mental health and safety of transgender people there.

The assessment that the bill could lead to suicidal thoughts, or actual suicide attempts, is supported by the largest survey of transgender people ever conducted, in December. That survey found that pervasive discrimination and harassment — a situation that critics say would be created by the bathroom bill — led 40 percent of respondents to say they’d tried to kill themselves at some point.

Mr Straus was able to block the bill from being passed during the regular session of the Texas legislature — which was a deeply divisive term for politicians there in light of the election of President Donald Trump — but Mr Abbott may still introduce another bathroom bill during an upcoming special session of the legislature. It is unclear if Mr Straus will continue his opposition, but he signalled in the New Yorker article that he had a strategy to do so.

Mr Straus was able to block the bill from being passed during the regular session of the Texas legislature — which was a deeply divisive term for politicians there in light of the election of President Donald Trump — but Mr Abbott may still introduce another bathroom bill during an upcoming special session of the legislature. It is unclear if Mr Straus will continue his opposition, but he signalled in the New Yorker article that he had a strategy to do so.